If you’ve spent any time reading marketing advice online, you’ll have encountered the same handful of instructions: be on social media, post consistently, show up every day, follow this template, use that strategy. And if you’re anything like many of the small business owners I work with, you’ve tried—and found yourself exhausted, overwhelmed, or just quietly convinced that you’re doing it wrong.
You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just trying to fit yourself into someone else’s mould.
Here’s what I know after years of working with small business owners, freelancers and creatives: marketing is deeply personal. What works beautifully for one person will feel suffocating for another. And the number one reason marketing burns people out is not that they’re bad at it — it’s that they’re trying to follow rules that were never designed with them in mind.
So consider this a permission slip to market you way instead.
Marketing in a way that is all you can feel scary. You might worry whether you can really trust your instincts (yes, you can). You might have been told to follow the strategies suggested by the business bros and marketing gurus, and feel like you can’t create your own rules (you can).
These are very valid feelings. You might never have marketed before, so how can you just decide to do it your own way?
Even if you’re brand new in business, you will have a lifetime of being marketed to behind you. You already know what feels good to you and what doesn’t. You know the kinds of being sold to that make you feel ick, and the kinds of marketing and sharing that make you feel a connection to a brand or company.
This is my permission slip for you today. You can market in a way that is all you. In a way that feels good.
You don’t have to be on all the channels. You don’t have to join the popular ones. You don’t have to stay with a channel that doesn’t work for you.
You don’t have to market on social media. You don’t have to join Substack. You don’t have to “show up” all the time.
Your newsletters don’t have to be written. They can be drawn. They can be videos. They can be mini-podcasts or voice notes.
You don’t have to turn everything you do into content. You don’t have to share about your private life. And, you don’t have to be anyone but yourself.
You don’t have to force yourself into anyone else’s rules, blueprint or mould.
The biggest reasons why marketing burns people out is because they are trying to follow someone else’s rules.
If this resonates but you’re not sure what your version of marketing actually looks like — that’s exactly the work we do together in Grow, my gentle marketing programme for small business owners, freelancers and creatives.
We start with your values and build from there: choosing channels based on your strengths and joys, building a marketing rhythm that fits your life, and making a plan for scaling down when you need to. The result looks different for every participant — and that’s the whole point.
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