If you need to market your business but barely have time to do it and can't quite afford to outsource it, you know the meaning of being "between a rock and a hard place." Like trying to jump rope while wearing handcuffs, the idea of marketing your business so that you can continue to grow when you are already being pulled all over the map (mentally, creatively, financially) doesn't seem feasible.
Or does it? The truth is that you can trim and lighten your marketing workload by letting go of a few mindset traps that our modern business culture has built around us. If you are ready to get minimal with your marketing, this blog post is for you.
How to Lighten Your Marketing Workload Even if You Can't Outsource It
Most business owners in the home industry are marketing themselves in too many ways and with too little focus on what matters.
To refocus, make a list of everything you are doing right now to market your business. This might look like...
- Instagram (once per week only)
- Facebook (once per week only)
- TikTok
- LinkedIn (once per week only)
- Pinterest (pin blog posts and images from your website)
- Google ads
- Social media ads
- Blogging (once a month, share any new post on social media)
- Email marketing (once a month)
- Print ads (only use if you have verified the reader base and also have a sales funnel)
- Local signage (invest in professional car and building signage, often a one-time fee)
Grab a pen and start crossing things out with me. Let's start with ads. Unless you have a sales funnel (meaning a highly converting website with a lead magnet and consistent email marketing) and your ad is constructed properly (as a small ask with an aligned offer), ads will waste your money. All-day, every day. Besides, ads aren't marketing. They are advertising. Advertising is similar to yelling at many people in the street. Marketing is having a conversation with one or two or three of them.
So, cross out all the ads from your list. Go cancel them. Deactivate them. They haven't brought you any converted leads, anyway. Please, save your money.
Next, cross out TikTok. That user base is mostly too young for professional home services and tends not to see the value, even if they are wealthy and could technically afford you. TikTok is especially useless if you are targeting certain geographic areas or trying to build a referral network.
Next, consider crossing out Instagram and Facebook if you are targeting mid-to high-level homeowners or corresponding services. These people might be on Instagram, but they usually aren't. And when they do use it, they aren't using it to find their next home professional. Don't just take my word for it. Look at the Instagram and Facebook demographics yourself to verify. If you are selling lower-priced virtual services as your primary offering or lower-priced retail products, Instagram could be an excellent fit for you.
If you aren't selling lower-priced offerings, you don't need to post very often. Consider posting a photo of yourself and / or your work once per week. Write a descriptive caption, add a few hashtags (#yourservice #yourlocation #youridealclient #somethinginthephoto) and be done. If you blog, share an image from that blog post on Instagram and direct people to the link in your bio to read more (or share the link to the post directly on Facebook).
As for LinkedIn, that depends on your ideal client, too. Are they actively involved in a high-level career? The users of LinkedIn tend not to use other social platforms as much. These people are a different breed altogether. Entrepreneurs and other professionals who are data-driven, motivated, and perhaps a bit cut-throat (think lawyers, upper-level corporate office holders, Silicon Valley prodigies). If your ideal client is on LinkedIn, or if the users of LinkedIn are a good fit for your specialty service, consider posting once per week. Again, if your client is on LinkedIn, they likely aren't all that active on Facebook or Instagram. You don't need to show up in all three places every week.
Stop worshipping social media. Don't live in these apps. They don't love you as much as you are told you must love them. Some people get SOME leads from social media, but it all depends on their ideal client. Most often, the ideal client for a serious home professional is not on social media at all.
Take it from this Nashville-based interior designer. She has 120K followers and says that she does NOT get her clients from social media:
"I don't really need Instagram for my clients. They've already hired me. They have the money to spend, and I have a waiting list. What I have started to gear towards [on Instagram] is to help people who can't afford a designer."
-April Tomlin, owner and interior designer at April Tomlin Interiors
Moving on to the other items on the list:
Local signage is different and often one-and-done. Make sure your vehicle and your brick and mortar location have visible and professional signage.
Pinterest is a great search engine for home pros and can boost your SEO. Make sure you pin blog content and images from your website whenever new items are available.
Whew! At this point, we've crossed out a lot of items on your marketing task list. Here's what we are left with:
TikTok
- Pinterest (pin blog posts and images from your website)
Google ads
Social media ads
- Blogging (once a month, share any new post on social media)
- Email marketing (once a month)
- Print ads (only use if you have verified the reader base and also have a sales funnel)
- Local signage (invest in professional car and building signage, often a one-time fee)
Now that we've removed tasks that don't make sense for your ideal client, how do you feel? Does the marketing burden feel lighter on your shoulders? It should.
Looking at what remains, make a list of the tasks that apply to your ideal client. This could include posting just once per week on a few social platforms and pinning blog posts and images from your portfolio on Pinterest (that could include multiple graphics created for each post or you could keep it simple and pin everything once). Realistically, you would need to prioritize one hour at the end of each month to schedule four social media posts (yes, just FOUR) and pin a few new images / blog posts from your website.
If you can't afford to outsource your marketing...
If you can't afford to outsource this, these tasks are simple and quick enough for you to handle on your own. If you can't carve out one hour per month to address these items, you need to rethink your time management. This is a very small responsibility.
If you can outsource some, but not all of your marketing...
While it is easy to handle a few social media posts per month, the idea of other marketing tasks, like writing your blog, might scare you. Because blogging is incredible for SEO and can send so many leads into your business, this is something you need to consider as an investment. Hiring an employee who has real content marketing and writing experience or hiring an agency that specializes in the home industry is going to turn your blog budget from an overhead expense that you constantly question into a valuable investment you wouldn't dream of changing.
Maybe hiring a blog writer isn't possible for you yet. That's okay. If nothing else, you should have a lead magnet on your website and email marketing every month that is sent to your mailing list, even if that list has only five people on it. No one knows how small your list is besides you, and even the smallest list deserves be served well. Just think, if only three people on that list referred you to a friend, that could mean thousands of dollars in revenue for your business...and all you did was consistently email them good content.
Bottom line: Do your social media minimally and keep it in-house. Turn off your online ads and rethink whether your print ads are serving you. Outsource heavier investments like blogging, lead magnets, or email marketing.
Giving someone, besides you, the responsibility of staying consistent with those tasks will help ensure they actually get done instead of falling through the cracks of your busy schedule. You'll still need to provide input and notes and photos to whomever you hire, but you'll lose the burden of complete content creation. Amen to that!
In summary, here are the marketing tasks you need to accomplish, along with my suggestions on who should do them:
Social media - you or someone from your team should post once per week.
Offline networking - you or someone from your team should attend a networking event at least once per month; marketing is about relationships!
Pinterest at the basic level - you or someone from your team should pin blog content and photos from your website as they become available; this will have some impact on your SEO and is a good way to increase site traffic.
Pinterest at the SEO level - outsource to allow for custom graphic creation for each blog post and mood board transformation of your project images to get the most mileage out of your content and amp up your SEO as a result.
Email marketing - this includes a lead magnet and should be outsourced to someone who understands email marketing for professionals in the home industry or can be done by you if you are able to use marketing templates to expedite your efforts.
Blogging - this is the juiciest for SEO and should be on your radar to outsource in the near future; it is a marathon, not a sprint.
Marketing doesn't have to be complicated, tedious, or stressful. Marie Kondo the heck out of your marketing and go minimal.
