How to choose the best marketing and sales strategies for your creative business
There’s a pretty common misconception out there in the creative world.
Okay, to be fair, there are a few common misconceptions for us creative business owners. Misconceptions that are perpetuated by the same social media posts, how-to blogs and “do this or else you’ll fail” guides.
But the one I’m referring to today? It’s the misconception that in order to run a successful business, you need to run at the same speed and capacity while using the same marketing strategies a few years into your business as you did at the start.
In other words? It’s a widely-accepted belief that your business 3 years from now will need the same things that it needs today. And the truth is that your business is an ever evolving, organically-growing thing. It should not (and will not) need the same things next year as it does today.
Which is why you also shouldn’t be relying on the same tactics as you did when you first launched, right?
Running a business happens in phases. Three phases, specifically. Today, I’m here to help you identify where you are in your business, so that you can understand what sales and marketing tactics you should focus on!
Because I’ve been caught in the, “I need to be doing this, and THIS, and also THAT,” panic trap a time or two. Until I realized: what I used to do might not serve me now, and what I do now, might not serve me in a while.
Okay, now that you and I have established that there are phases and times for all of the things in your business, let’s break things down.
The 3 Stages of Running a Creative Business
Phase One: Start
This one’s pretty self explanatory. In the Start phase, you’re just getting your business and offer up and running. Your main priority is to get your name out into the world as widely as possible, so that you can get to booking up your business and living off of your creative work.
Your marketing strategy in the Start phase should primarily look like:
Tons of social media content: posting 5+ times per week, showing up on stories constantly so that your audience gets used to you, your personality and your voice. You’re also busy trying out new methods - you might be figuring out whether short-form video content (Reels and TikToks) works for you and your audience, and just how much “you” to share with the world.
Outreach and pitching: most of your time is spent trying to book new clients. So, you’re spending plenty of time on the phone with potential clients, sending proposals, cold emailing and getting signed contracts.
So, that’s the Start phase. You might be in this phase for 1 month or 1-2 years - there is no “perfect” time to transition in and out of this phase of business, because each business, and its audience, is unique and has its own set of needs.
Phase Two: Scale
This is around the time where your business begins to take off on its own. You’ll begin to notice that a healthy percentage of your bookings are coming from referrals or repeat clients, and that your time will be spent more on the “doing” than on the searching and finding.
Your marketing strategy in the Scale phase should primarily look like:
Regularly posting to social media: Yes, you’ll still want to maintain a presence on social media. However, your content and the cadence of your posting schedule will likely be lighter.
Community building rather than constant creation: In the Start phase of your business, you were constantly churning out new and exciting content. Now, you’re able to take a step back and intersperse new content with repurposed content. You’ll also spend a good amount of time simply engaging with your audience.
Email marketing: Because you’ve built up a following on socials and have taken the time to get to know them better, you’ve earned their trust. At this point, you should be transitioning some of your content focus over to email marketing. Ideally, you’ll send 1-4 emails to your list per month!
In the Scale phase, you might find that you’re beginning to feel a little overwhelmed, and potentially overworked. You might notice that you’re doing more work IN your business, rather than ON it. That’s a normal and expected outcome when you take into account the fact that you recently transitioned out of the Start phase (aka, the equivalent of you sprinting through a marathon for an indeterminate amount of time), and are now in the Scale phase (picture you hopping out of the marathon and into a moving train). You’re continuing to grow your business, while also transitioning to a more automated process. It can feel like a lot!
Phase Three: Steady
The Steady phase is the one we all strive for - the part where we finally find our footing as business owners, become experts of and for our audience (and their needs), and run a well-oiled marketing machine.
Your marketing strategy in the Steady phase should primarily look like:
Light social media presence: Because the work you did back in your Start and Scale phases has paid off, the content you already created will continue to bring you business. You’ll want to keep logging in and engaging, and posting new content when it feels right - but your social strategy should feel less like a burden, and more like an added luxury.
Blogging and email marketing: Now that you’ve built out your email list and have found a cadence that works for you, you’ll want to elevate your content creation strategy even more by building out a healthy business blog. Since you’ve earned the ability to decrease your social media posting schedule, you’ll be able to throw a few blogs into your monthly repertoire. Once those blogs are posted, they should also be shared on Pinterest so that others can find you from all over the world.
Content for your fellow creatives: You’ve jumped through the hoops and gone through the hassle of starting and scaling a business, and you now have a ton of value to share with budding creatives. And who knows? You might even decide that you’d like to develop a digital shop or mentorship program for creative business owners. In the Steady phase, try to work content into your social media, emailing and blogging strategy that not only serves your ideal (i.e., paying) audience, but also helps fellow creators learn and grow. This’ll not only further assert you as the expert in your space, but it’ll allow you to prime your audience in case you do choose to launch products or consultative offers down the road.
Meet yourself where you’re at.
Before I let you go, I want to remind you that no two businesses are ever the same. If your business isn’t at the phase you’d like it to be *yet,* don’t get yourself down. The fact that you’ve launched your own business and offer and have made it this far is a feat in and of itself - by using the marketing tips and advice shared above, you’ll be able to finetune your focus, and organically transition into that next phase of business when the time is right.
