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How does one become patient (in regards to marketing)?

First and foremost, Im a developer; I love building products, structures, automating tasks. I can work for 12 hours straight and still want to code a bit more. Developing let's you implement things right there and then - you're able to get stuck in straight away, no matter how big the task is, no waiting around (unless you're waiting for test data), it all depends on you.

With marketing it's different; you can create great creatives, optimise for a certain audience and segment, network and message influencers in your business' space, but then you have to WAIT.

Once you release, you need to hold off on further development and begin raising awareness to which you have to build momentum - create blogs that no one will read now, but itll help SEO and future visitors. You have to slowly build an audience, or self promote regularly and wait for the results. You have to wait for your ads to run a certain amount of time, before being able to decide on their success and/or what to change...

I know things dont happen overnight. I've read many a post on here talking about getting first customer after 2 months or more. I'm currently 2 weeks after release, havent yet spent any money on ads so I shouldn't be complaining about not getting traffic yet. But I wish to know how to be more patient.

For all of the digital marketers, startup owners - how do you stay patient?

How are you able to keep your eye on the prize during the time where you're no longer developing, you're trying to get your first customers and raise brand awareness?

Hope this thread helps others too.

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    A good analogy I picked up from a book is that marketing is like farming. You have to sow the seeds and then be patient as you water, fertilize, till etc over a period of time before you see the results. This helps me remember to stay calm when my marketing efforts do not produce immediate sales.

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      Wow, I already feel at peace after reading that analogy. Thanks for sharing

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        Haha thanks. Works for me as I come from a farming background

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    Staying patient is certainly part of it but on the other hand you have to "pound the pavement" and get your brand out there. You can have the best code in the world but people need to see it. Try to hire a marketing professional or even an intern (they can have some very good ideas for little/no pay) and stick with the development yourself as it sounds like that is what you enjoy more. Happy to discuss in greater detail if you want to message me.

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    "How are you able to keep your eye on the prize during the time where you're no longer developing,"

    My strategy is, I don't stop developing, I work on something that I love so much that even if it was never successful, I still wouldn't consider it wasted time. I think you should be constantly trying to promote/market your idea, but in parallel with working on it.

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    Thanks for all the replies guys, useful insights which I agree with.

    My business is a product research tool within the ecommerce industry - specifically helping online sellers find products to dropship or sell on Amazon. While there are around 6 competitors within the market all doing similar things, the reason I got started was because it wasnt a winner takes all market - there isnt one big dominating force, everyone fights for their own margin. With our tool having more polished features and being half the price, we've got our USP, now it's as you say "pounding the pavement" to raise brand awareness. This is especially important in a market with competitors. Were happy with taking a small market margin and slowly growing - each business starts somewhere.

    Thanks for the mentor suggestion too - I hope I can find someone who is willing to exchange their marketing expertise with me, and where I can hopefully provide my engineering value to in exchange.

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