The Marketing Process Takes Time—The First Month is Murder

There's an old saw in the public relations business about what you say to a new client for whom you haven't delivered what he expected in the first month of the contract.

"It's in the pipeline," we used to say. It meant that we'd spent that first month understanding the firm and its story, developing the press material, planning the strategy, and making presentations to the media. The groundwork. And in the second month, presumably, it would all come to fruition.

It was—and probably still is (some things don't change much)—a helluva good excuse. It worked, of course, only if it was really true, as it often was. If it was true, that second month was a doozy, with print breaking out all over. It does indeed take time for some things to happen. The process simply needs time to work. The problem is compounded if your client or employer is new to the marketing process and has distorted view of how PR works.

We had our ways, of course, to manage expectations. The standard practice was to go for the quick hit in that first month—the easy press placement that proved we could readily deliver what we promised.

This first-month problem is even more profound in professional services marketing than it is in public relations. Mastering the essence of a law or accounting firm can be complex (no, they're not all the same). Most of the process can take time to develop or absorb, even for the most experienced professional marketer. It can be frustrating, especially for those who don't really understand the marketing process. Instant gratification in marketing, they should know, simply doesn't exist.