There’s something about the end of summer that seems to bring a renewed sense of motivation for business owners.
Small businesses tend to move at a slightly slower pace through July and August. People are traveling, taking vacation, spending more time outside, and often accept that projects are going to take a little longer while everyone enjoys the season.
Then September starts approaching.
Suddenly, the creative juices are flowing again. People are feeling refreshed, and they start making ambitious plans for everything they want to accomplish before the end of the year:
- Posting more often
- Sending more emails
- Refreshing their branding
- Redesigning their website
- Joining a new social media platform
- Starting a blog
While that renewed energy can be a wonderful thing, it can also lead to a familiar cycle: you pack your schedule with new marketing goals, keep up with everything for a few weeks, and eventually realize you’ve committed to far more than you can realistically maintain.
Client work picks up, emails pile up, and your own marketing slowly starts slipping again.
Before long, you’re right back where you were before the summer: overwhelmed, inconsistent, and feeling like you aren’t doing enough.
But what if doing more isn’t the answer? The better approach might be to take a closer look at what you’re already doing and figure out where your marketing could be working harder for you.
More marketing isn’t necessarily better marketing
We now have more tools than ever to help us create and publish content. AI can generate tons of social media ideas in seconds, write email drafts, and help you fill your content calendar faster than ever before.
So let’s say theoretically that you can keep up with the ambitious new marketing schedule you’ve created.
That still doesn’t mean you should.
People are already inundated with content, and they tend to tune out volume. Their inboxes are full, their social media feeds are never-ending, and every business is competing for a small part of their attention.
Adding more generic posts, emails, or content that doesn’t have a clear purpose isn’t going to help you reach your goals. If your audience ignores your content, scrolls past your posts, or deletes your email without looking at it, these marketing efforts aren’t going to accomplish much.
Instead, every new marketing goal you commit to should be strategic and intentional.
Before you decide you need to post five times a week, send another email, redesign your website, or join another platform, take a closer look at what you’re already doing.
You may not need more marketing. You may need to optimize what’s working and change what isn’t.
There’s a point where more stops helping
This is the common thread I want you to keep in mind as we look at each area of your marketing: almost every good marketing practice has a point where doing more stops producing better results.
- Having a website is important, but constantly redesigning or adding unnecessary pages can make it harder to navigate.
- SEO and GEO optimization can improve your visibility, but over-optimizing your content can make it sound unnatural.
- Email marketing helps you stay connected with your audience, but sending too many emails can cause people to tune you out.
- Posting consistently on social media is valuable, but posting content just to meet an arbitrary quota isn’t going to help your business.
The goal isn’t to do as much marketing as possible. It’s to find the level of effort that supports your goals, your audience, and your capacity.
Start with your analytics
Before making any major changes, spend some time looking at your analytics.
This isn’t just about “vanity metrics” like the number of followers or subscribers you have. It’s about determining what content or platforms truly support your business goals.
Which efforts are making a real impact? Which email topics get the most opens? What content seems to start the most conversations? Most importantly: where are your actual leads coming from?
Look at the data across all of your marketing efforts: your website analytics, social media insights and email marketing data, and your Google Business Profile. Then compare what you’re seeing against your inquiries, referrals, and sales. Pay attention to the patterns that emerge.
Are there certain platforms, content styles, or topics that consistently generate interest, consultation calls, or sales?
If you’re struggling to analyze your analytics (or just want even more information), you can also always ask people directly.
When someone becomes a client, ask how they heard about you. If you’re wondering what your audience wants to learn from you, ask them. Talk to your customers and pay attention to the questions they repeatedly bring to you. These insights are extremely valuable!
You might discover that LinkedIn is generating significantly more conversations than Instagram. Maybe your email list is small but incredibly engaged. Maybe most of your new business comes from referrals.
For local businesses, you may even discover that your in-person presence is doing far more for you than posting on social media every day ever could.
All of this information can help guide you in the right direction, indicating where to focus your efforts, time, budget, and energy.
You don’t need to do what everyone else is doing. You need to understand what’s working for your business.
Your website doesn’t need constant reinvention
I think almost every business needs a website.
Social media profiles can be valuable, but the platforms ultimately aren’t under your control.
Your website, on the other hand, gives you a centralized home for your business where you can explain what you offer, who you help, answer common questions, demonstrate your expertise, and offer a next step for interested consumers.
Your website is also increasingly important for online visibility. Search engines need information about your business, and as I’ve discussed in my recent blogs about Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), AI tools also need clear, accessible information in order to understand and potentially reference your business.
So, yes, your website is an important piece of your marketing strategy. It should be updated, factual, and reflective of your brand. But that doesn’t mean it requires a redesign every few months.
In fact, constantly changing your website, branding, messaging, and visual identity can sometimes create more confusion than clarity. Your audience needs a chance to become familiar with you.
Instead, focus on making sure the website you already have is doing its job.
- Does it still accurately represent your business?
- Can someone quickly understand what you offer?
- Is important information easy to find?
- Is your website mobile-friendly? Is it accessible?
- Are your services current?
- Can visitors easily figure out what to do next?
These answers can help you decide where to focus your efforts.
