Are you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by keeping up with your digital during a global pandemic? You’re in good company! In this week’s episode of the Whin Big Podcast, Katie shares three golden strategies to help.
If you feel like marketing is a step too far for you right now, grab a pen and paper and dive into the episode. We’ve got a strategy to help you get back in control.
Today's episode is sponsored by the Instagram MOT. This 20-point checklist and free training are freshly updated, so get stuck in to find out if your profile is fit for purpose or needs some attention! Click on the big yellow button below to get started right away.
Business Marketing Burnout
Over the past few weeks, Katie’s had a few conversations with fellow business owners who are all saying the same thing. Despite their very best efforts, they’re feeling burn out and frazzled when it comes to all things digital marketing.
It seems more and more online business owners are struggling to keep up with the seemingly-endless digital tasks on their to-do list. Are you feeling the same?
“It’s so normal to feel tired, drained, depressed and exhausted during this pandemic, lockdown, winter and everything else you’ve got going on right now.”
Battling through huge emotions and challenges is one thing, but many online business owners find the constant ‘churn’ of content creation is just a step too far. If you’re struggling with tasks like:
- Creating content
- Writing blog posts
- Developing podcast ideas
- Filming videos
- Posting and showing up regularly on social media
Then it might make you feel less like you’re ‘failing’ when you know that so many of the online business community are feeling the same.
When marketing feels like an obligation
As you know by now, Katie loves marketing, and it was a no-brainer for her to set up her digital marketing agency. But marketing doesn’t excite everyone. As a business owner yourself, you probably didn’t get into business to spend all your time doing digital marketing, so it’s easy to see how it can feel like a chore.
At times, it feels relentless. So let’s take a look at how you can reduce marketing-related stress and step back from feeling like you’re on the hamster wheel of marketing your online business.
Stop it, drop it and roll with it – Short term strategies for reducing marketing-related stress
No, this isn’t a new hip-hop dance move. It’s three different strategies to help you get off the churning hamster wheel of content creation and digital marketing, and into a more comfortable headspace to help you work out your next move and marketing activity.
#1: STOP for a moment
If you’re hating marketing right now and struggle with any aspect of it, then maybe you’re secretly looking for permission to stop doing it.
“You’re allowed to stop marketing for a while. It’s okay… When you start posting again, Instagram will pick back up and carry on, too. So if it’s not serving you [right now], just stop. I promise you; it’s going to be okay.”
#2 DROP what you can
If you feel that stopping your marketing activities will cause more stress than it fixes, you might feel safer starting here.
To get the most value out of the DROP level, grab some paper and a pen and work through the short exercise in the podcast. By the end of the exercise you will:
- Map out your marketing activities
- Sketch out a useful timeline
- Categorise tasks by effort and energy
- Identify output versus income or leads (return on investment)
The goal is to work out your minimum viable marketing strategy so you can quickly work out a low-key marketing strategy that fits with time/energy and needs. (The ‘minimum viable’ term is borrowed from the lean startup world – check the resources list for further reading.)
Reducing your ‘churning’ activities gives you the breathing space to focus on tasks that bring results, leading to feelings of motivation and positivity.
When you come back and review this task, you can build more in if you have the headspace, or shift your tasks based on your business needs and goals at that moment.
#3 ROLL with it
This is where you ask yourself ‘how can I half-ass this for a while?’.
The ‘roll with it’ strategy is about looking for an easier way to market yourself without the stress of creating new content and plans.
Some of Katie’s roll with it workarounds (these are options and ideas, not instructions!):
- Network and use relationships to meet new customers
- Reach out to your clients and upscale your work with them
- Get in touch with existing contacts and ask for referrals
- Look at a short-term, no-brainer service or offer that could act as a quick fix
- Outsource some work that drains you as a short-term solution
- Repurpose, re-share, or quickly update some old content
- Repeat images, photos and pictures you’ve posted before
- Resend newsletters from last year
- Swap old content onto new platforms (e.g blog posts = instagram quotes, podcasts = Instagram carousel, videos = podcasts)
Whatever you decide to do, it will be okay
Sometimes all we need is a reminder that nothing is forever, that each day is one step closer to getting through the pandemic, the winter, your negative feelings, homeschooling and everything else you’re experiencing right now.
But, Katie, our Marketing Auntie has one last bit of advice to share, before we finish this week’s episode:
“Do a little less marketing. Take care of yourself, and do what it takes to look after yourself and do what’s right for you.”
Come and work with us in The Whin Virtual Office
If you’re feeling isolated, bored or lonely and you love the idea of having a work buddy or someone to bounce ideas off, then come and work with us! The Whin Virtual Office is a fantastic way to connect with like-minded people with the same challenges and goals as you. In business and life.
Katie set up the office because she was fed up, struggling through #allthethings while feeling lonely and bored. She missed working around other people, trying out ideas, hearing new ideas and making plans.
If this sounds like you, you’re officially invited to join The Whin Virtual Office – a free virtual coworking space over on Discord for business owners and home workers everywhere looking for support, accountability and human contact!
Resources in this week’s Whin Big Podcast
[Podcast] Looking back on 2020: Katie shares her real feelings about business life during a pandemic
[Book] The Lean Start Up, by Eric Ries*
* Links marked with a star are affliate links to Bookshop.org. When you buy through these links, a small portion of the cost of the book goes to supporting your local bookshop, and a small portion comes to The Whin. The books won’t cost you any extra!
