Gary ClavenThe trap of treating marketing like a vending machine
Here’s how the thinking usually goes:You publish a post. Twelve likes. Was that worth my time?You run an ad. Three leads. Is this channel even working?You send an email. Open rate dips. Should we just stop?It’s understandable. You’re busy. Resources are tight. You want to know if things are working.
But this kind of thinking treats marketing like a vending machine you put something in, something comes out, and if it doesn’t, you kick it and walk away.
Health doesn’t work like a vending machine. You can’t eat one clean meal and expect to feel different. You can’t go for a single 5k run and suddenly be fit.Neither does marketing.
Small thinking vs. big thinking
Small thinking asks: did the number go up today?Big thinking asks: if we show up every week for five years, who do we become?In fitness, you don’t judge your health by what Tuesday felt like. You judge it by years of inputs stacking on top of each other.
The same shift has to happen in how you think about your marketing.
Short-term feedback is noisy. Long-term commitment is quiet. And most businesses are so busy staring at the noise, they never build anything that lasts.
Trust compounds. Just like muscle.
Three years of weekly posts. A hundred and fifty podcast episodes. A useful email that lands every Friday without fail.
In year one, nothing seems to happen. Low engagement. Slow growth. You wonder if anyone’s paying attention.
Then, gradually, something changes.
People start saying things like: “I see you everywhere.” Or: “I’ve been following you for a while.” Or simply: “I feel like I already know you.”
They didn’t respond to one post. They absorbed hundreds of them. Trust built so slowly you almost didn’t notice until suddenly it was there.
That’s compounding. It works in the gym. It works in your market.
The crash diet trap
Crash diets work in the short term. Cut hard, lose weight fast, feel great for about three weeks. Then you burn out, fall off, and end up worse than when you started.
Short-burst marketing follows the exact same pattern.
Heavy ad spend for 30 days. A big discount push. Chasing whatever’s trending this week. Revenue spikes. Traffic spikes. Then silence and the scramble to figure out what comes next.
If your business only markets when it needs leads, you’re crash dieting your growth. Panic, overspend, retreat, repeat.
The alternative isn’t glamorous, but it works: build something you can actually sustain for ten years. In health, sustainable beats extreme every time. Marketing is no different.
The people your dashboards can’t see
Here’s the thing your attribution tools will never show you.
There’s someone in your market who’s been watching you for two years. They don’t like your posts. They don’t click your ads. They’ve never filled in a form.
They just… watch. Read. Form opinions quietly.
Then one day they need exactly what you offer, and they reach out not because of your last campaign, but because you’ve been consistently there while everyone else came and went.
You can’t see these people in your metrics. But they exist. And they’re often your best customers when they do show up.
The identity shift that changes everything
People who sustain their health long-term stop saying “I’m trying to get fit.” They say “I train.” That’s not semantics. That identity shift changes what they do every day.
Businesses need the same shift.Stop saying “we’re running a campaign.” Say “we’re building a brand.”
Campaigns end. Brands endure.
When content becomes behaviour rather than tactic, you stop negotiating with yourself every week about whether to post. The decision’s already been made. You just show up and do the work.
What this actually looks like in practice
Nothing complicated. Just a sustainable schedule you’ll actually stick to.One article a week. One email a week. A few social posts. Ongoing ad presence within budget.
Then commit to it for three years, not three weeks.
Track things that tell you you’re building something: content output, audience growth, branded search volume, direct traffic. Don’t panic over daily dips. Review quarterly. Assess brand position once a year.
Think in years. Not days.
The long view
When you run at 6 a.m. in the dark, you’re not running for today. You’re investing in the person you’ll be at 70.
When you publish content that gets eleven likes, you’re not writing for today’s engagement. You’re building the authority that makes someone trust you enough to buy in three years.
Daily actions feel small. Over time, they define you.
Marketing isn’t a slot machine. It’s training. And like training, it rewards the people who show up quietly and consistently especially when no one’s watching.
Get up.. Go for that run.
Gary Claven