You also don’t necessarily need a website with dozens of pages and complicated features. More pages don’t automatically mean a better user experience. Sometimes they just end up giving people more places to get lost.
For newer businesses or those with relatively straightforward needs, a simple website may be enough. I’ve recently started offering smaller, four-page websites for exactly this reason. They give businesses a professional home online without requiring them to invest in a larger website before they actually need one.
The goal isn’t to build the biggest, most complex website. It’s to build the website that fits the needs of your business and customers.
SEO and GEO still need to sound natural
The same idea applies to the content within your website.
I’m a huge advocate for regularly improving the content on your website, keeping your Google Business Profile updated, paying attention to SEO, and adapting your marketing as AI changes the way people search online.
But there is such a thing as over-optimization.
If you’re rewriting every sentence because you want to squeeze another keyword into it, adding awkward questions everywhere because you’ve heard AI prefers question-and-answer content, or trying so hard to appeal to an algorithm that your website no longer sounds human, you’ve gone too far.
The same principle applies to both SEO and GEO: your website still needs to make sense to the person reading it.
Use the language your customers actually use. Answer their questions conversationally, thoughtfully, and in moderation. Be specific about what you do and where you do it. Organize your pages and navigation logically. Focus on user experience.
At the end of the day, make sure your website still sounds like you.
More emails aren’t always the answer
Your audience’s inboxes are already crowded. If you suddenly decide you’re going to send three emails a week when you previously sent two a month, you might end up overwhelming your subscribers.
Now, there’s a caveat here. Sending frequent emails can be a successful marketing strategy, depending on your business type and audience. But sending emails simply because you feel like you should send more isn’t the right reason to do so.
If subscribers repeatedly receive emails that don’t feel relevant or valuable, they may stop opening them altogether. Some will unsubscribe, and others may mark your messages as spam.
Over time, poor engagement can affect email deliver-ability, making it harder for the emails people do want to receive to reach their inboxes.
For most small businesses, 2-4 thoughtful emails per month is often plenty. Your ideal frequency will depend on your audience, industry, and the type of emails you’re sending, but consistency and quality are far more important than chasing an arbitrary number.
If you have extra time to devote to email marketing, use some of it to make the emails you’re already sending better.
Could you write a stronger subject line? Improve your preview text? Segment your audience so people receive more relevant information? Look at which previous emails generated clicks, replies, inquiries, or sales and build based on what you learn?
Those improvements will likely accomplish more than sending emails without strategy behind them.
Social media is already crowded
There’s already an enormous amount of content being published every day on social media. And AI has only made it easier to add to that noise.
As a result, people have become very good at skimming what’s online. They’re picky about what they consume and are looking for something that catches their attention because it speaks to them.
If you’re already experiencing declining engagement on your posts, doubling your output likely won’t change that. Instead, you may just end up creating twice as much content that people aren’t super interested in.
Instead, if you want to dedicate more time and effort to social media moving forward, analyze the types of content your audience is responding to.
What tends to perform best? Often, this is what I see:
- Posts that share a unique perspective.
- Photos of the real people behind a business and other behind-the-scenes content.
- Educational posts that answer specific questions customers have.
- Client stories.
- Short, personable videos.
- Info-graphics that solve real problems and answer real questions.
The common thread? People are craving content that is relatable, real, and human-centered.
So, if you have more time to dedicate to social media, use it to make your content better rather than simply creating more of it. Infuse your personal stories, opinions, experiences, and personality into your posts instead of letting AI take over. Spend some time capturing real photos, videos, and behind-the-scenes moments instead of always relying on stock photography.
People don’t need more content for the sake of content. They need a reason to pay attention to yours.
Make strategic shifts instead of adding more
As we move out of summer and into a busier season, take advantage of any renewed energy you have. But be intentional about where you put it.
Before adding another marketing task to your calendar, look at the marketing you’re already doing and ask yourself some questions:
- What are you actually trying to accomplish in the next 3-6 months? Do you want more inquiries? Better local awareness? More website traffic? Stronger relationships with existing clients? More referrals?
- What tactics are most likely to help you achieve these goals?
Then, be realistic about your resources.
I’d rather see a business owner choose a manageable posting and email schedule they can maintain for the next year than create an ambitious schedule they abandon after four weeks.
Build around what you can realistically sustain.
And if you know something is important but don’t have the time, knowledge, or desire to do it yourself, maybe getting support makes the most sense.
Maybe you don’t need to completely overhaul your marketing this fall.
Maybe you need to:
- Stop posting on a platform that hasn’t generated a lead in two years.
- Update a website page that no longer represents what you offer.
- Send fewer emails (but optimize the ones you’re sending).
- Spend more time networking because that’s where your best clients actually come from.
- Re-purpose content you already have that has performed well instead of constantly starting over.
Doing “more” can feel productive, but without strategy behind your actions, you might end up being busy without the results to show for it.
If you’re not sure which parts of your marketing are worth your time or where you should make changes, I’d be happy to help you take a closer look.
Sometimes an outside perspective is exactly what you need to see what’s working, what isn’t, and where your efforts could have a greater impact.
