Lessons in Marketing from My Small Business

This is not another story about the pandemic and how it changed my business. It is about the changes that I made in marketing myself because of how the pandemic changed the way we work and communicate with one another.

The market has changed since 2020 and I’m sure that you have felt that in one way or another. My usual revenue streams went internal with the capability that I was contracted for, stopped having big in-person strategy sessions, canceled due to uncertainties with the election, you name it. The landscape has and will continue to change, and our ability as a small business to pivot and fight has never been more important.

I never had trouble getting work in my 19 years in the workforce as a freelancer. Lucky me, right? Maybe not for the fact that I missed out on are decades of building my online presence and getting rewarded by Google for legacy backlinks. What the heck does that mean?

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, an SEO or marketing expert, but here are a few key things that I did to increase my online presence and get new clients.

1. Network. Now, this is not in the traditional sense of getting your message out to prospective clients but connecting with people in your industry. Why? Aren’t they my competitors? Maybe, AND they got to be in the position of your competitor somehow or carved out another niche and you should learn the secret to their success. I have many more talented people in my arsenal to partner with or recommend by continuously networking. One of my “competitors” who I had a Zoom call with gave me the next piece of great advice that I never would have considered otherwise…
2. Advertise. There are LOTS of ways to advertise and some channels will make more sense for you based on your business. Taking out a Google ad can be effective depending on what you are selling. Different kinds of clothes or shoes could be too expensive to be competitive, whereas a niche product or service in specific geographic locations could be affordable. How do you figure this out?
3. Do your homework. This is when I learned more about Google ad campaigns, analytics, and SEO than I ever thought that I would. The first step that you should take to see if a Google ad is viable for you is to do a keyword search. This is the word or phrase that you believe potential customers will use to find and engage with or buy your products or services. Google ads has a helpful keyword search tool, but I recommend Semrush. They have their own proprietary “Authority, Visibility, and Keyword Difficulty” metrics that can show how competitive your keywords are. This is a lot to learn and manage on your own when you are trying to run your own business and you can only get so far.  
4. Hire someone. The metrics on Semrush can help you in your search to hire a SEO expert. If they tell you that it’s impossible to rank for keywords but you can see on Semrush that the keyword difficulty is ranked as “easy” ask more questions. It might be useful to engage with a full-service agency that can build your site complete with Metadata tags, build an SEO strategy, and create a Google Ad campaign. You can also use Fiverr to find more affordable options, but be wary of inexperienced resources and people trying to sell you on services you don’t need. This is basically like going to a new mechanic. They know that you don’t know much and can prey on that.  
5. Learn, test, grow. Use channels that your ads indicate could drive business. Ever hear that entrepreneurial story, “this product started as ‘X’ and now it’s ‘Y’”? How did that happen? Well, they likely set out to create something specific and got feedback from marketing and consumption that there was a need for something else. Look at your Google ad search phrases and words. Are they correct? I see “sketchnotes and “graphic facilitation” which is right, but I also see “ai” and “ai notetaking app” so I want to add those as negative keywords immediately. I also saw “Fiverr”, so I created a Fiverr account and get referrals that way now too. Check your searches and words weekly so that you are not paying for dead leads.

Okay, so these are some key things that I did to increase my online presence and get new clients, but what did I learn?

1. I learned that building your brand and online identity is hard, but the more that you connect with people, dig deep, and preserve the better off you will be. This is a personality type, and not everyone survives. My mentality as an endurance athlete lends itself to continue grinding away.
2.  I do not recommend cold calling people who may be interested on LinkedIn. I have only gotten a handful of warm leads that way and if I get one more lead generation solicitation on that app…do you see how this is not a great approach?
3. Putting out content matters. I have not started a TikTok just yet, but it is on my list, and I know that social is very important in an online digital strategy, but I’m an old Millennial and I honestly don’t want to TikTok.
4. Lean into your network. There are people who have always believed in you that you have delivered value to, and they want to help. Just ask.

Go forth and learn, test, grow!

Visit KateCovey.com for any of your visual note-taking needs or just say hello!

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