Hey there – and welcome to episode 110 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thanks for leading me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices out there and I appreciate you making me one of them.

I’m Jenn, the host, marketing thought leader and digital strategist and coach for small businesses.  And just an all round small business lover with one goal in business – to make every small business I come across to make marketing a priority in their business – because if you want to grow, you need to market!

And today we are going to talk more about marketing yourself and the difference between being a guest and a pest!

So often I hear from small business owners that they don’t want to email TOO OFTEN or POST too often or do too much marketing, because they don’t want to be a pest in their potential client’s inbox or social app.

But the reality is, we live in a VERY competitive and busy marketplace and it does take a lot of be a PEST as much.

But there is definitely a line.  A line between being a welcome guest in someone’s inbox or on someone’s screen and being an unwelcome pest.

And with the busyness of social media – I have to say that if you’re talking about a subject over and over again, and you are starting to think “OMGoodness people must be SO sick of hearing about this from me” – then and only then are people probably starting to see it and absorb it – purely because the world of social and our inboxes are just SO busy.

For me and what I teach my clients is that the line isn’t as thin as you think it is.  Especially if you know what information to send or give your potential clients.

Because I don’t think the fear of most business owners is that they will overwhelm their clients, it’s more that they have trouble getting their messaging and marketing customer centric – about the customer, not about them.

Absolutely, if you are sending or posting all about you and what you do and how long you’ve done it for and how good you are constantly, then 100% you are going to get unsubscribes and stop having their eyes on your socials.

**Just a side note here – I am not talking about story telling and telling your story or using your experience and expertise to help or to share with your audience – that’s different to just banging on about you.

You know the difference – think about it.  Think of the socials you’ve unfollowed or the emails you’ve unsubscribed too because they were constantly telling you how good they are …

Oh, second side note – About Pages on people’s websites are the WORST at this.  Seriously, go count how many times on your website or About page you say the word “I” – the more “I”s the less it’s about your customer.

Nobody cares who you are, where you are or what you do but they do care about how you can help them solve their problems, what tips, tricks and advice you can share and if you can show them a better way – enter the story telling element of marketing!

People don’t like to be pitched too or feel like they are being sold too.

They just want to be HEARD.

Understood.

So, if you’re getting lots of unsubscribes or feeling like you’re a pest, take a good look at the quality of information you are offering.

Is it about YOU or about THEM?

Everyone’s favourite subject is themselves, so we need our marketing to be about our customers – using customer centric language.

Use pronouns in your marketing such as “you, your and yours” and NOT “I, us, my, me, we, our, mine”.

So, your task today is to go and have a look at your last 3 emails to customers, your last 5 social posts and your website and count the number of times you have written “I, us, my me, we, our, mine” – and try and change up the language to make it more customer centric – more about the reader and less about you.

Of course, the exception is if you are story telling and the story is going to provide value or be insightful for your reader, with a call to action for them as well.

Imagine if my podcast was just full of me talking about me … you’d never listen again!  But it’s about you – providing tips, tricks, actions for you to help you make your marketing a priority and to help make your business life simpler.

If you are providing valuable information, ideas, advice and tips that your TARGET AUDIENCE will find helpful, insightful and useful – I guarantee you that you’ll NEVER be a pest and always a welcome guest.

So perhaps you’re not so worried about being a pest to someone as you are worried about not knowing what the strategy behind the marketing is and what to say, when.

See, everything about making business simpler, keeps coming back to strategy – having a solid strategy will stop you from being a pest and will make your life so much better and simpler.

So, what does your marketing strategy look like?

Perhaps if you just belly laughed because you don’t have one or just raising your eyebrows in curiosity or something in between, it’s time for us to chat.

Schedule a free discovery chat with me and let’s talk about how I can help you with your business and marketing strategy.

Book a call here: https://calendly.com/jenn-smm/discovery

If you have any queries or questions, I’d love to hear from you in the Like Minded Business Owners group – if you haven’t joined yet, please do – it’s a community of amazing small business owners who are all kinds of vulnerable and share their knowledge and journey with everyone.

But that’s it for episode 110 – I’ll be back for 111 next Thursday – look forward to chatting again then.

Have a fabulous week. 

If you’re enjoying this podcast, which if you have listened to here – you hopefully are, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode with another superstar business owner who’s doing the daily grind and would appreciate someone making their business simpler, and leave a rating or review to show how much you are loving this free weekly content and my fabulous guests!

See you next week

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!