Marketing is a crucial part of running a creative business, and for many creatives, handling marketing for just one social media platform can be a full-time job. 

As a solo entrepreneur, managing all the marketing for your business can be overwhelming, both mentally and physically, which is why it's important to recognise this and take steps to care for yourself in the process.

There’s no denying that marketing your business involves a significant amount of work, whether that’s online, in person, or both. This includes social media, email marketing, networking, and more. 

The time and effort required, the pressure to achieve milestones, and the constant need to perform can be draining which is why it’s so important to find ways to protect your mental health and prevent burnout from creeping in, while still being able to market your creative business like a pro!

In today’s guide, we’re diving into 10 of my best, simple-yet-life-changing tips to help you better prioritise and manage your mental health whilst marketing your creative business.

Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist. I’m not a mental health expert. So if you need that help, please go and get that. There are some links listed at the bottom of this guide should you need guidance on where to look for this support.

Now let’s dive in!

Tip 1 - Use your brand strategy

If you’ve listened to any other episodes of Brand Your Passion, you’ll know that I am a huge advocate for having a brand strategy to help with marketing your business and making decision-making a lot less stressful and more enjoyable experience.

It helps you to narrow down the things you actually need to be doing, cull the ones you don’t, and basically become a better business owner all around. And when we’re talking about marketing, it’s easy to get overwhelmed or stressed out by the rest of the internet who’s telling you that you have to do this, no.. do that. No, this is the right strategy. It’s overwhelming, right?

So what’s the solution? Use your brand strategy! Following your brand strategy and using it as a guide will not only allow you to make better decisions that feel more aligned with you and your vision, but will make it feel easier, lighter, and way less stressful.

Anytime you feel pressure to do what everyone else is doing, you can come back to that document, look at your strategy, refresh yourself on your vision and mission, your voice and brand personality etc, and then decide “You know what, that’s not for me” and then remove that noise completely. 

Tip 2 - Stick to your values

When you’re marketing your creative business, it’s really important to remember what is important to you and to remember what rules you have for yourself your business, and your brand because when you do have those values and you know what is important to you, it is so much easier to again, shut out what doesn't matter and what isn't aligned with you and your business. 

So when you are marketing your brand or, if you have an opportunity come up or if there's a trend going around and you wonder if you should jump on it, post that kind of content, or say yes to that opportunity, it’s a lot easier to make that decision because you know your values.

If you need support writing down your values (cause yes, they should be more than one word!), I have some resources that can help you do just that. Check out this blog post here where I take you through my step-by-step process to writing effective brand values.

Tip 3 - Be selective and DON’T do it all

One thing I’ve realised in my time as a business owner is realising that you can be way more powerful and way more productive with your marketing when you do just a couple of things, but do them well.

So instead of feeling like you have to do it all, give yourself permission to pick just one or two platforms or strategies for marketing and go all in on those. You don’t need to be on all the social media platforms, and you don’t need to try all of the different strategies. You just need to have 1-2 that feel aligned for you (and actually work!), then stick with those and do them well.

It’s a lot more powerful and a lot more freeing to market your creative business this way than feel pressured to be on all of the platforms and using all of the strategies. You’ll have more energy, more creative ideas, and most importantly, more FUN.

And of course, once you master those 1-2 key platforms or strategies, you can absolutely start to build from there. But the point is, keep it simple, take the pressure off, and be selective - you don’t have to do it all.

Tip 4 - Know your strengths

There is nothing worse than trying marketing strategies that aren’t tied to your strengths as a solo creator. It’s draining, it’s tiring, and it feels like such a slog.

The solution? Figure out what your strengths are, find marketing strategies that align with them, and lean into them.

For example, if you love speaking and editing videos, TikTok's or long-form YouTube videos might be the perfect fit for you! If you love speaking without video, a podcast might be your new go-to! Or, if you’re not a speaking kinda creative, and you instead love to write, then maybe you should be a blogger or have an email newsletter you can pour your creativity into.

When you love something, you want to keep doing it. So the key here is to know your strengths, find marketing strategies that align with those strengths, and lean into them as much as you can!

Tip 5 - Know your limits

Sometimes marketing your creative business is too much, and you have to learn to acknowledge that. It can be hard for a solo person when there is so much to do (and more you could be doing), and sometimes, we can feel guilty about that.

I’ve been in business full-time for over 6 years now and there have been many times that I’ve had to tell myself, “Hollie, you can’t do it all.” Take this podcast for example - at one point in my journey I took a break from the show just so I could take a step back and reassess how I could change the way I was running it because although I still LOVED the podcast and wanted to continue running it, I had to find a way to make it work better for me.

My point here?

