Article by Jade Francesca
As fempreneurs, we’re often getting pulled in many directions in our businesses, and marketing is no different.
From keeping track of the ever-changing algorithms on social media, to the various trends that pop up out of nowhere and become irrelevant within a week, to the gurus who pitch a million different ways to do your marketing that just never sits right…
It can get overwhelming. I know.
The good news is: it doesn’t have to stay overwhelming.
Let’s talk more about it.
#1 best marketing practice for a fempreneur = trust your intuition
With the pressure to follow the latest trends and to hop on the next cool marketing strategy because everyone else is doing it, it’s natural to feel like we have to fit into a certain mold, even when we know it doesn’t feel quite right for us.
But the truth is, forcing ourselves to hop on a trend that’s not aligned with who we are will hurt our businesses in the long run (and us, too).
Our audience can honestly sense when something feels inauthentic or forced, and it’s not fun for us OR them! At the end of the day, they’re much more likely to connect with us when we’re being true to ourselves.
This is why it’s SO important to remain connected to our intuition and to keep trusting it. Not only does it make our lives easier, but it actually helps us stand out from the crowd and connect with our ideal audience in a much more authentic, aligned way.
Of course, trusting our intuition isn’t always easy. I personally still struggle with trusting my intuition, even if it has literally (almost) always been right. Every time I don’t listen to my intuition, I end up in the regret rabbit hole wondering why I didn’t listen to it in the first place – only to find myself ignoring my gut feeling the next month!
A lot of us second-guess ourselves and feel unsure about our decisions, but our intuition truly does know best. It’s so important to take time to tune in to ourselves and really listen to what our gut wants to tell us.
Here’s a few practical tips:
Take a break from the noise of social media!
I literally need DAILY breaks from social media to make sure I don’t get influenced by everything that’s happening on there.
Social media also has a tendency to show how everyone else is doing so great and everything seems so easy for them (even when it’s not), which can quickly dampen your mood if you’re going through a rough patch in the rollercoaster of your business.
So, take breaks as often as you need them. It’s worth it. Contrary to popular belief, your business will not fall apart if you take social media breaks. Your audience gets it.
Journal & Reflect
Journaling is so important for your business and your marketing. And by journaling, I don’t necessarily mean you have to get out a pen and a notebook. You can do this digitally, you can say it out loud, you can talk about it to a friend or another fempreneur – you name it.
What’s important is not the method; it’s taking the time to reflect.
I’ve actually written a blog going in depth about this, including five prompts to get you started. Click here to read it.
Talk to another fempreneur
I can’t even begin to count the number of times talking to another fempreneur has saved me from falling into a self-doubt rabbit hole.
My best advice is to set some time every week (or every month) to chat with someone from your network whom you trust, so you can get out of your own head. It’s a game-changer.
If you’re not sure who to turn to, write a post in the Fempreneur Collective Facebook Group saying you’re looking for another fempreneur to chat weekly (or monthly!) about what’s going on in your business. Bonus points if she becomes an accountability partner, too!
#2 best marketing practice for a fempreneur = use people-centered marketing
As someone who’s been in the marketing game for a while now, I can tell you that one of the most effective marketing strategies is people-centered marketing.
In a nutshell, it means putting your audience at the heart of your marketing and always thinking about your customer’s journey and experience.
Let me give you some examples to illustrate people-centered marketing in practical ways:
Ask for customer feedback & implement it
Customer feedback is so, so, so important. Getting a round of beta testers for any new (or old but refreshed) offers is probably one of the most important steps in marketing, yet one a lot of entrepreneurs will skip.
The thing is: we are in too deep. As the ones creating those offers, marketing them, and delivering them, we know too much, and this can (and often will) blind us to what needs to be fixed to optimize user experience.
By getting some people from your audience to beta test your new (or existing) offers, you can get hands-on customer feedback, optimize your offers, and refine your marketing to ensure it truly resonates with your audience.
Use your testimonials to optimize your marketing
I’m not talking about sharing your testimonials in your marketing here, although you absolutely should.
What I mean is to use your testimonials as a market research tool and pinpoint what your best clients are saying about you and your offers, and integrate those words as part of your marketing.
Look through your past testimonials and see what words resonate best with your offers. You might also find that some clients keep mentioning a specific feature they really loved – put it at the center of your marketing message.
Always be transparent and honest
By being transparent and honest about our journey, our business practices, and sharing some “behind the scenes”, we’re building real trust with our audience by showing them that we’re committed to their best interests and we are true to our word.
It is so important to be transparent in this day and age, and our audience truly appreciates it.
