If you run your own business, there’s a good chance Marketing sometimes feels like a never-ending to-do list.
Post on LinkedIn. Show up on Instagram. Think about email. Maybe try video. Someone mentions TikTok. Then there is the website you “really must update” and the Blog you “should probably start”.
It’s no wonder marketing can feel overwhelming.
The Overwhelm: starting with tasks, not foundations
One of the main reasons Marketing can feel overwhelming is that most people start in the wrong place.
They start with tasks:
“I need to post more on LinkedIn”
“I should send a newsletter”
“I ought to show up in Reels”.
Instead of starting with foundations:
What am I offering?
Who is it really for?
What problem does it solve for them?
What do I want my Marketing to do for my business?
If you skip those foundations, every task will feel bigger and more energy-draining than it needs to be. You are trying to “do Marketing” without a clear sense of what you are saying, to whom and why it matters.
Strategy first. Always my advice. While that doesn’t mean you have to create a 30-page strategy document, you do need to do some strategic thinking.
A simple one-page outline of your offer, audience, problems you solve and what “good” looks like for your Marketing can make everything else feel lighter.
Too many channels, not enough focus
Another reason Marketing feels overwhelming is the pressure to be everywhere.
My advice to all my clients: a focused channel where you know your audience is present is much better than spreading yourself thin across LinkedIn, Instagram, Bluesky and more.
You will always feel behind if your “plan” is to be visible on every platform, every week. Especially if it is just you or a very small team managing the posting.
A better approach is to choose one primary channel where your ideal clients are genuinely active, commit to showing up there consistently in a way that works for you and treat everything else as “nice to have”, not “must have”.
For many B2B small business owners, that primary channel is LinkedIn. For others, it might be Instagram or even an email list. Choose with intention, not out of FOMO. From here, consider your messaging, the content you could create and how this aligns strategically to your offering and target audience.
Consistency vs intensity
It’s easy to overcook things. You may start with the best of intentions, for example: daily social posts, a weekly newsletter and creating video content.
It works for a bit. Then client work ramps up, life happens and suddenly you disappear from your channels for weeks. The stop-start pattern is exhausting and makes Marketing feel like something you are constantly “failing at”. You equally lose any trust your followers, email subscribers or potential clients had in you and your business because you haven’t maintained a consistent flow of messaging.
A more sustainable approach is to consider what level of activity you can genuinely sustain most weeks across the year. For some small business owners, that is three social posts a week and a blogpost. For others, it might be a few videos posted plus daily social activity, and one email a fortnight. Consistency is far more powerful than a burst of activity you can’t maintain.
Your life and workload are part of your strategy
Unless you outsource your Marketing to take the load off, your marketing plan and managing it has to fit around your actual life and workload.
It is not just about customer profiles, messaging and content formats, it’s also about:
when you realistically have time to create and schedule content.
how your energy levels fluctuate during the week.
what you actually enjoy doing.
If the weekend is the only time you have to think about your own Marketing, build around that. If you hate being on camera but can happily write for an hour, lean into written content. If your target audience is on Instagram and your team enjoys creating Reels, empower them to do so. If networking and conversations light you up, make those a core part of your visibility.
Marketing feels less overwhelming when it is designed around you, your strengths and your team’s capabilities and motivations.
Make marketing about helping others
Underneath all of this, there is a mindset shift that can really simplify things and level up your Marketing.
See your Marketing as a way of helping people:
What are your clients struggling with right now?
What questions do they keep asking you?
What do they need to know or understand before they can move forward?
Get curious about your clients’ problems. Use their language to talk about those problems. Their problems are insights into their world, and those insights create ideas for your content. You’re not trying to reinvent the wheel every week. You are returning to the same core themes and repeating them in different ways so your brand builds trust with your customers.
So, why can marketing feel overwhelming?
Most of the overwhelm comes from:
Skipping the foundations and diving straight into tasks
Trying to be on too many channels at once
Setting an unrealistic posting schedule
Designing a plan that fights your working life, rather than supporting it
Feeling pressure to constantly create something new instead of repeating key messages.
When you strip all of that back, Marketing becomes a lot simpler if you know who you are talking to and understand the problems you help them solve. It’s less complicated when you pick one main channel to focus on and choose a realistic rhythm you can sustain. And just keep doing that.
Season 2, Episode 1 of the podcast show I co-host, A Measure of Marketing, delves a bit deeper into the overwhelm. Kelly annd I offer practical insights into what to let go of, what to keep and how to make Marketing feel far more manageable.