3 Marketing Decisions Every Business Owner Should Make Before Fall

Feeling like your summer marketing has been a half-finished puzzle? You're not alone. The seasonal chaos of vacations, kids at home, and disrupted routines leaves many entrepreneurs struggling with inconsistent content creation and unclear focus.

The good news? It's not about having too little time—it's about making three specific marketing decisions that will transform your approach and eliminate that overwhelming feeling of constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall.

In this episode, I break down exactly how to simplify your next 90 days of marketing by focusing on priority channels, content themes, and a realistic schedule. You'll discover why you don't need to be everywhere (just where your audience is), how to create content around themes that directly connect to your offers, and how to design a marketing schedule that actually fits your life.

I share my 15 years of experience to explain why daily content creation is nearly impossible for busy entrepreneurs and offer practical alternatives like content batching that maintain consistency without burnout. We explore the critical relationship between your marketing strategy and customer journey, showing how intentional content creation guides your audience toward your solutions.

Ready to move from summer chaos to fall focus? I'm hosting a 4-day Marketing Momentum sprint starting August 25th where we'll work together to create your complete 90-day marketing plan with clear priorities, realistic schedules, and systems to keep everything running smoothly. Join me and discover the peace that comes from having marketing clarity rather than constant overwhelm. Visit JennyMelrose.com/marketing-momentum to secure your spot!

Chapters

• 0:14 Intro to Marketing Decisions
• 1:38 Summer Marketing Challenges
• 3:19 Decision 1: Priority Channels
• 5:23 Decision 2: Content Themes
• 7:15 Decision 3: Marketing Schedule
• 9:48 4 Days to Marketing Momentum

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

This is the Influencer Entrepreneur's Podcast with Jenny Melrose, where I strategize with business owners on how to grow and scale their businesses to hit their income goals. This is episode 457 of the Influencer Entrepreneurs Podcast with Jenny Melrose. Today, we're going to be diving into three marketing decisions every business owner should make before fall. I know that the summer can bring a lot of crazy into our world, whether it is because your schedule is interrupted because there are kids home or you are traveling to see family, going on vacations, spending time with the family that you still may have in your house, or with the family that isn't in your house because maybe they're off to college. Whatever it might be, summer can often feel like a half-finished puzzle. We're not able to be consistent. We can feel like we have a very unclear focus and we're inconsistent, probably, in creating content and there's really no plan. What we're going to do is make sure that we get you onto a plan. I'm going to give you three key marketing decisions that can completely simplify the next 90 days of your business, and this is so important because marketing overwhelm isn't caused by too little time. It's caused by too many decisions left unmade. We end up throwing spaghetti against the wall because we go oh, I need to have a post-op or I need to have a podcast episode, or I need to have a YouTube video. There's no rhyme or reason as to what we are doing and why we are doing it, and because of that, our social is often disconnected, as well as our email marketing. We need to make sure that we are simplifying it and giving it clarity so that we're not wasting hours or second-guessing what we should beifying it and giving it clarity so that we're not wasting hours or second-guessing what we should be posting, when and where, but instead we have an actual direction, strategy and plan that we have put into place to make sure that we are moving the needle on our business by consistently getting our products and services in front of our audience through the content that we are creating. This is often what I find for myself over the summer and is why you're going to hear that I am focusing and creating a four days to marketing momentum sprint that you are going to be invited to join in. So make sure that you listen into this episode and you can check in the comments for the four days to marketing momentum sprint, where we're going to make sure you walk away with a plan that you can actually put in place in just four days. But before we jump into that, I want to give you the three marketing decisions every business owner should make. So the first decision is deciding on your priority channels.

Speaker 1: 3:25

You've often heard me talk about the fact that you do not need to be everywhere. If your audience is not on certain social media platforms, then why are you wasting time posting to them? It just is a waste of time to do that. So instead, I want you to choose one to two platforms that reach your audience best, and we always start that. Your criteria for this needs to start with consistently putting out content on one platform, and I often talk about the fact that this can be a blog, podcast or YouTube. And the reason that those are the three that I choose is because you have actual ownership when you can put it onto your website. So if you start with a podcast episode, you can then turn that transcript into a blog post and have it on your website with the podcast audio embedded. If you start with a YouTube video, you can pull the audio, create a podcast and then again create the blog post that is going to go on your website that will have the podcast episode as well as a YouTube video embedded. We want to drive people back to our websites so that they can get caught into that web and understand exactly what we do and really get the full solution that they are looking for for the problem that you solve for them.