Know your limits. There’s only so much you can do and only so much you can handle as one person, and that’s okay.

Tip 6 - Set some boundaries

This goes for both yourself and other people - but I’m telling you, to better prioritise your mental health as a creative, you’ve got to have boundaries.

You can create all sorts of boundaries too. It might be setting time limits on social media apps, not answering DM’s or comments after a certain time of day, maybe only answering emails once per day, or creating your marketing stuff once per week.

You might utilise Do Not Disturb mode on your phone, have an auto-responder that goes out when people email you outside of specific hours, or maybe you only respond to clients or customers within a set period of time (or hours or days) too.

Whatever boundaries you feel would best support you in actually enjoying running your creative business more, those are the boundaries you want to put in place. Not only will this make running your business more enjoyable like I said, it’ll also protect your mental health and reduce the likelihood of burnout sneaking up on you.

Tip 7 - Delegate, delegate, delegate

I know this is a privilege, and a luxury when you have built up the income to be able to do this, but if and when you can delegate, do it – it is a worthwhile investment in not just your business, but your mental health.

I’ve done this in the past, and I’m starting to do this again, especially with my podcast. I’m so grateful for my podcast producer Rachelle from Kollective Playground (you can check her out here at Kollective Playground - she’s incredible!). She’s been editing my episodes and supporting me with marketing the podcast to get them out to you guys which has been invaluable, to say the least.

As I said at the beginning of this episode, you are one person, yet you’re likely doing the job of 10+ people in your business right now. So if you can take some of that load off your plate and give that to someone else who can support you, do it! 

Take some of the parts of your marketing that either you’re not good at, or that you simply just don’t like doing, or would at least take some weight off your shoulders and allow you to focus on the other things that you do love, and delegate those tasks to someone you can trust.

You’ll not only have more time for doing those things you love, but you’ll also have more time to spend on money-making activities, therefore growing your creative business even more (which I know is a goal of yours, and mine!)

Tip 8 - Focus on the important metrics

I know it can be tempting to pay attention to how many followers you have on social media, how many likes and comments your posts get, and all of those things. And don’t get me wrong, I know it’s satisfying when you get a bunch of views, a lot of reach, or a bunch of new people following you… That’s amazing. 

However, the downside to tracking these kinds of metrics is that it can really start to affect your mental health when the numbers just aren’t there. You can get so caught up in your followers going down, or your low story views, that you lose sight of why you started your creative business in the first place.

The solution? Focus on the numbers that matter. Sure, I LOVE when I get new followers, like “Hey! Welcome to the family. I’m so happy to have you!”.

But instead of being so focused on the numbers, I’m more focused on the people. Instead of being so focused on the likes, I’m more focused on the impact.

It’s a slight shift in your focus to look less at the vanity metrics, and more at what’s actually important to you.

Tip 9 - Be authentic

Okay, so I know this is a buzzword, but when you have really gotten to know yourself and what makes you you, what makes you special, who you want to be online, and as an artist, what your work is, and how you want to share that with the world, it is so much easier to market yourself, show up, and create content than when you’re trying to be someone you’re not.

When you’re too busy following trends or trying to keep up with what everyone else is doing, you can get so lost in it all that you forget who you really are and what you want to be as a creative business owner (and quite frankly, a human!)

So go through that brand strategy process, learn about your personality, uncover who you are, and get in touch with yourself a little. Figure out what it means to be authentically you, decide how you want to show up and start doing that. 

Tip 10 - Find your community

One of the best ways to prioritise your mental health as a creative business owner is to find your community (aka people who are also creatives, also trying to market their business, and who, most importantly, understand what it’s like to be in this position).

When you’re putting yourself out there, sharing your work with the world, and doing your best to reach new people, get sales and opportunities to make your dream a reality, it makes a huge difference to have people around you who get that, and who can share their experiences of doing that (plus give you feedback and cheer you on!) throughout your journey.

Whether it's reaching out to people who you admire online and talking to them, or finding a community like mine, The Next Level Creative™ or others online or in your local community – your goal here is to find a community of people who you can surround yourself with to support you, give you feedback, and cheer you on!

If you’d like to learn more about The Next Level Creative™, you can do so by clicking the image below!

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The Next Level Creative™ is a branding lab designed to help you get more customers, grow your audience, and get branding opportunities on repeat. We have an epic community that's designed to support you with stuff like this, and I’d love to have you as a part of that should you feel called to join us.

Again, you can go to thenextlevelcreative.com or tap that image above to check it out!

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If you or someone you know needs mental health support, please check out these resources:

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New Zealand: mentalhealth.org.nz/helplines

Australia: healthdirect.gov.au/australian-mental-health-services

United States: apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines‍