Slow Marketing For Burned-Out Small Business Owners
I started running my own side business around six years ago. I started it right before we entered into the pandemic - a great time to start a new business - and continued to work on it even when I went back into my 9-5 marketing career a few years later.
Over the last few years, I’ve taken a big hit to my health and well-being thanks to an autoimmune and hypothyroidism diagnosis. This meant that I had to take a hard look at how I was running my side business and managing my part-time career in marketing.
It meant that I had to slow down completely, take on fewer hours at work and approach my business in a slower and more intentional way.
After taking a step back, I realised that I was trying to follow marketing and social media advice that didn’t fit my energy capacity. It meant that I was always trying to show up in a way that didn’t feel authentic or sustainable for me, and I knew that I had to find a way to do things differently for my health and the benefit of my business.
For me, slow marketing isn’t just something I want to do; it’s something I need to do if I’m going to be able to show up fully for my business. With all that in mind, I wanted to show you how slow marketing could be the answer you’ve been looking for. How it could help support your business without asking more of you than you can give, and to help you create marketing strategies that don’t just feel easy to implement, but actually feel good for the soul.
Let’s dive in together…
What is slow marketing?
Slow marketing is a more values-driven approach to marketing that focuses on building a connection with your audience over a longer period of time. It’s about offering depth, value and quality to your audience, in a way that feels intentional, well-thought through and human.
The key is right there in the name, it’s ‘slow’. It’s not about how many followers you can gain overnight; it’s about how you connect and engage with the followers you already have. It’s not about being snowed under with new sales; it’s about selling to the people who feel most connected with your values and ethos.
To start on a slow marketing journey is to embrace patience and a gentler pace when doing business. You switch your focus to quality over quantity and offer an experience that feels human and not transactional.
How can slow marketing strategies help you avoid burnout in your business?
When business owners experience burnout - something I’ve recently only just recovered from myself - it’s most often because we’ve placed unrealistic expectations on ourselves and what our business is currently capable of doing.
I often compare it to pulling a muscle. If you want to get stronger, you have to build that strength gradually and over time. If you try to lift something too heavy too soon, that’s when injury happens. The same applies to business, especially when you’re the only one doing all the heavy lifting.
Slow marketing gives us more breathing room. It allows us to go at a pace that feels good for us and requires us to put our well-being before business goals. This helps us build a business that fully reflects the more peaceful, joyous and flexible life we’re trying to build for ourselves.
By thinking about our marketing from a capacity-first perspective, we’re able to create slow marketing strategies that feel manageable and sustainable. We’re able to finally feel like marketing is an extension of our day-to-day business, rather than a drain on our professional and personal resources.
How can you start implementing slow marketing strategies in your business?
The first place to start is by auditing your current marketing processes.
Think about everything you currently do to market your business and ask yourself the following questions:
What am I doing that feels overly extractive? What drains me? What leaves me feeling exhausted?
What feels like I’m putting in more than I’m getting out? What’s failing to ‘move the needle’?
What do I dread doing and wish someone would come in and do for me?
Your slow marketing strategy should never feel like something you ‘have’ to do. Slow marketing is about forming and nurturing relationships with your audience, clients or customers. It should feel like picking up a phone and having a conversation with your favourite people.
It should feel human.
Once you’ve figured out what you do that feels like a drain on your energy, then you can start to dive in and see what it is exactly that isn’t working for you.
Think about:
Why does that marketing activity feel like such a chore? What is it you hate about having to do it?
How do you know if a marketing activity has worked or not? How are you tracking this? Are you not tracking at all and simply judging it on vibes?
What would it feel like to not do those marketing activities? What impact would you actually see on your business if you stopped right now?
Now, think about what marketing tasks you do enjoy doing. Ask yourself:
What marketing activity makes me feel like I’m actually connecting with my audience?
What changes could I make to my current marketing activities that would allow me to find greater joy in this work?
Are there any marketing tasks I would enjoy doing but haven’t yet tried? E.g. are you always working on social posts, but actually enjoy writing blogs more?
How much time do you actually have to work on your marketing? What type of tasks would fit best in that timeframe?
Even answering these few questions could help shed some light on how you might be able to make changes to your current marketing strategy to slow it down and make it more manageable.
Often, we approach marketing from a place of panic and fear of lack, so taking a little bit of time to do a quick review like this can massively help you to see the bigger picture and ease some of that pressure.
Why gentle marketing strategies are more important than ever
So much of our society revolves around instant gratification, but we’re starting to see a great deal of fatigue around fast delivery and having everything at our fingertips.
That’s why vinyl record sales have seen their highest sales in the last 30 years. Gen Z are actively hunting down the VHS tapes we millennials discarded, and some people are even giving up their iPhones for the classic Nokia 3310.
People are craving a slower pace because our nervous systems are frazzled. In a recent ONS report, it was stated that over one in three British workers is suffering from chronic stress, and around 34% of surveyed adults said they currently experience extreme or high levels of stress.
Gentle, slow marketing strategies don’t just benefit the business owner; they also allow you to approach your target audience in a gentler and more sustainable way.
Nobody wants to feel pressured into buying or investing in a product or service; it just adds more stress and anxiety to an already overflowing supply.
Instead, we can offer slow marketing that feels approachable, authentic and empathetic for our audience, while also supporting our businesses and feeling good for our own nervous systems.
How to get more support with your slow marketing journey
If you’re looking to embrace a slower, more gentle approach to marketing in your business, then I’m here to guide and support you the best I can.
With over a decade of hands-on marketing experience and running side businesses of my own, I can help offer tried and tested ways for you to transform your marketing into something that feels manageable, sustainable and authentic.
To get started, make sure to sign up for The Slow Marketing Club bi-weekly newsletter, which lands in your inbox every other week, to offer you support and guidance in building your own slow marketing strategies.
Speak soon!
Cat x
