The other day, as I was editing my first ever podcast episode and listening to my own voice again and again, I heard myself say something deceptively simple about why marketing my business currently feels so good. The secret, I said, is that I have gotten very clear on what I do and what I don’t want to do. That for the most part I’m able to silence all the voices that tell small business owners like us what we should do, and where and how often. From that realisation, today’s post was born.
In today’s post, I’ll share my thoughts about my marketing do’s and inspire you to discover your own.
📌 Silencing these voices and doing what feels right to us is, something I’ll help you do in my new group programme Marketing without social media as well. Check it out and find out more.
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Follow my joy and lean into my strengths
Honestly, I never thought I could really just do what I enjoy doing. I always thought that everything in life comes with a downside, with something that you simply have to do. Where you suck it up and just get on with it, even if you don’t enjoy it. In the early stages of my business this is how I approached marketing: as I absorbed the how-to’s, listened to the podcasts and took the courses, I tried to make myself suck it up and do the thing. Post on social media as frequently as possible. Create a detailed marketing plan that required me to do something every day, even though this didn’t fit in with my life or my needs. Come up with detailed content buckets, talk to camera (spontaneously!), use all the hashtags, create all the sequences, funnels and lead magnets.
There is nothing wrong with any of these things. They are only wrong for me. And similarly, the things that are right for me, might be wrong for you.
Eventually I began to stay away from the how-to’s and instead tap into something so simple that I had forgotten: what I wanted to do. What gave me joy.
At a certain point I got so fed up with everything that I started to experiment with doing things differently. With not necessarily following the rules. With staying away from the how-to’s and instead tap into something so simple that I had forgotten: what I wanted to do. What gave me joy.
What gives me joy is writing, creating workshops and materials (free as well as paid), cultivating community and connection. What gives me joy is being able to work on something for a while, scheduling it and letting it go. What gives me joy is trying things out and experimenting.
I started to give myself permission to recognise when things were not giving me joy. And to look for other ways of marketing instead.
The second thing I did is look at the things I’m already good at and do more of them. By nature and because of nearly twenty years of experience teaching in higher education I’m good at explaining things, at teaching and creating materials. This skill, for me, ties in very well with writing, especially with writing long-form, or creating something like my free email series Move your business away from social media.
Marketing that fits my values
The three key values of my business are slow, gentle and profitable. These are not just words or a tagline but inform how I market my business as well. I want my marketing to be slow, gentle and profitable, which means that I stay away from marketing that is fast-paced, requires me to be ‘on’ all the time or rewards the scroll.
Marketing is profitable for me when whatever platform or channel I’m using makes it easy for people to go to where I want them to go: to my website, my offers or my newsletter.
I need there to be a balance between how much the channels that I use serve me as well as themselves. By posting through Substack, and especially by offering paid subscriptions, I also help the platform itself to grow. The same goes for Pinterest and to some extent for WordPress, where my website is hosted. But in all of these instances I never feel like I’m working harder to serve them rather than me. With Instagram, I ended up feeling like by trying to please the algorithm—if that is even possible—I was actually doing more to serve them and help them grow, than that my use of the platform allowed my business to grow.
Slow, gentle and profitable marketing also means marketing that is not ephemeral and has a lifespan beyond a day or a couple of days. Depending on which report or post you go with, the average Instagram post has a lifespan of 20 to 48 hours; a Pinterest pin 4 months to a year; a blog post 2+ years. Lifespans might not be important to you—you might enjoy creating content for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or any other platform where the content is more ephemeral. If so, please continue doing what you love! I, however, kept feeling like I could never get quite caught up. I love writing, especially longer texts, and put a lot of time in it. I’ve never been a “casual” poster, just posting something on social media off the cuff. Choosing platforms and channels where the content lives longer simply suits me and my business value better.
I want my marketing to be slow, gentle and profitable, which means that I stay away from marketing that is fast-paced, requires me to be ‘on’ all the time or rewards the scroll.
Foster attention and deep connection
Like pretty much everyone who owns a smartphone, I too have fallen into an app and kept scrolling only to emerge thirty or more minutes later, wondering where my time went. And, in my case, often with a sore neck from hunching over my phone. 😅 There is nothing wrong, neither practically or morally, with scrolling—whether you do it for 10 minutes or 100 minutes a day. But I soon realised that there was tipping point that I would move past imperceptibly. From enjoying or catching up, I would end up just clicking, just scrolling, landing in a place of ickiness, comparison and dissatisfaction. That is not how I want to spend my time and my life.
Since I started reading newsletters on Substack and then moved my own newsletter here last year, I’ve so much begun to appreciate the depth of posts here. I love words, and I love beautiful words in particular. I love surrounding myself with words that are thoughtful and thought-provoking, that are beautiful and exquisite, like the lexical equivalent of some really good chocolate. I find these kinds of words in books, but also in longer-form content and newsletters, like the ones I read on Substack.
One of the reasons why I moved my newsletter to Substack was because I wanted to create more community around my newsletter. And wow, this did not disappoint. I LOVE how many people leave comments on my posts, I love the gentle paid community that is forming and I love how people are interacting with each other. My mission with Female Owned—and my business—is to show you that it is possible to run your business differently, and to help you surround yourself with others who want the same. For that, a deeper level of connection is needed that I never really found on other platforms.
If my newsletters and free resources resonate with you, I might just be the right mentor for you. I don’t believe in 10-step-plans, or get rich quick schemes. I do believe that it is possible to create and run a business that fits you and your life: your values and rhythms, your strengths and passions. I strongly believe that you don’t need to do all the things, or be on all the channels to make your business work.
I’m here to help you feel more supported in your business. I’m here to give you the confidence to run your business from that place of deep inner knowing inside of you, offering my signature blend of mindset shifts and practical steps.
These are the weekly parameters within which I plan:
- Tuesdays and Thursday I check in with email and Voxer messages from 1:1 clients, with Substack comments and any other email;
- I want and need time to write Female Owned newsletters;
- About half of my time goes to part-time teaching job, limiting the time and energy I spend on my business;
- Whatever stage of my cycle I’m in and how my mental health is doing.
As I was taking pictures and screenshots for this post, I realised that I don’t do a whole lot weekly planning on paper, or even digitally, any more. I don’t have weekly to-do lists. My planning happens on a monthly or daily level these days.
I chose marketing platforms that encourage my humanness. That don’t require me to squeeze my needs into a corner.
Encourage humanness
By now you probably know how much I dislike having to show up on a platform every single day, how much I dislike having to pay with my attention and energy. There’s a certain stubbornness that causes this feeling for sure, but having to be ‘on’ also makes me feel pressured, squeezed and suffocated. I run my business in a way that fits in with my wants, desires and needs. Whether it’s because of being an introvert, or because of my personality in general, or because of recurrent mental health challenges: I can’t be ‘on’ every day.
What I need from a marketing platform is the ability to schedule. And yes, there are certain ways of scheduling social media posts, but at the end of the day social media platforms reward you for being there, for scrolling, clicking and commenting. And that’s fine—it’s just not for me.
So I chose marketing platforms that encourage my humanness. That don’t require me to squeeze my needs into a corner. And I schedule pretty much everything, from newsletters to blog posts to Pins.
An experiment
Take a moment to think or journal about these questions:
- What gives you joy and what are your strengths? How can you follow these more in your marketing?
- How would you market your business if you only listened to your own wants and needs?
- What are you excited to experiment with? What are you ready to let go of?
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