The Secret Nobody Tells You: Marketing Takes 6-12 Months to Work

I had truth serum for breakfast, so here it is: marketing takes six to twelve months to land.

Not six to twelve days. Not even six to twelve weeks. Six to twelve months.

It’s not what most people want to hear, I know. We live in a world of ‘quick hacks’ and ‘instant results’. Social media platforms, in particular, give us the illusion that visibility equals traction: you post, people like, and the leads roll in. Except that in a service business (and especially in a trust-based, high-ticket service like interior design) it doesn’t work that way.

And that’s not bad news. It’s just the truth.

Because if you know it takes this long, you can stop panicking at month three when the phone hasn’t rung. You can stop concluding that your marketing is 'not working.' And you can get on with the rest of running your business, serving clients, refining your processes, building your network, with calm confidence that your marketing seeds are quietly germinating below the surface.

You can also plan realistically for the length of startup runway you need - the period of time you'll have to finance your business before it gets up-and-running. 

Why the Lag Exists

Marketing is about trust, and trust takes time! 

Think of your own habits: do you hire the first builder you see on Instagram? Do you sign up for a course the moment you read one post? Unlikely. You watch. You notice. You start to see them pop up again. You begin to feel that you know them. By the time you enquire, you’ve already decided they’re credible.

This is why so many marketing experts agree on the six-to-twelve-month timeframe:

This is why so many marketing experts agree on the six-to-twelve-month timeframe:

• HubSpot’s content marketing benchmarks show that it typically takes 6–9 months before campaigns generate measurable ROI.
• SEO studies (Ahrefs, SEMrush) consistently report that most pages don’t reach Google’s first page until they’re at least 6–12 months old.
• Byron Sharp’s research in How Brands Grow demonstrates that brand salience doesn’t leap; it layers gradually, compounding over time.

The pattern isn’t usually ‘nothing, nothing, nothing, then fireworks.’ It’s more like a dimmer switch slowly being turned up.

What It Feels Like in Real Time

So what should you expect? Here’s a rough sketch:

• You’re putting posts out, writing newsletters, perhaps setting up ads, and it feels like no one is listening. This is the hardest stage emotionally, because you’re working without visible return.

• Small signs appear. A stranger comments on a post. Someone new joins your mailing list. You hear “I’ve been following you for a while” when you meet a potential client. You may not be getting sales yet, but you’re getting noticed.

• Things begin to tip. Prospects DM you. People reference blogs you barely remember writing. You start to see direct results: consultations booked, referrals linked to your visibility, clients who say “I’ve been watching your work for months.”

The early signs are subtle, but they matter. They are the indicators that your work is taking root.

Why Unrealistic Expectations Are Dangerous

The real danger in marketing isn’t the lag itself. It’s not knowing there’s a lag.

When you expect instant results, you fall into chronic malaise:

• You’re depressed because, after eight weeks, your marketing ‘isn’t working’.
• You stop posting just before your audience would have started to recognise you.
• You jump from tactic to tactic, abandoning each one before it matures.

This creates a cycle of exhaustion, wasted effort, and disappointment. And worse - it makes you doubt yourself.

Les Binet and Peter Field’s landmark IPA study, The Long and the Short of It, showed that longer campaigns, those that run for six months or more, are 60% more effective than short bursts. Pulling the plug too soon guarantees failure.

Realism, on the other hand, is liberating. If you know the timeline is six to twelve months, then you know that months one to five are simply the germination period. Not failure. Not silence. Just the quiet, invisible stage of growth. You use your energy elsewhere, and worry a bit less about the hiatus.

What to Do While You Wait

This is the part no one tells you: marketing isn’t supposed to consume your entire business life. While you wait for the green shoots, you can, and should, focus on other areas:

1. Show up consistently - even if it’s just once or twice a week. Repetition builds trust.
2. Batch your content so you’re not constantly reinventing the wheel.
3. Track invisible wins: saves, shares, comments, email signups. These are precursors to enquiries.
4. Develop a thicker skin: those early scuffs and abrasions - the post that flops, the comment that stings, the silence that feels deafening - are not signs you’re failing. They’re part of the process of toughening up. Over time, those little knocks develop into the protective hide you need to keep showing up with confidence and consistency.
5. Invest in parallel growth: streamline your processes, improve client contracts, review your fees.
6. Build relationships: collaborations, networking, supplier connections, the things that often lead to opportunities later.

Think of marketing as your autumn bulb planting. You do the work in October, but you don’t expect tulips until spring. In the meantime, you get on with everything else in the garden.

The Consoling Truth

Here’s the relief: you’re not failing. You’re just early.

The silence is normal. The lag is universal. The apparent lack of results is not evidence that your efforts are wasted; it’s evidence that you’re right in the middle of the process.

And here’s the best part: once the wheel starts turning, it rarely stops. Every piece of content you’ve created, every email you’ve sent, every story you’ve shared, they all layer up into credibility, into a body of work, into trust. You can’t shortcut that, but you can be encouraged by it.

When it starts working, you’ll know. The phone rings, and the client says, “I’ve been following you for months.” You’ll be astonished that something you published last January is still working quietly for you in October. And you’ll realise that all that invisible growth was happening all along.

Final Thought

Marketing isn’t a tap you turn on and off. It’s more like the tide: slow to turn, but once it starts rolling in, it carries you further than you expect.

So keep showing up. Keep planting seeds. Keep the faith through the quiet months. Because six to twelve months from now, the shoots will be above the ground, and you’ll be grateful you kept going.