Speaker 1: 4:45

So I want you to make sure that you are taking a look at this. What would this look like for you? How can you make sure that you pick those one to two platforms that are the best fit? You want to make sure that it is where your audience is most active, where you actually enjoy creating and what is going to drive results. So you need to make sure that you are using metrics. We always talk about the importance metrics of your numbers, and it's really important that when you are trying to decide where you enjoy creating, that you can remain consistent there. Commit to showing up so that you can actually see if it's moving the needle on your business. Decision number two needs to be your content themes. Content gets easier when you actually focus on a few repeating themes that align with your offers.

Speaker 1: 5:36

We talk about this with the idea of the pillars of content. What are those three pillars. What are those three themes that you consistently create content for? Because it is in line with the product or service that you offer that solves the complete and has the complete solution for your audience. So I want you to look at where would be the best place for you to be creating that content within your pillars of content or your themes? So really start to think about where you can be doing this. The themes or pillars prevent that whole not knowing where to put the content out and throwing spaghetti in the wall. Instead, you can stay within a content pillar and make sure that you're creating content that interlinks to other pieces of content. So, as you may have noticed, over the summer we talked about the customer journey and the fact that it starts off in the consideration phase and then moves on to the decision-making phase and then moves on to retention of that customer. Wow, all of those episodes were interlinked to each other because they built on each other, and this is what you're trying to do within your pillars of content. It's important for me to make sure that you all understand the customer journey in your marketing, because they built on each other and this is what you're trying to do within your pillars of content. It's important for me to make sure that you all understand the customer journey in your marketing, so that you're making sure that the marketing that you are creating is in line with your customer journey and where they are on it. Hence why I created that content. So you want to make sure that you stick within those pillars or themes, to make sure that you are being consistent with it.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Decision number three is your marketing schedule. Even a great plan is going to fail without a realistic schedule that fits your life, and here's the thing that I need you to understand. You cannot simply just Google schedule for marketing. It doesn't work that way. Everyone's journey is different. It's important that it fits your life. Where do you have pockets of time to do continuous marketing? Where are the platforms that you need to be on, based upon your audience? All of these things are going to go into your marketing schedule, because when is your audience most likely to interact and engage with the content that you are creating and what platforms are they going to be on? So, because of that, your marketing schedule needs to reflect your life as well as the content that you're creating for your audience.

Speaker 1: 8:11

We often talk about the importance of batching. You can batch or you can try to create content daily, and I'm going to tell you right now, as someone that has been in the online space for 15 years yes, I am a dinosaur, I don't want to hear it that daily content creation is almost impossible if you are inactive a mother, a grandmother, more or less. In my opinion, if you're a woman, even if you're a single woman, going on and trying to create daily content creation is not going to be sustainable. Think how you can potentially start batching your content, making sure that you are putting out multiple pieces of content, or creating it at least at once, so that you can schedule it ahead of time, or creating it at least at once so that you can schedule it ahead of time. You want to get ahead of your content and make sure that you can remain consistent that way. You also want to make sure that, within your schedule, like we had talked about the last week you probably heard me talking about it on Hinge the importance of making sure that you have boundaries put in place for your schedule, as well as systems. The more systems that you have, the more consistent you are going to be, the quicker you will get things done and the easier it is to schedule because you know exactly how much time things are going to take, because you have a system in place.

Speaker 1: 9:34

So when we take all three of these marketing decisions so we're talking about your priority channels, your content, theme or pillars and your marketing schedule you are able to actually have a sense of peace. You don't feel like running around not knowing what you're going to be posting or that continuous sense of overwhelm, that spiral that we often get into because we don't have things planned out, we don't have routines, we don't have strategies. Now, if you're anything like me, the summer has been this kind of continuous overwhelm. It's always like that. So one of the great strengths that I have that as being a former inner city school district teacher, is that when summer is over and school year hits which it has here in the south I am ready to get you onto a schedule, but actually make them and leave with a complete 90-day marketing plan. I'd love for you to join me inside 4 Days to Marketing Momentum.

Speaker 1: 10:48

The sprint starts August 25th and runs through August 28th.

Speaker 1: 10:53

We will meet live via Zoom with available replays afterwards if you're not able to attend live, at 12 pm Eastern, each of those days where we will be breaking down and making sure that you have a clear plan, a realistic schedule and systems to keep it going.

Speaker 1: 11:13

If you go to JennyMelrosecom, forward slash marketing dash momentum, you can sign up there. We're also going to have it in the description as well as linked in the blog post. So, regardless of where you are right now, make sure that you get signed up. We will be closing registration for this the night before, which will be Sunday, august 24th. So if you're listening to this after these dates so after the sprint has already taken care of, because I know many of you go back into the podcast archives we most likely will be hosting this again and we will be doing sprints throughout the year. So definitely keep your eyes out, make sure that you are grabbing the strategic growth guide so that you are on my email list and getting all of the information about the sprints that we will be doing throughout the year, as always. I appreciate you all so much for listening in and until next time I will see you then.