Running Ads for 30 Days and Seeing Nothing? Don't Quit Yet

Most businesses fail at advertising for one reason. They quit too early. They run ads for 30 days or maybe even 60 days if they're patient. And if they don't see immediate results, they stop and they move on to the next tactic, the next platform and the next strategy. But here's what they don't realize. They're quitting right when their leads were about to convert. They're handing those leads literally to their competitors on a silver platter. And there's this story I'm going to talk about as well, which is a jeweler who figured this out. He was competing against every other jewelry store in the city. All advertising at the same time, all fighting for the same customers. But he did one thing differently and it literally crushed his competitors. And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly what he did, why it worked, and how you can apply this to your business. Because if you're running ads or creating content and not understanding this concept, you're literally leaving money on the table. And let me explain and listen, I get it. Like you're spending money on content and ads. You want results right now. You don't want it kind of like, you know, five years from now, but kind of like here's the issue. And this is also very true if you have a high ticket service when it comes to running content and ads, and especially ads, you're testing on your timeline. This is what you do. And you're not testing it on your customer's timeline, which is perhaps why it's not working. And another thing which is important as equally as trust and also testing is your sales cycle. The time it takes from first contact to close deal determines how long you need to run your campaigns for doesn't have to be 30 days, doesn't have to be 60 days. Your actual sales cycle. You need to understand what a sales cycle is and why it matters. Your sales cycle is pretty much the time from first contact to, to a closed deal. For some businesses it's perhaps a week. For others, it's literally six months. You need to know your number. And this could be mortgage deals, this could be like funding deals or whatever it is. That's pretty much kind of like your sales cycle. And you need to make sure that you put that in account for the campaigns and ads that you run. So how you calculate this is pretty simple. Just look at your last 10 to 20 deals. And I'm not talking about cold traffic, not even referrals. Referrals do not count because they come with a pre built trust. They Close way faster than cold leads. If you only use referral data, your sales cycle will look shorter than it actually is for cold traffic. So very important to keep in mind. Take your last 10 to 20 cold leads that close. Ask yourself when was the first touch point? Maybe they saw your ad, watch your video, or visited your website. When did they actually close? That's the average sales cycle. So you just pretty much, you know, calculate the timeline between those, do the average and that's your sales cycle. And like I said, for some businesses it's like one to two weeks. For mid ticket services is one to three months. For high ticket services it could be like three to six months as well. High ticket could be anywhere between like you know, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand. Within that region it could be a little longer. Again, this could be again for like real estate or even funding deals. It could be a longer sales cycle. So please do not expect you start running ads in 30 days and then you're pretty much, you know, selling 20 houses a month and getting like $20 million deals within the first two weeks. It just does not happen. And most businesses do this. They just start running ads and hope for the best. And then they wonder why nothing's working. And this is what happens when you just ignore your sales cycle. This is, let's say your sales cycle is six months. Someone discovers you in month one through your ad or your content, it doesn't matter. They're interested, but they're not necessarily ready to buy yet, which is completely normal. They're just finding out about you. That's how buying works. But here's the thing, like you don't necessarily see immediate results. So you stop running ads after 30 days. You think it's not working, so you move on. And month four rolls around and that prospect who first discovered you is ready to buy. But you're not there anymore. You stopped advertising. They don't see you. So they go with a competitor who is still advertising. That's the opportunity cost. And here's the thing, like you paid to generate that lead in month one. You spent money to get their information, but you quit before they were ready to convert. Your competitor didn't generate that lead, they just captured it because they stayed consistent and you didn't. This is the opportunity cost you're missing. You're not losing to better competitors, you're losing to more patient competitors. Very important differentiator. And this happens all the time. Businesses test themselves to extinction. They try 500 things in 30 days, they jump platform to platform and they change strategies before they even have time to work. So how do you fix this? And let me tell you a story about this. The story comes from Roy H. Williams from a seminar called Advertising in America. And if you haven't heard that seminar, I highly, highly recommend it. It doesn't matter if you're a marketer, it doesn't matter if you're a business owner. Everyone needs to hear that seminar. So he the author was working with a jeweler who wanted to advertise on radio at that time. I know it's a long time ago, but the lesson here is extremely important and it's still relevant now. Here's what most jewelers were doing at that time. This. They advertise in December because Christmas is pretty much the buying season for jewelry. So everyone buys radio spots in December because that's the buying season. They condense all their advertising into one month. It's expensive, it's crowded, and it's also very competitive, logically. So the logic behind it makes sense. I mean, direct marketing, get attention while people are buying and just capitalize on the holiday season. All of it makes sense. So the author told this jeweler, his client at that time, that we're not going to do that. Instead, they started advertising six to seven months before Christmas and they ran low budget campaigns starting in, let's say, May or June. And they kept the jeweler's name in people's ear. They built trust and familiarity over time. They communicated. The jewelers offers prices, what makes them different, their story, their values. All of this happened over months, not, not necessarily just days. So repetition over time, low budget, consistent presence, and building