Get more bang for your marketing buck
How to bootstrap a marketing strategy that creates a little less fear and a little more cheer for your small business.
When we’re not designing fabulous earrings or coaching the local girls footy team, we are writing copy and developing strategies to help purpose-driven businesses smash their goals through marketing and communications. So, what wisdom can we share?
Having started off in not-for-profit land, where the budget for marketing and communications is low, or non-existent, we had to learn to DIY, and fast. When you have to, you learn pretty quickly how to create content that connects, tells your story, and gives you maximum bang for your buck. The reality is that you don’t have time let alone money to sink into things that don’t work, but you still want to know that there’s a method to your madness.
While you might not be able to invest a shiny new strategy, you can’t afford not to be as strategic as possible with your marketing. So, if you are ready to get your comms on with a little less fear and a little more cheer, here are our three tips for bootstrapping a marketing strategy.
Go back to basics
We bet you can hear your Grade 1 teacher ringing in your ears, but - just like a good story - a good communications strategy starts with: the what, who, why, when, where, how, and how the f*ck do I tell if it’s working? Ok, so that last one probably didn’t make it to the classroom floor, but it’s nonetheless critical to DIY’ing your comms and marketing!
Kick off your strategy by reflecting on what questions you actually want your Strategy to answer. Do you want it to tell you when to post? Do you want it to help you make decisions about whether a piece of content is ‘on brand’? Do you want it to do the dishes? While you’re probably sh*t outta luck on that last one, if you play your cards right, you might just be able to generate enough money from your marketing activities that you can pay someone to do the dishes for you.
So, what could your Strategy cover if you want to cover most of the bases?
Gone are the days when a strategy is a big unwieldy Word doc that gathers dust and that no one ever uses. Ain’t nobody got time for that. The best strategies are short, snappy and help you make decisions, all the way from the big ‘how do we respond to this crisis?’ to the small ‘what do we want to tweet today?’.
The best strategies are also live documents, easily editable and complete with a basic description of the context behind how you arrived at your decision so that it’s easily shareable amongst team members or any external contractors or freelancers.
Mmmm, yum - now that’s a strategy we think even the ‘Kombucha woman’ would eat for breakfast.
If you want to cover most of the bases with your strategy, it’s time to go through the 5Ws and 2Hs (not super catchy, but go with us):
💭 Why → we know Simon says to ‘start with why’, and you really don’t want to find out what happens if you don’t do what Simon says, but starting with the ‘why’ or the reason you’re doing all this in the first place really does make the rest flow more easily. Start with the big picture vision of the world you’re trying to create and the role you hope your marketing can play in getting you there.
🗣️ Who → is your target audience or the people whose attention you’re trying to get. Paint a picture of them (literally, if you want to), what they like, what drives them ba-nanas, where they spend their time online, and what you want them to think, feel and do when you’ve got their coveted attention. Are they older or younger? Are they passionate about sustainability and like to know the brains behind the brand? Do they call things ‘fetch’ (ugh, stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen Gretchen)? Build out a profile or three about who you’re trying to reach so you can craft communications that speak directly to them and their needs.
🤷♀️ What → are you going to say when you have people’s attention? These ‘pillars’ or themes are really fun to come up with and critical to staying ‘on message’ and reinforcing what people can expect from you as a brand. Come up with 3-5 pillars or areas that you’re going to cover in your communications and content such as ‘money mindset’, ‘unpacking legal jargon 101’ or ‘sustainability tips’. If you want to take this a step further, note down your unique take on this topic and some guidelines for how you approach it, e.g. ‘we don’t shame, we educate’.
💻 Where → based on where your audience spends their time, and which platforms lend themselves best to your work or industry, figure out where you’re going to focus your limited resources (e.g. social media —> Instagram). Of course, if you’re a corporate lawyer there’s little point in spending your time making TikTok videos because your clients probably aren’t there, and if you’re an earring maker then maybe LinkedIn is not the place to spend your time because people aren’t ready to shop for luxe products on LinkedIn. Find out where your people are, and set up your lemonade stand there.
🕰️ When → figure out what’s realistic and doable for you in terms of how many times to post each day, each week or each month. There’s no magic number, but knowing what you do about your business, your audience and your resources to bring it to life, there will be a magic number for you. Remember: the best times to try and post content is when your audience is online, and when you have time to engage with them.
🎁 How → come up with some tactics and activities you can try out to reach your audience and build your brand. Perhaps an Instagram Live on a Monday morning is a great way to engage with your audience? A monthly e-newsletter with a special offer? Line up a podcast interview each month? We recommend not trying too many things at once because it makes it tricky to tell what’s working and what to tweak, not to mention it’s exhausting doing all that giving! But come up with at a handful of things to try and break them down into the smallest possible actions so you’ve got somewhere to start when the ‘strategy’ bit is done and you have to actually, umm, do the work. (What a bummer!)
