144: Marketing Isn’t One Size Fits All—Here’s How to Do It Your Way

 Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhart, and each week we get vulnerable, practical, and just a little bit bold so you can feel seen, supported, and ready to take the next step in your photography journey.

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Welcome back to the Shoot It Straight podcast, my friends. Today we’re talking about this pressure that we feel that we put on ourselves where we feel like we need to do what everybody else is doing. We see this in business. We see this in life, in motherhood, but today we are talking about it specifically with marketing.

I see this all the time in the groups I coach, and I feel like I make that statement a lot on this podcast, but that’s what this podcast is. It’s me coaching to the masses. And so when I hear themes that come up with women, I coach, I bring it over here and we chat about it. So something I hear a lot is that women in my groups specifically, whether it’s a course where we have calls together or a mastermind where we have calls together, something like that.

We are in the room or we’re on Zoom together. They hear about marketing stuff that’s going great for other women in the group. We oftentimes will get on these calls and we’re, we will share wins or exciting things that are going on. And sometimes it’s, you know, Hey, I did this X, Y, Z marketing thing and it really did great, and here’s the results I’m getting.

Or maybe it’s at a retreat. We’re sharing what’s working in our business or things that have worked in the past. Or maybe, uh, oftentimes for the women in my mastermind, they take their relationships that they make within the group offline, into their own foxer conversations, which I love so much. And they will share things there.

But what happens is these women who are all doing so great in business, they hear what’s working for each other. And so they think, I’m just gonna try and adopt and do the same thing and do that same method. If it worked for her, it’s going to work for me. The problem is that not everything works or makes sense for everyone.

And then here’s what happens. First of all, I, I wanna say they’re not copying them on purpose, okay? They’re inspired by something going well by someone that they trust and they’ve built a relationship with, and so they wanna try doing something similar, right? It’s not copying, okay? They’re not copying strangers.

That’s not what we’re doing here. But what happens is in these conversations. They are trying to adopt someone else’s marketing strategy instead of creating one that makes sense for themselves. When you do that, it doesn’t work and it doesn’t feel good. And then that’s where we start to assume all the negative self-talk.

The common internal dialogue that happens is, I’m just not good at this. It’s obviously not working. How come it worked for her and it’s not working for me? Or I’m not consistent because they’re trying to do something that doesn’t feel natural to them. I’m not a natural marketer. Marketer doesn’t work for me.

I’m not good at fill in the blank. I’m not good at social media. I’m not good at email. I’m not good at blogging and all of this negative self-talk spirals. I. Just makes things worse, right? It becomes a snowball of, poor me, I’m not good at this. This doesn’t work. Why even try? And my friends, we talk about mindset on this podcast so much, you know, that does not serve you when you’re in that space.

Okay? So for this episode, I wanna encourage you to reclaim marketing on your own terms. Here’s the thing. Oftentimes, and again, I’ve said this on the podcast so many times, oftentimes we hear this cookie cutter marketing advice just on the internet, right? We read books about marketing. We listen to podcasts about marketing.

We follow people who are quote unquote good at marketing or marketing specialists. Everybody has a sea of advice. You need to do reels every single day. You need to post three times a week. You need to write a blog post every single week for a year. You need to sell in every email that you write, every single week.

You need to show your face. You need to use these hooks. There’s so much, there’s so much advice and people saying that if you’re not doing it this way, you are doing it wrong. And here’s the thing, all of those strategies can work. All of them. All, all of the strategies you’re hearing people talk about can work.

They obviously have worked for people in the past at some point, but they are not sustainable, nor are they enjoyable for every single person. Okay? And that’s what I want you to hear. I have seen students who are phenomenal at social media and they’re consistent with them, and therefore, quote unquote, it works.

They get new followers, they get leads to their email list. They make sales off social media because it works for them. I’ve seen students who don’t do social media at all, but have a super active website with tons of visitors and site clicks and leads coming from Google, and they have an email list that is bringing them bookings consistently left and right.

Okay. All types of marketing will work, but they don’t work for everyone. The cost of trying to market in a way that does not fit you is inconsistency. It doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel intuitive, therefore, you don’t do it. You’re inconsistent with your efforts. Resentment is another cost because it feels hard, it feels complicated, it feels frustrating.

You don’t wanna do it. You begin to resent the marketing itself, okay? And again, you don’t show up or you don’t show up with the right energy because you’re in this. Space of resentment, burnout. How often have I seen this burnout? I’m tired of trying. I’m try tired of writing emails. I’m tired of writing captions.

