Ever feel like your marketing pulls you in a million directions? I’ve felt it, and my friend Tayler Cusick-Hollman noticed that too. Tayler is a marketing consultant, podcast co-host, and small-business builder (three times over). AKA she’s a marketing whiz and knows exactly what to tell you when you’re freaking out about having no real direction with your marketing. She’s so good at it that she started a software company, Enji, to help small businesses lock down their marketing strategies. I wanted to bring her on the blog to give you three steps to handle your business marketing.

Don’t know Tayler yet? Let me introduce her!

Tayler Cusick-Hollman is a marketing consultant, copywriter genius, strategist, and one of the founders of Enji. She is a straight-shooter whose ego is way harder to bruise than her legs and arms are on a mountain-biking or skiing adventure. When she’s not sitting behind her computer you’ll find her mountain biking, skiing, rock climbing, drinking wine, cooking something from scratch, dancing to disco or debating politics with someone. (And honestly? Same – except I’ve never been skiing or mountain biking)

Hear from Tayler on marketing:

Marketing makes a lot of small business owners feel a lot of things. The thing is, those emotions usually aren’t “fun” ones. They’re more like the pressure, frustration, do-I-have-to-do-this ones. And I get it…trust me, I get it. Because as a small business owner, you probably don’t have the budget to outsource your marketing to a branding expert. But let’s be honest, a lot of the time the motivation to tackle it on your own just isn’t there. That’s where Enji for your wedding business can be a helpful tool to make things easier.

That’s a tough spot to be in.

But instead of doubting yourself, letting perfectionism get in the way of getting even basic things done, or not wanting to make the decisions (all things that bring your marketing to a screeching halt), what if some of the feelings were actually “fun”? What if you could do your own marketing in a way you didn’t despise? Because with a bit of planning and a dose of realistic expectations, you can. No, I’m not joking.

Your reality and relationship with doing your own marketing

You’re in a tough spot with your marketing more often than not. How do I know? Because (and I say all of this with love) it’s: inconsistent, generic, selling way too much, or not nearly enough. And why is that? Because you’re out there flying by the seat of your pants. You haven’t really thought about what you need to say. You just react. You haven’t made a plan. You just post when you “have time.” And you’re worried about doing the wrong things. So, you copy all the things you see other people doing because that feels safe. 

And you hate doing your marketing because of it. Which is why you’d love nothing more than to hand it off to someone else and absolve yourself of the responsibility.

But that isn’t in the cards, is it? And you’re not getting your marketing done without what feels like destroying yourself.

The piece of marketing advice you need to hear as a small business owner

Marketing is the stuff you do to make sure people know your business exists. Without it, your business is invisible.

I’ll hold to let that sink in.

Because this is exactly the reason you need to find a way out of that tough spot—even if you have to do all your own marketing. And if you’ve made it this far, I think it’s about time I start talking about the solution.

How to do your own small business marketing:

Step 1:

The path out of the marketing tough spot starts with having realistic expectations. Because right now a lot of the pressure you feel around marketing is because you’re trying to bite off more than you can chew. So, it’s time to admit to yourself what you actually have the time to do. Ask yourself how much time you actually have to work on your marketing every week, and cut out the extra stuff that doesn’t fit. 

Pro-tip: There are different times throughout the year you’ll have more time to work on your marketing and less. So when you’re setting this expectation, think about how much time you normally have to set the baseline.

Step 2:

Very much in line with step 1, the best marketing plan is one that you can actually stick to…and you don’t hate! Pick 2-3 places you’ll do your marketing (marketing channels) that are in the part of the Venn Diagram where the things you like doing overlap with the places your potential clients and customers are hanging out—that’s the sweet spot. From there it’s about deciding on the tasks you’ll do and how often. And if you want a fast way to get a marketing plan, you can use Enji’s marketing strategy generator! All you need to do is play a game of 20 questions to help the software get to know your business.

Pro-tip: There is a difference in the marketing you should focus on right after launching your new website vs. beyond that. The quick and dirty is to focus on PR and search engine optimization (SEO) before and immediately after you’ve launched. The PR efforts help you get backlinks to your website, while SEO ensures your business is easily found online.

Step 3:

At the end of the day, doing your own marketing is all about consistency—because when you are consistently showing up, your business is visible! This doesn’t mean you need to show up everywhere all the time (remember we talked about picking 2-3 places), but what it does mean is batching your work into a weekly routine vs. thinking you should work on your marketing a little bit every day. So pick the day of the week the world leaves you alone the most, block that amount of time you said you have to work on marketing, and rotate through working on those 2-3 marketing channels.

I told you it was possible! And now you know the 3 steps to take so you can do your own marketing as a small business owner.

Just make your plan, do the plan, and your bottom line is for sure going to thank you in the future.

Need Enji for your wedding business? Learn more about the software here – I think you’re gonna love it!