Ep 60. How to get back into your marketing rhythm after a break

Hello. If you’re in the UK, it’s that time of year. The summer holidays are done and the kids are going back to school, or if you’re not a mum like me, then you’ve just had a bit of chill time to spend with friends and family, to enjoy the lovely weather and be present, because things are normally quieter at this time of year.

And now you’re starting to get back into your work with that feeling of, “Right, where were we?” Which can be hard when you’ve come out of your routine. I know it is for me.

So today I want to talk to you about how I would advise my clients to ease into their marketing after a break, without trying to make up for lost time or diving straight back into it at full speed because you think you’ve missed out.

If you’re new here, hello and a very warm welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat. I’m a marketing strategist for introverts who want to get clients from content without changing who they are.

Nobody’s been staring at your empty grid

So the first thing I want to say, and I say this with so much love, is that nobody’s been staring at your empty grid waiting for you to post. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but genuinely, the amount of energy we spend worrying that people might have noticed our silence is wild.

You might have been thinking about it every single day, like, “Oh my God, I haven’t posted in three weeks. What must people think? Are they going to have forgotten about me?” True story, that’s me at the moment, because life has been life-ing. But I’m just getting back into it, because I know everyone else has been living their life. They’ve been on their own summer holiday, dealing with their own kids being off school, or they’ve just been scrolling through the content that’s showing up on their feed, because that’s what we do most of the time anyway.

So what I’m trying to say is that the break you’ve had isn’t going to make or break sales this month. The people who are meant to find you will still find you. You haven’t undone any work by taking a break. If anything, it’s probably done you the world of good.

Check in with yourself first

Okay, so before you dive back in and start creating content for the sake of it, I want you to just pause for a second and check in with yourself first. I say that because a lot of us come back from a break and then just try to pick up exactly where we left off. So you might feel the urge to post the same things and talk about the same stuff without actually asking, “Does this still feel true?”

I don’t know about you, but I find that when you’ve actually had a proper break, and you’re not trying to think about your business, you might be stood in the shower or out on a walk or lying on a sun lounger if you’re on holiday, and things just pop into your head. It might be a thought about what you actually want to be doing. There might be a bit of doubt about something that you’ve been avoiding looking at, or you might want to work with a different type of person, or something might just not be feeling right. Or you might want to change the direction of your messaging.

So before you dive in, it’s worth catching your thoughts and then asking yourself the foundational questions, to make sure that your content still brings in the work that you want to be doing. It’s always questions like, what do I want to be known for right now, and how do I want to be helping people? It might not be what you said in your bio eight months ago, but that’s okay.

What do you want to be doing and known for right now? And is there anything about your offer or your messaging or the way you’ve been showing up that’s been niggling at you, or that doesn’t really match the version of you that you want to show up as now?

If you’re changing those, you might notice that the kind of person you’re talking to might need changing too. So who are you talking to right now? Is it still the same person you were speaking to before you went away? Or have you outgrown that? Is it someone who’s further along now? Maybe you were talking to beginners, but now you want to speak to more established business owners.

Take some time to think about that. Obviously, this is my bread and butter and my speciality, so if you need some help with that, ask me about Silent Storm. I just want you to check in so you’re not walking straight back into content that doesn’t quite fit anymore.

Because I promise you, your foundations are so important, and they change more than you think, because you’re going to be a different version of yourself every few months, whether you notice it or not. And I want to make sure that the online version of you matches the real you, the person you are right now, so that we can attract the people who are going to be amazing to work with.

Find your minimum marketing rhythm

Right, so once you’ve done your little check-in, let’s talk about your actual marketing rhythm going forward, because I think this is where people trip themselves up most after a break.

So you’re either going to do nothing, because you’ll scroll through everyone’s back-to-work feeds and it’s all going to feel too much and you’re not going to know what to talk about. So it’s like, “Okay, I’m not going to post right now. I’ll post someday.” Or you’re going to try and go from zero to 100, because you feel like you need to make up for lost time.

Instead, I want you to think about what your minimum marketing rhythm is right now. What’s the smallest version of showing up that you can genuinely commit to this week? That could be something like one email, three posts and three stories if you’re on Instagram, and replying to all of your DMs this week.

I’m asking you to do this because consistency isn’t about doing loads, it’s about doing something that you can actually repeat week on week. If you go all in this week and then disappear again because you’ve worn yourself out, that’s not really a rhythm, that’s more of a sprint.

So decide on your version of enough. Don’t copy what you think you should be doing because someone else is doing it. Start with your minimum marketing rhythm, and then once that feels comfortable, if you want to, you can build it up to more, but don’t force it.

I don’t know about you, but once you know what you’ve committed to, it’s so much easier to create the content and work with your energy instead of against it. Because you can be like, “Right, I’ll commit to one email, three posts and three stories this week,” whatever it is. And then you can either sit down or go on a coffee date and batch all of that for the week, and then you’re done.

Or because you know what you’re creating, you can create as you go. But the main thing is you’re not wasting energy on that low hum in the back of your head of, “Oh, I should be posting. What shall I post today? I don’t know what to say. Should I do this? Should I do that?” You know what you’re selling, you know who you’re talking to, you know what you stand for, and you know what you need to post when. So then it’s just a case of taking action, because you know the strategy behind it.

Three easy posts to ease you back in

And if your brain has properly switched off and the thought of coming up with content ideas right now feels impossible, then don’t worry, I’ve got you. This is actually a really good time to remind people, especially anyone new who’s followed you over the summer, who you actually are and what you do.

So you could do a new intro post, or reuse one that you’ve already got. Just an overview of who you are, who you help and what you’re about, nice and simple. And then you can do another post reminding people what you offer. Trust me, you’ll be surprised how many of your followers don’t know what you offer, even though they’ve been following your content for a while.

And then you can share client testimonials or stories, something that really shows people what it’s like to work with you.

I’m guessing you would’ve shared content like this before, so it’s just a case of reusing what you’ve already got and reposting it as it is, which is absolutely fine. Or if something came up in that little check-in earlier on, you can tweak it to match the person you are and the person you want to work with now.

These three posts are going to be a nice way to ease yourself back in, and they’d also work as pinned posts for new people coming onto your profile if you’re on Instagram.

Your plan for this week

And remember, no one’s been checking in on you as closely as you think. So check in with yourself first before you dive back in. Decide what your minimum marketing rhythm is, and then start with those three posts to keep your content easy this week. And that’s it. That’s the whole plan. I would love to know what you’re committing to.

As always, thank you so much for listening. I hope this helped you ease back in with a bit more kindness towards yourself. If it did, I would love it if you followed, rated or shared this with another introvert who might be staring at their laptop right now wondering where to start. I think they’d really appreciate it.

Until next time, keep building your quiet confidence so you can make that loud impact. Speak soon.