Marketing is Distribution & Only You Can Do the Work

Today, I want to help you rethink what marketing actually is.

Marketing, especially short form social media marketing, has become a muddled term thanks to the endless online coaches and people who mean well but also benefit from making it seem more complicated than it actually is.

Marketing is the act of sharing a specific message and your information. What you’re marketing specifically depends, but for our purposes, let’s keep this focused on your business.

Obviously, the goal in this context is to sell and make money. So from a business standpoint, we’ve got a find a way to do this in the most optimized way possible. Using different channels. Reaching people who don’t know about your shop. Giving them reasons to choose you over someone else, etc.

Marketing and sales also involve explaining why you’re the right fit. Being specific about who you serve. Catching people at the right time. Impressing them. Creating connection. Showing your competency.

Thinking of it this way might make the whole thing feel a lot less intimidating.

When people ask for help with marketing, they might mean, “How can I do this better than my competitors?”

To answer that, you need to be crystal clear about your business goals. You also need to look within yourself to find what makes your perspective different, and what aspect(s) of your shop would be in your best interest to promote.

Another truth is that learning every tip, trick, theory, and shortcut in the world won’t do anything unless you actually create the content itself - the captions, the videos, the posts - and then post it!!

Let’s imagine the “dream” scenario. You have a social media manager, a photographer, a videographer, a scriptwriter, and someone to be the face in your videos. You’re outsourcing everything.

Even then, in my honest opinion (as someone who doesn’t sugarcoat things and has studied this for a decade) the best person to do your marketing is still you.

YOU are the heart of your business.

YOU are the passion behind it.

If you’re the founder, you’re the reason it exists.

YOU are the engine.

And because of that, outsourcing everything, relying on AI, or copying trends can only take you so far.

At this point, there are so many tools available and so much free knowledge out there that most people can reach the “baseline” standard of marketing. The bar has been raised.

To stand out, you need more. You need soul. You need wit. You need basic sales psychology. And, most importantly, you need discernment. Knowing what kinds of content and messaging will actually move the needle.

I say this as someone who has spent far too long creating certain types of marketing that brought in clients we either didn’t enjoy working with or that weren’t profitable. But the catch-22 is that you won’t know these things until you try.

What holds a lot of people back is the belief that with enough research and preparation, they can create the perfect content formula that attracts perfect clients.

But the most fun part of marketing is the experimentation!! It’s discovering strengths you didn’t know you had. It’s the unexpected ideas (the ones you couldn’t have predicted) that often make you shine.

You can’t plan for those moments. You can’t predict them. You can only discover them by doing the work.

Let your shop marketing be something you see in a positive way💗 Let it be a creative outlet, let your flops and your unexpected sparks of quirky uniqueness, expertise, interests, etc. be the thing that ends up inspiring yourself and inspiring others to work with you.

Things are capital Hard right now for small businesses, but we have the advantage over large businesses, especially in this age of AI.

Our ability to pivot on a dime, our freedom to not have to ask “corporate” for permission to post something you feel strongly about.

I know we are conditioned to not want to stand out from the crowd to avoid judgment, but don’t let that keep you from experimenting & discovering something that sets you apart, which is increasingly harder to do these days as the playing field levels with technology and with easy access to marketing tips and tricks.

I hope this reframing of the word marketing shifted your perspective, or inspired you to be brave or to try something different when creating content.

My honest advice is to post whatever is realistic for you right now. Adjust as you go. Pay attention to how each piece feels, and the response you get.

Remember that marketing is a long game.

It is an art form and a creative outlet, but just be careful about relying on it to be the main driver of sales. In our experience, our shop has still required a dedicated outbound sales strategy to help bring new customers into our marketing channels.

With that in mind, I hope this helps you decide how much time, energy, and planning you want to dedicate to your marketing. Don’t get stuck on perfection or trying to impress anyone. Focus on connection. Put in as much time as you get value out of — no more, unless you genuinely enjoy it. And most of all, have fun making it into whatever you want it to be ✨