The other day a client asked me how often she should send out her newsletter. A week before I’d brainstormed with a client what her most minimal version of marketing looks like now that she’s in a season of low energy. And that same week I spoke to a client whose energy is always limited because of her chronic illness, which impacts her ability to market her business.
All of these conversations are about prioritising ourselves and our humanness in our business. About how to make our marketing more human. How to do less.
These are exactly the kinds of conversations we have inside my gentle marketing programme Grow: finding the minimal, human approach to marketing that works for you.
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Four questions to create a minimal, gentle marketing plan
If you’re in a season of business where you need to do less, or need your marketing to be more streamlined every day, week and month, it’s time to make some choices.
These four questions are ones I return to again and again with my clients and participants of my gentle marketing programme Grow—indeed, these questions are at the heart of the foundational modules of Grow in which we create your unique blueprint for marketing your business.
- Which parts of my marketing feel most easeful to me right now? Or, in other words, what is costing me the least energy?
- What is the bare minimum of marketing to allow people to discover me?
- What is the bare minimum of marketing to allow people to get to know me?
- What is the bare minimum of marketing to turn my audience into fans?
The idea behind these four questions is that you clarify what is the least demanding way to market for you right now.
Figuring out your bare-minimum marketing takes reflection and small experiments. The goal is to create a sustainable marketing system that works quietly in the background—built on what you already have, like your website SEO, blog archive, or newsletter. These evergreen platforms support every stage of your small business marketing ecosystem.
Ideally, you end up with marketing that largely ticks along Looking at how recent clients have found me, most of them have said “search engine” or “Pinterest”. While both my website and Pinterest have taken and take some work, the results of these channels is much bigger than the work I put in to them.
If you’d like to see what my minimal marketing looks like in practice, I shared the marketing strategy that works for me in a previous post—a more detailed look at how I’ve simplified my own marketing ecosystem.
But what if you’re just getting started?
Even then, you lean into minimal marketing. You might not have that blog archive yet, and instead focus on keeping your newsletter going while you’re going through a season with little energy. If you have a newsletter you probably also have a website or a Substack page, which allows people to discover you. And your newsletter helps them get to know you better, and even become your fans.
The waitlist for Grow is now open. Waitlist subscribers get 10% off, early access, and special bonuses — no commitment, just marketing love 💌
Why doing less in marketing is enough
Could you do more? Sure.
There is always more that you could do. But you don’t have to. And often, we just need to do less.
I love how how minimal my marketing is because really I don’t want to spend a lot of my time marketing.
I want to work with small business owners and create courses and programmes. It’s the same approach I teach inside Grow — finding a marketing rhythm that lets you focus on the work you actually want to be doing.
There is always more that you could do. But you don’t have to.
A much more extensive marketing ecosystem isn’t feasible for me and my health.
It can be really frustrating and downright annoying to have to take a slower track. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t be growing your business too. And frankly, the only way to build a truly successful business is for it to be a sustainable one, which means not to burn yourself into the ground in the process.
This is exactly why I created Grow: to help small business owners, freelancers and creatives like you design a marketing strategy that supports your energy, your needs and your desires.
I felt at home right from the first video. Never before have I been able to think about my business in such a calm and warm way. Astrid guides you step by step in discovering the marketing that suits you best. —Ine Muys, artist and reading coach
Marketing that ticks along in the background. Marketing that uses your strengths. Marketing with or without social media.
In short, gentle marketing that is all you.
If you’d like support in creating your own minimal, human marketing system, I’d love to invite you to the waitlist for Grow—where you’ll also get gentle marketing bonuses, early access to the launch and 10% off when the programme returns in 2026.
I’d love to know what resonates with you from this post.
Please feel free to share this post it with business friends, in your newsletter or elsewhere. 💛
I’d love to support you in all phases of your business. Providing clarity, focus and next steps is something that my clients tell me I’m really good at. If you’re curious about how we can work together through 1:1 mentoring, check out what I offer or send me an email–no strings attached. I have payment plans available, and flexible options for mentoring calls.
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