Honesty goes a long way, and our audience can relate to our shortcomings when we share them.
Personalize your marketing to your audience
At the end of the day, people-centered marketing is all about really getting to know your audience. This means doing some research, and as I mentioned earlier, reaching out to your customers & asking for feedback, and really listening to what they have to say.
From there, you can tailor your marketing messages to speak directly to what they need to hear.
And here’s honestly the best part: when we use people-centered marketing, we’re not just creating more effective marketing strategies. We’re also building relationships with our audience that can last a lifetime.
We’re showing them that we care about them as people, not just as potential customers, and that genuinely creates a level of loyalty and trust that’s hard to come by in today’s world filled with gurus and fake experts.
#3 best marketing practice for a fempreneur = choose a strategy that works for YOU
From social media, to email marketing, to blogs, to podcasts, to ads (and so on and so forth), there are so many marketing strategies you can implement nowadays.
But the hard truth is that not every strategy is going to work for everyone.
That’s why it’s so important to choose a marketing strategy that feels authentic and aligned with who you are. Maybe you love creating video content and find that it comes naturally to you, or maybe you’re a gifted writer and enjoy writing blog posts, and that’s what should be at the center of your content strategy.
Finding a marketing method that plays to your strengths and feels enjoyable is key to creating a successful and sustainable marketing strategy.
When we try to force ourselves into a marketing strategy that doesn’t feel right for us, it 100% leads to frustration, and oftentimes, will lead to either procrastination or burnout (or in my case, it was both).
The good news is: when we choose a strategy that works for us, it’s much easier to stay consistent and create high-quality content that actually resonates with our audience.
Here are my practical tips to choose a strategy that works for you:
Start with your strengths
Your best content is often going to be the content you loved creating the most. Whatever you are good at and enjoy doing is your recipe for success, trust me. Authenticity, excitement, passion and confidence all attract our ideal audience, and the easiest way to naturally tap in those qualities is by doing what we love most.
Look back at all the marketing content you have created since you started your business, and reflect on what was easiest, what was the most fun, and what you were the best at.
That’s your starting point.
Don’t be afraid to experiment
Experimenting is the best way to find if something is for you or not, because let’s face it: we can’t always know how something will go without actually trying it.
Although I am someone who very much loves staying in my comfort zone, sometimes, we do have to step out of it (only when it’s aligned, of course) to find out a new method or strategy that is optimal for us.
For example, I never thought I’d have a podcast; I always told everyone that it would be too much work and I wasn’t cut out to talk on podcasts, because I tend to ramble a lot.
All of that is still true: podcasts are a lot of work, and I do tend to ramble a lot. That being said, I wanted to experiment with a podcast, and as it turns out? I LOVE it! My podcast is now the starting point of my marketing strategy, and it is awesome.
Experimenting can truly change the way you do marketing, and it is 100% worth it.
Set personal, realistic goals
I would say that one of the biggest struggles I see in my audience is that their goals are unrealistic. Unfortunately, that is often due to the fact that we have a ton of gurus and fake experts claiming that you can become rich in 30 days with 0 audience if you follow their 1-2-3 cookie cutter strategy, when in fact it hardly ever works out that way.
This leaves a lot of fempreneurs feeling like they’ve failed, done something wrong, or that it is their fault they didn’t “get rich quick” the way the guru said they would.
The reality is that marketing requires more patience. I know this isn’t what anyone wants to hear, but it is true. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and this applies here. Most organic strategies will take at least 2-3 months to see results in social media, and SEO strategies will take much longer, unless you manage to post some articles multiple times a week.
Take some time to assess how much time you can allow for your marketing, and see what could be a realistic goal for you. Ignore the gurus and the clickbait posts on Facebook (you know the ones), and see what would be most realistic for your journey.
3 best marketing practices to be a successful fempreneur
I’ll be super transparent here, I am terrible at conclusions. While we’re at it, I also am not the greatest at introductions, either. But that’s okay. Because I chose to put all of my energy into the heart of this article, to deliver content I hope resonated with you.
The recap is that your marketing strategy should be all about you, and your marketing message should be all about your audience.
Follow your intuition as often as you can, bring your audience to the center of your marketing, and have fun on your journey.
Yes, it is often a rollercoaster, but rollercoasters can be fun, can’t they?
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Meet Jade:
Jade Francesca, Aligned Marketing Strategist, is the Founder of Strategize with Creativity. She helps heart-centered entrepreneurs market their business from a place of authenticity, integrity and alignment. Jade’s mission is to guide her audience towards falling back in love with their business by learning how to attract the right audience and sell with passion.