😅 How the f*ck will we know if it’s working → this is one of the hard bits but figuring out how you will measure success and whether your content is helping you hit your goals (or not) is a critical part of your Strategy no matter how rudimentary it is. Get all S.M.A.R.T. on the goals you came up with at the start and come up with some meaningful qualitative and quantitative metrics to periodically check to see if it’s working. Remember: set a benchmark or note where you’re currently at, so you have something to measure against - and it’s not all about the numbers, stories are important too.
2. Remember it’s all a test
If you’ve ever posted something you think is sure to #BreakTheInternet only to hear absolute crickets, then posted a picture of a sad microwave dinner with a caption that you wrote while half asleep only for it to take off - this is for you. This work can sometimes be as infuriating as not having pockets in your pants.
The reality is that when your business is responsible for putting food on the table, it can feel like there is a lot of pressure on your marketing. And there is a lot of pressure on them. But unfortunately that pressure can actually inhibit our ability to think clearly and create freely. And the kicker is: audiences can smell that frustration and desperation, and it turns them off real quick. So, we need to find a way to take the pressure off and unleash the curiosity mindset!
Get curious about:
the time of day that gives you the highest engagement;
which headlines give you the best open rate;
which target audiences are the most likely to convert;
the platforms that give you the highest organic reach.
Basically, just pay attention and know what you’re testing, why, and how you’re measuring its success (e.g. post reach, open rate, clients served, impact created).
Take it from the experts: the only certainty when you don’t have a strategy is that you will never get off the hamster wheel, and your business is unlikely to survive without any marketing, comms or content at all, especially these days. People are hungry little content monsters.
While there is definite #science to successful marketing and communications, remember that even science requires a helluva lot of experimentation, which often feels more like an art. Whether it’s an A/B split test on your e-newsletter subject line, or a test on whether a graphic or an image performs better on your Insta feed - just have a go! The important thing is that you’re doing it for the right reasons: to better understand your audience and better serve their needs.
3. Play to your strengths and stop wearing all the hats
When you’re a small business owner - you’re wearing the fez, the fedora and the ferroniere (i.e. all the hats) and you might not necessarily be able to outsource as much as you’d like. But, in our experience, playing to your strengths and outsourcing various marketing functions like social media captions and blog content, if you don’t have the expertise in house, can create efficiencies and generate the revenue needed to cover your investment and more.
So, before you try and contort yourself into something you’re not, think about your strengths and how you could bring in freelancers, contractors or other team members to help complement those strengths.
On that note, we’re often asked ‘how much should I be spending on marketing?’ and the answer really is: ‘it depends’. Wow, super satisfying, thank you so much *rolls eyes*. But seriously - how much you should invest in your marketing and content depends on things like:
whether you have the skills in house or if you’d need to outsource;
how crowded your market is;
the results you’re expecting;
how technical or niche your work is;
how many brand assets you’ve already got;
how well you know your audience and what they want from you;
which platforms you’re going to concentrate on.
So, which hat fits?
Are you generally pretty good at writing but hate scheduling posts? Maybe you need a virtual assistant…
Are you a whiz with words but have no visuals to bring them to life? Maybe you need some graphic design support or a Canva crash course…
Are you good at the ideas but not so good with the words? Maybe a copywriter is the perfect fit…
Are you fine to post regularly but you’re not sure how to optimise your content? Maybe a digital marketer or brand strategist is what you need…
Are you rubbish at all of it or just want someone else to take care of it so you can focus on other things? Maybe an agency or freelance communications specialist is a good fit for you.
There you have it - how to bootstrap a marketing strategy that gives you the most bang for your buck. We know that when you’re working your backside off, all you want is a ‘sure thing’. But unfortunately, one of the most difficult things about this work is that once you think you’ve figured it all out, they go and change the algorithm on you or a new platform pops up (hello: Clubhouse). The strategy that never goes out of style is: show up, be of value and be true to yourself and your vision.
Wahhhhh. I still need a little more help…
You wouldn’t try and perform brain surgery on yourself (we hope), so why try and do all your comms and marketing on your own? If you’re considering outsourcing, do your best to first identify what you most want help with and get help to fill the gaps.
What a communications strategist can do for you → define your target audience and design a set of strategies and tactics to help you reach them, as well as what to say when you get there (i.e. key messages).
What a copywriter can do for you → organise your thoughts and make them sound better so you can offer value to your community, and help you define and share a brand personality through your copy and content.
What a digital marketer could do for you → analyse the data to help you identify what’s working and what’s not, and importantly - how to fix it - so you can generate more leads and increase your brand awareness.
What a ‘Carmen’ can do for you → all of the above - the strategy, the storytelling and the copy - with a serious dose of colour and creativity on the side.
If you need a little help to create content that brings all the grrls to the yard🥤, all you have to do is CARMEN GET IT!
