This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing the critical differences between short-term and long-term marketing strategies, why they matter, and how they can help you achieve sustainable growth and customer loyalty.
Marketing HOT TAKE: Marketing strategies are versatile and can be both long-term and/or short-term, based on your goals. Disagree? Letโs talk about it in the comments!
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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction (Please Leave us a Review)
03:20 Marketing HOT TAKE: Marketing Strategies Can Be Short-Term AND Long-Term
04:36 Defining Short-Term Marketing
10:57 Understanding Long-Term Marketing
15:11 Gardening Analogy: Short vs Long-Term
19:42 The Importance of Balancing Both Strategies
23:30 TLDL - Understanding Short-Term vs Long-Term Marketing
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How to Build a Marketing Plan Youโll ACTUALLY Use in 2026: https://youtu.be/4aZtxHBBBxE?si=KO7vqSOoJFhZShb4
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Vivian: Gotcha.
Chelsea: But it's not dead. It's just something that I'm still working on. That's how these short-term versus long-term marketing strategies work.
*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Vivian: Chelsea, I'm not in the habit of promoting other podcasts, but I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts earlier today and they had a research person on there and he was talking about attachment theory and stuff. He said that there was a study they had done where they were suppressing the short-term memory of mice and they were attributing it to something. But then when they came back, come to find out that he said, quote, "It was really just effing up their brain."
Chelsea: You don't say.
Vivian: Memories live in the brain. So that's why their short term memory was going.
Chelsea: So first off, first off, the podcast that I listen to and the podcasts you listen to are very different.
Vivian: But I bring that up because today we're not talking about mice or short term memory or attachment theory. What we are talking about, though, is short-term marketing versus long-term marketing. The differences, and then what's gonna be the meat and potatoes of this discussion? What are you serving us today?
Chelsea: Ooh, what am I serving today?
Vivian: HelloFresh? HelloFresh sponsor us.
Chelsea: Please, I miss HelloFresh. I loved having HelloFresh. What am I serving today? We are going to talk about short term and long term marketing, not memory. What those terms or phrases mean, what's the difference between them and why small business owners should care.
Vivian: Yeah, and if you're sitting there thinking you girls are just two marketing gals that made this crap up. No, no, no, no. We did not. It really does change your decision-making skills and how you approach stuff. We want to have a really solid conversation about this. So whenever an opportunity presents itself to you, you guys are able to have these internal discussions and just be sure you're not talking to yourself like out in public.
Chelsea: Or do it. Who cares? Then you're never going to be bothered by people.
Vivian: That's a good point.
Chelsea: Big brain.
Vivian, I have the marketing hot take. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. I'm going to bring it up now. I would like us to come back to it a little later in the episode because I feel like it'll make more sense once we've really started talking about short term versus long term. My marketing hot take-
Vivian: It's like an Easter egg hunt.
Chelsea: I know, right? The thing is, some marketing strategies, in my opinion, can be both long-term and short-term marketing strategies. It just depends on the type of tool or strategy. It depends on what your goals are, what you're trying to accomplish. For example, social media can be, it be one of those strategies.
Vivian: I 100% agree with you on this one. Yes, on this hot take.
Chelsea: Oh, yay.
Vivian: Yeah, so brownie points for that. Big sister happy, in agreement.
Chelsea: We got to keep her happy. Please.
Vivian: That's right. I do agree with that, especially because your birthday is coming up. To your point, depending on what the objective is, how you utilize the same platform or the same opportunity can change drastically. If that objective is more of a long-term objective or if it's a short-term one. All right. Where do you want to?
Chelsea: Well, let's define these terms that we keep throwing out. So short-term marketing. Short-term marketing is a focus on marketing strategies that provide immediate results.
Vivian: All right. So give me an example. If I'm a small business owner, in a previous episode, I owned a business that created muzzles for birds because you don't love them.
Chelsea: Yeah. I don't trust birds.
Vivian: You don't trust birds. All right. So I own a bird muzzle company. What would be short term marketing?
Chelsea: Think flash sales or promotions like "today only get 10% off our bird muzzle when you bring in a bird."
Vivian: Or Chelsea says, when you leave the bird at home.
