What To Do When Marketing Becomes Completely Overwhelming

Marketing can take up a huge chunk of your time. So, what do you do when it becomes completely overwhelming, and you find yourself panicking or stopping it altogether?

I hear my clients time and time again say they need to do some marketing. Going into a new year can fill you with dread as you start to wonder what and how to promote your services.

You may find the word ‘marketing’ sends you into a frenzy. You might have no idea what you’re going to do for this ‘marketing’ thing that everyone is talking about.

You may have noticed that other people are doing things like setting up social media profiles, running Facebook ads, tweeting and linking. Ultimately it can end up with you putting your hands on your hips in a strop and doing nothing!

What’s the answer? 

Stop and take a breath. Marketing is an enormous topic, people take years to learn it, and they do degrees in it, for goodness sake. You’re not going to be a super duper marketing person overnight, so give yourself a break!

If you write ‘marketing’ on your to-do list, that could mean absolutely anything. It’s no wonder you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. Like any big project, you must break it down into manageable tasks. That’s what you’d tell your clients, right?

Know your ideal outcomes

What is the outcome you’re looking to achieve? Your end goal. Yes, you might want to build a Twitter following or get more engagement on your Facebook page, but take it back a step.  Be kind to yourself and choose ONE strategy – Choose ONE thing that you will focus on specifically in your marketing and make that happen. You will find it difficult to measure your progress if you focus on too many areas at once.

If you’re not putting any messages out on Instagram and haven’t spoken to anyone on your page since you created it, then start there. Set yourself a mini goal. Write three posts a week, for example. A few posts being done consistently is better than having a shower of posts all in one day.  Once you’ve nailed a few posts a week, focus on building your Instagram engagement. Start to think about the different types of posts that you could create. 

You could mix up your content with a question, share a video, do a poll, ask questions about your followers’ locations, the weather, what they love about what they do, who they’d like to spend a day with, etc.

Think about mixing it up 80% information and 20% personal. People love to know a bit about you too. What about a behind-the-scenes image of where you work? You could share a different venue that you work from (my favourite is sharing about my local coffee shop, usually surrounded with dozens of post-it notes or mindmaps) or an image of a project you’re working on.

Adopt the KISS approach

Want to start engaging with people on your LinkedIn Account? Again, take it a step at a time. Connecting with people on and offline is a great marketing strategy – it’s all about building relationships – but if you’re looking at an enormous list of people to contact, then break your list down into simple steps. KISS – Keep It Simple, Sweetie. Break the task down. Start by choosing five people this week you could get in touch with. You could do your outreach all in one day or at different times throughout the week.

Now where it’s not just about promoting your services when you’re marketing, but about connection. This might start you wondering what on earth to market. Again keep it simple. (Are you noticing a theme here?!) Get clear first on who you are, what you do and what you offer. Next, choose ONE thing for now and focus on that as your key marketing message.

I’m the world’s worst at getting distracted by shiny things. Over the years, I have had to constantly refocus and refocus. However, I now practice ‘Radical Focus’ where I set a timer and focus on ONE single thing at a time. It makes an enormous difference, both in terms of overwhelm and what can be achieved, as it goes back to the KISS approach – Keep It Simple Sweetie. Get that ONE thing out of the way and then move on to the next one thing.

A good marketing mix

There are many different versions of the marketing mix – know your price, product, promotion and place, to name just one. There are lots of different versions out there. I’m not going to go into that. I’ll leave that all to the gurus, but think of the word ‘mix’, and that will help you keep things fresh. Get a good mix of different things going on.

Get clarity

1. What is your product or service?
2. How much is it?
3. How and where will you promote it?

I’ve only talked about social media marketing in this article, and people write books on that. Keep reminding yourself that you’re learning something new as you market in different ways, and remember that it takes time.

Action: Sit down with a pen and paper and write out what you’d like to achieve with your marketing. Get everything out of your head onto paper if you need to, and then pick your top ONE area to focus on. Next, break everything down into smaller, achievable tasks.

Let’s say you’ve chosen to build a Twitter following so that you can start marketing your new product/service. Start getting really specific. Don’t overwhelm yourself, just think of 2 or 3 strategies to get you started, i.e.

1. How accurate is your Twitter profile? Is it time to get it updated?
2. How many Tweets will you post a week?
3. How many people would you like to connect with each week?
4. Whose posts could you retweet to create some engagement and start some relationship-building?

Keep your marketing simple, but also keep it at. Consistency in marketing is key. It takes time to build a network, but your hard work will pay off.

No more strops. Just put some fabulously simple strategies in place!

Share in the comments which ONE area you will focus on for the first quarter of next year.