Guest Blog: How To Simplify Your Marketing

Guest blog by Kaye King, Marketing Mentor

If you Google ‘how to market my small business’, you’ll get 4.1 Billion results.

4.1 billion!!

That’s a lot of zeros…

No wonder you feel overwhelmed by it all. How are you supposed to know where to start with that?

We know Marketing is important – there’s no escaping that. Without marketing, your business won’t grow.

And yes, it’s a huge topic, and can feel overwhelming.

But it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Often when we think of marketing, we think of all the techy complicated stuff. The email programmes, the free downloads on your website, or social media algorithms.

But, at its heart, marketing isn’t about emails, downloads, or social media. They’re just tools to help you get your message out there.

At its heart, Marketing is all about conversation…That’s it.

A conversation between you and someone who might be interested in working with you or buying your stuff.

A conversation between you and someone who needs your help, but they can’t see it yet.

A conversation between you and your audience, one person at a time.

When you see marketing as simply having one conversation at a time, with one person at a time, it stops feeling spammy, techy, or difficult, and starts to feel doable.

It becomes something you can feel confident about; something you can embrace and prioritise to grow your business.

So, when you know that marketing isn’t this huge scary machine, and that it’s actually just a conversation, how can you make it easier for yourself to prioritise marketing in your business?

Three simple questions to guide your marketing

Before you dive into doing any marketing activity, ask yourself three simple questions:

Who do you help? How do you help them? Why are you different?

When you get absolutely clear on those questions, it becomes much easier to talk about your business in a way that your audience will understand, and they’ll want to learn more. Your marketing conversations will be more relevant to the right people.

It’s your business, your rules

When you’re planning what sort of marketing to do, you get to choose how, when, and where you have your marketing conversations.

You don’t have to be on every social media platform every day, if you struggle to find the time to post once a week. You don’t have to send out a weekly newsletter if your heart sinks every time you think about doing it. You don’t have to speak at conferences or start a podcast if the thought of it terrifies you.

Do what works for you, and what you feel comfortable with, because then you’ll keep at it. Consistency matters in marketing – it’s not a “do it once and it’s done” thing – so the more you focus on what feels right for you, the more successful your marketing will be.

Make time for marketing

Finally, make time in your diary every week to work on your marketing. This is the single biggest thing you can do for yourself today.

Decide what day you’ll do your marketing each week and block it out.

Now you’re probably thinking I can’t do that – my diary is too full of meetings, family stuff, and client work. But I bet it’s not full 6 months from now, is it?

If you decide that Tuesday morning is your time for marketing, go to the first free Tuesday morning in your calendar and block it out today. Then block out every Tuesday morning for the next year…

Now you’ve made time for marketing!

You’ll soon get into the habit of working on your marketing regularly, and once you start to fully embrace it in your business, you might actually enjoy it. And then you’ll want to spend even more time on your marketing because it will be fun, and more importantly, you’ll see it working for you.

So there you have it. Marketing matters, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Remember, you’re just having conversations that will help the people who need your help to find you. And I’m sure you’re keen to do that, because if they can’t find you, you can’t help them, and they’ll stay stuck. And no one wants that.

If you’d like help answering the first of those important questions, How do you Help?, pop me an email and I’ll send you a template to get you started.

Or if you want to know how I can help you avoid overwhelm with marketing straight away, book a call and let’s chat.