Chelsea: Digital advertising or PPC, "pay per click" campaigns that lead to instant visibility. So a digital ad that says, "are you also terrified of birds? Buy this muzzle". Something like that. These strategies are measured in days and weeks.
Vivian: Right.
Chelsea: They focus on immediate high impact results. So think sales, think lead generation or quick ROI.
Lead generation, sign our petition to get rid of birds or sign our petition to make all birds government drones. No, who's going to agree to that? I don't know.
Vivian: The thing is with that lead generation, because they're opting into it, you then know that these are the perfect target people to be able to sell the bird muzzle to.
Chelsea: Yes, exactly.
Vivian: Because they're hating on birds. Yes. Or they have a fear of them because they're trying to make them drones. All right. I love that example. The key here though is like you said, timeframe, right?
This could be something that perfectly aligns with seasonal promotions. You guys are about to do a Black Friday sale. That is more of a short-term marketing initiative, right? It doesn't happen throughout the year. It's a very specific amount of time. The turnaround or the revenue that it generates is usually within weeks, not really months, but maybe like six weeks before and after Black Friday. The other part of it too is I'd imagine if you have maybe overstock of any type of product that you're wanting to get rid of quickly, you mentioned the flash sale would be a quick thing. It also might be something that, we're coming up on the summer months now. Some of this stuff is coming in season and it may also be something that you guys can't keep on hand year round.
Chelsea: Exactly. Social media marketing, let's kind of touch back on the hot take at the beginning of this episode. Social media marketing can be a short-term strategy if you're looking for immediate results. So if I'm posting a video about how I have an event coming up in a week and I want you guys to sign up for it, that's a short-term marketing strategy.
But for social media, if I'm trying to build a community and get brand recognition, and that's what I'm focusing on with my social media strategy, then that's going to be long term.
Vivian: I wonder if a good example of this would be take the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts run a lot of the short-term marketing.
Chelsea: I'm sorry. I just, it just clicked where she was going with this and I was like, this is a great example.
Vivian: It is. So they do this very seamlessly because for one, we all know when cookie sales are in. For one, you see it all over Facebook, kids-
Chelsea: No, I'm not seeing it all over Facebook and I'm calling out the Girl Scouts. What's going on? Usually where Tim works, there's at least one person saying, hey, I got Girl Scout cookies. I've heard nothing. Silence. We want Girl Scout cookies.
Vivian: Now, well, this is also partially your fault, Chelsea, because you're not friends with people who have children.
Chelsea: Oh yeah. Okay. Fine.
Vivian: It's because Chelsea hates kids. I'm just making it known.
Chelsea: Yes. So. Birds, horses and children.
So my nightmare is a child riding a horse with a parrot.
Vivian: Valid nightmare.
Chelsea: Yes, thank you.
Vivian: This is your night terrors.
Chelsea: Yeah, that's my paralysis demon.
Vivian: All right. I've seen it all over my Facebook because of parents, they're sharing like, hey, little Claire is selling her Girl Scout cookies. Y'all sign up for it. So the Girl Scouts, though, do this very seamlessly. For one, they have that short term marketing initiative where they are promoting the cookies for a certain amount of time. It doesn't start early, early in the year. It starts right before they're about to go on sale. They do recommend that people sign up for them. This is the deadline. If you want to get your Girl Scout cookies, be sure that you visit a Walmart where a troop is hanging out, whatever it is. They do that short-term marketing.
Then the long-term though is awareness. It's about what we use this money for and the programs that we're responsible for. It's raising just awareness around how they are helping girls in the communities and what they're doing and how they're teaching them to be responsible leaders and this and that. That's more of the long-term initiative. They can use social media for both. It's just done very differently, but it coexists very well.
Chelsea: Yes, exactly. Let's go ahead and give the definition of long-term marketing. You've already touched on it, but long-term marketing is going to be, big surprise, the exact opposite of short-term.
Vivian: Shocking.
Chelsea: Yeah, shocking. It's when you're focusing on strategies that will bring growth and help with your broader goals in marketing. So like we've mentioned, brand growth, customer loyalty, increased brand awareness, these are going to be measured out in months and years. It's going to focus on creating a lasting brand.
Vivian: Interesting. So, you know, while you were saying that, I was just thinking to myself. I know we're using social media-
Chelsea: She wasn't listening to me. I'm kidding.
