On our recent More Clients TV video I mentioned that brand-building marketing (or building a reputation and authority in our cases) has the very highest ROI when done right.

That's because it creates long-standing changes in perception that trigger future actions.

I saw that play out this week.

My wife Kathy's annual Early Years Summitstarts soon and we've been running Facebook ads to get signups.

As I'm sure you know, Facebook ads can be very expensive these days. And negative comments on ads can be a real problem that drives up that cost.

On Tuesday we got a comment on our biggest ad that said “this event isn't free, it's just free registration”. The kind of inaccurate comment that could kill signups.

So I set off typing a reply to explain it absolutely was free and you could watch any or all of the interviews completely free during the week of the summit.

But it turns out my reply wasn't necessary.

By the time I'd typed it, three complete strangers had also replied explaining it was indeed completely free, buying the recordings was optional (but worth it), and that they'd been to the previous year's summit and how brilliant it was.

Those replies were much more powerful than me saying it was free.

In fact they were so enthusiastic and real I'm sure the whole conversation will have increased conversions on the ad as they answered the “is it really free?” objection that many people will have no doubt been thinking.

And that enthusiasm is a direct result of the reputation and brand Kathy has built over the years for the summit.

Now I tell you this not to show off…

(Actually, it is to show off a bit – I'm so proud of the amazing work Kathy's done with her summit).

But mainly it's to show one of the unexpected but important ways that building your reputation can help you.

In this case, “long term” marketing boosted our “short term” ad campaign.

But it can work the other way too. “Short term” investments in marketing to win clients right now can also build your reputation and brand for the long term – if you do them right.