I’m tired of showing up and nothing happening, so I’m just, I’m completely burned out from marketing. I’m not gonna do anything anymore. And then disconnection from your audience. This is when we stop showing up. When we resent it and we sh we, when we do show up, it’s with the wrong energy. And when we’re burned out, okay, we disconnect from our audience, we cut off the connection.

There is no more relationship building. There is no more building, no like trust. There is no more connecting with the potential leads and the people that are following us. We have cut the rope. There is a disconnect and all of that is so sad, and I don’t want you to get to that place because you’re trying to do something that doesn’t fit for you.

So what actually makes marketing work? What actually will make it work? Number one, can you choose to focus on connection over perfection? Can you choose to look at marketing in all of the different places that you choose to show up, whether it’s social media, your email, your blog, your website, collaborations, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Can you focus on connection instead of being paralyzed by trying to show up perfectly? Hit publish on the post. Share the reel. Even though you know you feel like the editing’s wonky, send the email even though the link is broken. Hit publish on the blog post, even though it’s not getting the perfect green, green light in the Yost settings.

Okay, do it anyways and focus on connecting with your people instead of trying to show up with perfection and having that pressure to be perfect connection feels light. It feels easy. It feels good both ways for you and for them because you’re connecting with another human. You are building a relationship with another human instead of trying to show up perfectly all the time.

Showing up in perfection feels there’s a pressure there. Focusing on connection is ease. Another thing that can make marketing actually work is focusing on your energy over the algorithm. Again, this is thinking about what feels good for you. Where can you show up and enjoy it and be your best self, not your perfect self, your best self?

Where is it comfortable? Where can you have fun? Right? What kind of marketing can you do that energetically feels good? And listen, my friend, I know that if you are in one of those positions I mentioned a moment ago where you’ve got this resentment and burnout and disconnection. It’s probably true that nothing about marketing feels good in this moment right now because you’re in that place of burnout.

But what I want you to consider is that let yourself have a break. Let yourself get over that burnout, but we’re gonna pick up and start marketing again. We’re gonna start marketing again from a different perspective. That’s what I want you to hear from this episode. So when you do pick up and start marketing again, what feels good?

What feels fun? What feels exciting? Where can you show up with a positive energy instead of a negative energy? That energy of ease and abundance and lightness and fun instead of. Scarcity, resentment, burnout, frustration when you focus on the places that you can show up with the right energy instead of the algorithm and all of the things that you can’t control.

And I, you know, I say algorithm with social media in mind, but that goes for all things. That goes for, you know, focusing on emails with the highest open rates that goes for, you know, posting the perfect blog post on social on, uh, your website. With the, the most SEO traffic. Instead of focusing on the data, can you focus on the energy?

And then another thing to help marketing actually work is can you focus on consistency over complexity? I. Instead of setting yourself up to be all the places all the time perfectly, can you step back from some of the places or can you step back from how often you’re trying to show up all the places and create something that is more simple that you can be consistent with as opposed to the complexity?

Consistency is more important. I would rather you show up once a week on social media. With that fun energy and feel like you can focus on connection and be good with it, as opposed to trying to show up every single day from that place of scarcity and abundance and resentment. Consistency is more important than complexity.

Another thing about that will help marketing actually work for you is doing types of marketing that feel aligned for you. Those will always perform better long-term than anything that feels forced. Again, part of this is that energy that that goes behind it, right? People. Whether you are sending an email, writing a blog post, creating a collaboration, posting something on social media, wherever this marketing is consumed by your audience, by your potential audience, by your potential ideal clients, those people can feel the energy behind the thing.

So when you are doing something that feels aligned with you and your personality and what you enjoy and how you naturally show up in the world, energetically, it’s going to be received much better than something that feels forced. Your audience can feel when you are enjoying things versus when you’re dreading it.

And side note, this is why creating offers out of scarcity and fear don’t work. I’ve talked about this many, many times, o on the podcast over the years, when we feel like inquiries are low, bookings are down. When we’re in slow season, when we feel nervous about the future of our business, so many people oftentimes try and create an offer out of that scarcity.

I’m gonna create, um, a flash sale. I’m gonna create a special mini session. I’m gonna do a promotion on x, y, z, fill in the blank. Okay? Because they’re creating offers to try and drive income, drive revenue, drive bookings, they’re creating those offers out of scarcity. Your audience can feel that those things don’t go well.