Vivian: You can do this through different initiatives or platforms. Whether it's email or social media, the long term is stuff that you probably can plan out well advance, right? As a business, you know overall what is steady and what your goal or your vision is. If you're talking about integrating the two, you could work on pre-planning more of your long-term stuff because that does require more time. So you're not able just to like wake up one day and say, "hey, I'm going to start doing X, Y, and Z". It takes a little more coordination of elements and involvement of maybe external vendors or whatnot. But you can work on both simultaneously, right? It's just more of getting ahead of the long-term stuff.
Chelsea: Understanding your goals is going to help you understand what you're working on versus long-term and short-term. Examples of long-term strategies, before we move on too far: community engagements, like sponsorships or participation in your local community, PR and brand building, make sure you have consistent messaging, content marketing can be long-term. Think about it, you're creating blogs, videos, all this stuff, you're building organic traffic which helps you create authority and creat-, not creativity, credibility. Credibility over time. That's something that you have to work on and you have to build on. So content marketing, when you think about it, is a long-term marketing strategy. You also have SEO and that one seems, yeah. We always talk about how important SEO is, but that it's very much a long-term game.
Vivian: Well, and also I wonder how much of this now also feeds. We always have to have an AI discussion somewhere amidst these more traditional things like the long term and the short term marketing stuff. You mentioned SEO, we're now moving into GEO.
Chelsea: And AEO. Watch that podcast episode if you don't know what we're talking about.
Vivian: If those are newer terms, it relates to how now people are searching and using these AI tools to search for information. On top of just doing the SEO, search engine optimization, you have to account for these AI tools now. It is top of mind. It is a topic that I feel like we're going to have way more conversations about in 2026 and 2027. What we want you to do is understand that those are more of those long-term. So if you haven't started thinking about how potentially you can approach or start to think about how you set up your content to where ChatGPT is able to scan it and is able to in a conversation suggest your product, suggest your business, suggest your service to someone who's looking, then you want to go and start doing that because it is going to be more of a long-term approach in marketing initiative.
Chelsea: Vivian, I have an analogy.
Vivian: I like it.
Chelsea: Thank you. Because really the difference between short-term and long-term, is are we looking for immediate results or are we tending to our business? So we are in spring officially. Gardening. I, if you're not new here, then you know I love to garden. I have a garden and some of my plants I expect in this season to be able to harvest, right? So like I have a kale plant. I know that it comes back every year, that it gets real nice and full. I can pick it. I can make a kale salad and then once spring is over it dies.
I have a blueberry bush and a tangerine tree. I planted both of those plants two years ago. They have still not beared any fruit, they're not dead. They're alive. I'm tending to them. I'm helping them grow, they're just, you know, a tree takes a while to bear fruit. It has to grow. A blueberry bush, probably part of the reason is I only have one and they're supposed to come in pairs, but we're going to ignore that.
Vivian: So she's depressed.
Chelsea: So my blueberry bush is a little depressed, probably. But it's still growing, it's still working, but it hasn't gotten to the point where it's going to bear fruit.
Vivian: Gotcha.
Chelsea: But it's not dead. It's just something that I'm still working on. That's how these short-term versus long-term marketing strategies work. You might not see the results immediately, but you know that if you keep on cultivating it and helping it and watering it, eventually it will grow into a nice big blueberry bush.
Vivian: Well, I really love this analogy for several reasons. This had me thinking, you said you're tending to it. Okay. The word you used was very specific and I love that word because what it means is you're actually monitoring.
Chelsea: Yes. I'm not just, I didn't just put it in the ground and then leave. I'm watering it. I'm giving it food.
Vivian: Well, and so look at it from the perspective of taking this analogy one step further. The short term marketing stuff, the stuff that is the kale, right? The stuff that you're in there and you're expecting to get back results from rather quickly is the stuff that probably in your business is going to draw people in.
The long-term marketing is what's going to keep them there, right? It's tending to the soil to be sure that that person sticks around. This ties back to a conversation that Chelsea and I have had before on here, which is the fact that there is so much missed opportunity with people going out and selling or continuing to market and promote to existing customer bases, right? You guys are leaving money on the table if you are just working so hard to get somebody through the door, but yet you're not consistently communicating to try to keep them coming back for future purchases. It's cheaper to do that. Also it lends itself to this, is those long-term marketing initiatives really can be what creates loyalty. What creates brand evangelists, Chelsea's favorite term.