trust before the buying season. So what do you think happened when Christmas time actually came? The jeweler's shop literally exploded. Massive increase in foot traffic, way more sales than competitors. People specifically sought them out. And here's why it works. When Christmas came, prospects heard about the jeweler again. But this time they'd already heard about them six months earlier. The reputation built trust and familiarity. And when it was time to buy, the jeweler just felt more relatable and trustworthy than their competitors. And what did the competitors do? They advertised. Only in December, prospects heard about them for the first time. No trust, no familiarity, and there was no relationship established. They were just another option in a crowded market. And this is the power of repetition. The jeweler didn't win because he had better jewelry. He won because he was in people's ears for six months before they were ready to buy. And his competitors were strangers trying to make a sale. But he was a familiar name they heard for months. And how do you apply this tactic to your business? So the first step, if possible, is to know your sales cycle. If you don't have this data yet, just start tracking it down and this is going to be your testing timeline. You have to start someplace. Like people don't just magically get data. Step two is match your campaign to your sales cycle. If your sales cycle is three months, run your campaigns for at least three months. If it's six months, run it for six months. Don't quit before your prospects are ready to buy. And if your sales cycle is pretty much, you know, like, if you're selling anything under $5,000, your sales cycle shouldn't be longer than like a month at max anyways. So at that point, just run it for at least 90 days. Like anything you run needs to be tested for at least 90 days at the very bare minimum, which is again step three, like staying consistent. You need to be there when prospects discover you in month one and when they're ready to buy in month three, four or six. If you're not there, they'll go to a competitor who is. And step four is build repetition into your strategy. It's not about going viral or getting one big win. It's about showing up consistently over time. Because repetition is one thing that builds trust, familiarity, and also authority. Now let's also talk about the reality for different types of marketing. For content marketing, you need at least 3 or even 12 months of consistent posting. Content is evergreen, like it compounds over time. Don't expect results within 30 to 60 days, especially if you're an account under 10,000 followers. For paid advertising, match your ad timeline to your sales cycle. If your sales cycle is six months, run ads for six months minimum. For advertising. Make sure you're giving it enough time. Run the ads for again, at least at the very minimum for 90 days. You need to make sure you're giving people the opportunity cost from when they find you and then from the when they actually have the problem and ready to buy with you. Very important for paid advertising, especially if you're just starting out. Now let me also tell you some of the most common mistakes I see. Mistake number one, testing too many things at once. Trying 10 different ad creatives in 30 days. Now this works of course, if you have a big budget, but if you're spending like a hundred bucks a day, just don't do that. Switching platforms every week and changing strategies before they even have time to work. You need to make sure you're giving it enough time. And that brings me to my next point, which is quitting too early, running ads for just 30 days and just stopping because it didn't work. Post content for 60 days. And same thing with content, you need to give every single thing you do enough time to match the opportunity cost. Mistake. Mistake number three is ignoring the data, not tracking when prospects first discovered you, not knowing when they actually closed. Running campaigns blind without understanding your sales cycle. Mistake number four is focusing on the wrong metrics, worrying about hashtags, posting timelines, ad copy tweaks, and ignoring the only two things that matter, the time and the math. So when it comes to ads and content, it's just testing, time and math. That's literally it. If you don't have the data, you can't run good campaigns. And if you only run ads for like 30 days, you're not giving it enough time. You're literally just handing leads to your competitors. And again, I say this very importantly. If you don't have the data, you have to start someplace. So you're required. If you're stepping your foot into content and ads, you're required to do this for at least the next three months. Anyone saying that, hey, yeah, if you've never done this, no worries. We can get your results within the first 30 days. It's just not going to happen. There are rare cases where it might happen, depending on the force of business, but just do not buy into that. The only thing you can see within the first 30 days is, of course, the quality of the content and of course, if the campaigns are generating any initial leads. But that's pretty much it. So here's what we covered. Your sales cycle determines how long you need to run your campaigns. If you quit before prospects are ready to buy, you're handing them to the competitors. The jeweler proves this. He'd advertise for six months before Christmas, build trust through repetition, and literally crushed his competition. This isn't about some tactics. It's not about which platform to use or what to post. It's about understanding what to do for your scenario, staying consistent, and giving your campaigns enough time to work. So the testing, the time and the math. And if you want help building a campaign that matches, you know, everything that I just said when it comes to the testing, the time and the math and just having a system that actually works is right now we're just talking about the game plan and some rules. But there's a whole other side to it, which is the technical side to it. Like what type of content do you need to post? What type of ads do you need to run all of this? So if you do need help with this on a done for you manner, there's a calendar link in the description. We work with service based businesses to create advertising and content strategies that actually work. Not a 30 day test that just fails, but long term systems that actually compound over time. So if that's something you're interested in, just book a call and we'll map out your sales cycle and build a campaign around it. And if you found this helpful, please consider subscribing. I post twice a week on strategies just like this that actually work for service based businesses. I'll see you in the next one.