I’ve never heard of an offer that was created out of scarcity that went well, never. Your audience can feel it. So the same thing goes for your, for all of your marketing year round, when it is something that you enjoy, when it is something that it feels natural to you. When it is, when you are leaning into those things, your audience can tell the difference.

Okay? There is a way to find your marketing style. I have created this fun little quiz, and it kind of breaks everyone down into a marketing personality. I. When you understand what your marketing personality is, you can focus on the platforms and the formats that feel fun to go with your natural flow, and then you can repurpose instead of reinvent.

So you can repurpose things to help fill in the gaps so that you can work smarter. And then you can show up more often and more consistently because it actually feels good. You’re able to take your strengths and run with them, right? You know what your strengths are. It gives you the clarity to think, okay, this is what actually feels good to me.

This is what feels easy. This is what I can do naturally. All right, I’m gonna take this and run with it. I’m gonna give myself grace. On the things that I’m not good at, and then try and find workarounds to work smarter, not harder. Again, repurposing or getting support or something, it just offers this clarity of like, oh yeah, that makes so much sense.

Here’s the things again, there’s five different personality types. There’s the social butterfly. These people love to connect with people, even if it’s through a screen. Okay? Whether that be a social media screen or their blog, their website, whatever, YouTube, fill in the blank. There’s also the magnetic storyteller.

These people love to draw people in through narratives and long form stories. There’s the intentional strategist. They love to plan the things. They sometimes get stuck in the perfection and lose momentum that way. Right? Then there’s the quiet attractor. They shine when people share about their business, and then there’s the lost marketer.

You’re great at connecting with clients once they are your clients, but getting new clients in feels confusing and overwhelming. So there’s these different personality types, and again, on the other side of taking the quiz, you get your results and it tells you what you’re really good at and what that can look like.

And then it also tells you your weaknesses again. How So that you can take that information and build upon it and make it better, right? I’m not gonna necessarily tell you how to fix those things ’cause I don’t think there’s anything that needs to be fixed about you. But when you have clarity on what your weaknesses are, you can create a plan.

And doesn’t that feel good? So if you’re curious, I’m a social butterfly. I love to connect with people even through a screen. I don’t think you’re surprised by that. I love the community of social media and building relationships online. That’s what I’ve done in so many of my programs and groups and courses, and that’s how I treat this podcast and that’s how I treat social media.

I love connecting with people and building relationships. So how does this support my marketing efforts? Well, one tiny way is that I will often use things that happen in DM conversations to kind of dictate the emails I write. I have a lot of conversations, a lot of people sending me messages, asking me questions or telling me stories or whatever.

And those spark the things that are happening on social media that are happening in a connection based way spark how I send my weekly emails. I work smarter. Instead of sitting down and thinking, what am I gonna write about in my email this week, I’m pulling from the thing that I’m naturally doing really well.

I. Does that make sense? So I would love to invite you to take the marketing personality quiz yourself. I will have it linked in the show notes, but it’s sabrina gehart.com/marketing-quiz. It is like three minutes, and that’s if you like, really take your time. Okay. It’s only a handful of questions, but it’s going to give you clarity and also actionable steps.

And it’s just the beginning. It’s just the beginning again, to give you that clarity, to give you that aha, to give you that awareness so that you can take the next step. And if you want to go deeper on the other side of that, I do have my marketing course marketing that attracts, and I will say I’m currently at time of recording, building in a lot of new fun things.

Like bonus resources that are going into the marketing course very, very soon. In fact, by the time this airs, they will probably already be in there. But these are things like prompts for creating things, custom GPTs, uh, which is basically like robots to help you do things better, smarter, faster with your marketing.

So I’m really excited to put those resources inside. I also recently recorded a, uh, resource for my round table members that specifically talks about a type of marketing, and I think I’m just gonna add it into the marketing course as another bonus because the marketing course was created almost a year ago.

I. Every time I teach on marketing or have a new resource, I just keep adding it into the course. It keeps getting better and better and better. If you are already a student of the course, obviously you get access to all of those updates, but the course just keeps getting better. So if you have been sitting on it or thinking about it, I highly, highly recommend.

I will also have that linked in the show notes, and that is it for today, my friends. I will see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot at Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinagehart.com slash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gehart Photography.

If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends. Shoot it straight.