How to market your way: a gentle, sustainable marketing approach for small business owners

Welcome to Female Owned, the podcast for small business without the hustle, without the hacks, without the overwhelm. My name is Astrid Bracke and I’m a small business mentor working with small business owners, freelancers and creatives just like you to create slower, gentler and more profitable businesses.

When I started my business, and struggled with marketing, I thought I was the only one struggling. Looking at the other small business owners I followed, they seemed to have it all together. 

They seamlessly shared on social media multiple times a week, were always on top of their newsletter, and shared how their marketing converted. 

They shared how their approach brought them new clients and customers quickly—while I had yet to book a single paying mentoring client.

They didn’t seem to struggle with overwhelm and comparison on social media, they didn’t struggle with being consistent or showing up. They seemed to know what they were doing.

I, on the other hand, felt lost and increasingly resentful. I felt excited about my new business. I couldn’t wait to start mentoring people. I organised a few workshops and loved it. But marketing felt like a necessary evil. It felt like a secret that everyone but me had cracked.

And trust me, I tried. 

I bought online courses on the using Instagram and making marketing plans. I listened to any business podcast I could get my hands on. I downloaded content calendars and marketing templates. I created spreadsheets detailing my content buckets, channels and when I’d be posting what.

And I felt like I was throwing spaghetti at a wall. 

I felt like I was flailing, like what I did was never enough—because not only did it lead to few results, it also made me feel bad. As diligent as I am, I could never keep up with the content calendars I created—because I spent most of my week working a 9-to-5, because my mental health dipped, because being ‘on’ and online made me feel overwhelmed and anxious.

I share this story because I now know that I wasn’t unique.

Since those early days I’ve spoken to so many small business owners, freelancers and creatives who feel the same.

Some of them even tell me that because they don’t like marketing, or don’t know how to do it, they think they’ll never have a successful business.

And I used to feel the same. But since then, things have changed. 

The me of a few years ago would be astonished at how good marketing feels to me now. So good that I’m even running a gentle marketing programme, Grow, to help others feel good too. 

But it’s not because I’ve turned into one of those marketing gurus who tells you that they’ve cracked the secret, and if you only follow their plan, untold successes await.

Because I’ve not turned into one of those people.

But there is probably a secret. It’s just not really a secret. The secret is you.

The reason why the templates, plans and content calendars didn’t work for me is because they weren’t suited to my life, my needs, my mental and physical health. And that very likely is the reason that someone else’s templates, plan or rules don’t work for you either.

In 2021 and 2022 I got so fed up with marketing that I decided I might as well try a radically different way. My way. The rules I’d been following weren’t working for me, and weren’t bringing in the clients I needed anyway. So I might as well change it up. Coupled with a hefty and prolonged dose of chronic depression, 2021 and 2022 were the years that I knew something had to change.

The only rule I’ve had for marketing since is that it needs to work for me. And, for me, that means marketing that doesn’t require me to be ‘on’. I don’t use platforms that reward me for spending a lot of my time on them. I don’t use platforms where the algorithm only favours you when you post a lot. I don’t use social media.

Instead, I focus on marketing that is largely evergreen. And I focus on what I enjoy most: writing.

In order to make this work alongside living with chronic fatigue and recurring mental health issues, my marketing is minimal, and it all ties in with each other. I write a newsletter twice a month, and have my lovely VA upload old newsletters to my blog and create pins for them. Sometimes I write guests posts or guest interviews on podcasts. And if I want to scale up, I try something new—like this podcast.

For you, marketing that works might look similar. Or it might be different: you might thrive on social media. You might want to create a YouTube channel. Or you do best focusing on local marketing. Whatever it is, I can promise you that doing what works for you, is the best starting point to make marketing truly feasible and successful for your business. 

I’ll walk you through minimal marketing, evergreen marketing, setting up your marketing ecosystem and marketing without social media in the coming episodes.

For now, I want to invite you to reflect on your own marketing. What feels good, and what doesn’t? Which parts no longer serve you? What would you do if you could truly market in a way that fits in with your life, your needs, your desires? Because you can.

If you’d like to dive deeper into marketing differently, do check out my website—-astridbracke.com—, my newsletter and my gentle marketing programme Grow, which will run again from November 2025 onwards. 

I’ve also created a free marketing quiz that helps you identify your marketing hurdles—and where I’ll send you my favourite easeful marketing strategies to tackle them. You’ll find the link in the show notes.

Do let me know what you thought of this episode by leaving a review or commenting on Substack. 

Until next time.