Look at it that way, right? The long-term stuff, yes, it takes longer. It is probably something though that is going to pay off in the long run because you're generating more revenue from it.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, we're having this entire conversation. Why does it even matter? Why are we even talking about short term versus long term?
Vivian: Yeah, tell me. Besides being bullied by you, why are we having this conversation?
Chelsea: Because you need to have both. Just like Vivian was just now talking about building the loyalty. Yes, you need to bring new people in, but building loyalty means that you create those brand evangelists. You can't create a brand evangelist with just short-term marketing. You need both to really flesh out. Vivian's favorite word because she says flush. I say flesh. You need to flesh out your brand and the best way to do that and the only way to do that is to have both. Notice how I say both. I'm not just saying, don't forget about long-term marketing. I'm saying also don't just focus on long-term marketing. You do need those short-term marketing strategies to bring people in and to get them in.
Vivian: Also because they can create those quick hits of revenue, like you used in your earlier example, which is like flash sales. Maybe you need to get rid of some inventory. Those short-term marketing initiatives are going to be the ones that do create some of that excess in revenue when you need it the most.
Chelsea: It helps you create cash flow while also building a recognizable brand.
Vivian: Yeah, the other part of it, I do think and I'm going to recommend that you guys go back and you listen to our episode on marketing budgets and also marketing plans and kind of how to do it with a new approach. The way that we do it, it's not the old school, write a 50 page marketing plan, this and that. We give you guys a quick formula or a quick process to be able to do that in 2026. That is going to allow you to stay on top of things, but also to address and to keep up with what you need to. The reason I'm going to recommend that you go listen to those is because the short term versus long term are going to affect both. t's going to one, affect your budget and it's also going to affect your marketing plan. I think if you listen to those, you'll see how it's all integrated and how it kind of meshes well with each other. The one thing I will say and knowing that we were going to have this discussion, I kept thinking about how particularly this affects your month to month budget.
Let's say I am wanting to do a short term marketing initiative and it happens to be in June. I reach out to somebody, the rates are particularly high in June, July and August for this thing that I'm wanting to do. But I have such, my goal is short term, right? So I need that to be done within the next two months. I'm more willing to spend a little extra for that knowing that it's immediate. I have urgency in reaching that short-term marketing initiative goal. If it's a long-term goal, I'm less likely to actually take that premium price. I'm more like, hey, I have more time, I have more bargaining leverage with this external vendor to say, it's not immediate, I don't need to do it tomorrow. Instead, let's negotiate something that I think is going to be fair. It does affect even the amount of money that you're willing to dish out, right? It changes the priority some. I think that's just important to know.
Chelsea: Well, Vivian, I think we summed up short-term and long-term marketing pretty well. Are we ready for the TLDL?
Vivian: I think so.
Chelsea: Okay. TLDL, too long, didn't listen. If you skipped ahead to this chapter, I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we talked about today. However, you need to go back and listen to this entire conversation whenever you get the chance. Today, we talked about short-term versus long-term marketing, the ways that they are different. How it affects your marketing plan, your marketing budget, why it's important to know the difference between the two, and how they need to coexist. If there's anything that you take away from this conversation, it should be that. That you need to have both short-term and long-term marketing strategies working in your small business.
Y'all, it's my birthday month. March, my favorite time of year. I am requesting that if you enjoy this podcast, you consider buying us a coffee. Buy me specifically a coffee. It is my birthday. But no, in all seriousness, of course, this is a metaphor. We will not be caffeinating me, but it does help keep this podcast running and our goal here is to help all small business owners feel comfortable and confident in their marketing. So if you are a part of this SOB community, just consider it.
Vivian: Yes, go to www.buymeacoffee.com/sobmarketing.
Chelsea: Yes, absolutely. I'll also leave the link in the show notes, as well as a bunch of other fun links like our merch, if you want to be a sponsor for this podcast, all of our episode transcripts, all that good stuff. So go check out what we have to offer and go be the best SOB you can be.