Hey. Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie and this is the place where we break down marketing strategies that actually work without the overwhelm.
Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I live and work on, the Palawa people of Lutruwita. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, and acknowledge the deep connection they have to this land, culture and community.
Now let's dive in and make marketing work for you.
If you've ever felt like you're constantly creating content but you're not really seeing results, or if you found yourself posting on five different platforms every day and wondering why you're not getting more customers, or if the thought of opening another marketing guru's email makes you want to hide under a blanket, then this episode is going to feel like a warm hug from a marketer.
Today we're going to talk about marketing burnout, why it happens, how to recognise when you're caught in the more is better trap, and most importantly, how to get off the hamster wheel and actually start making marketing work for you instead of the other way around.
Because here's what I've learned that businesses that make marketing look effortless aren't doing more. They're doing less, but they're doing it better.
Let's start by acknowledging something that nobody likes to talk about.
Marketing burnout is real and it's everywhere.
I reckon most business owners have experienced it at some point, but we don't talk about it because we think it means we're not cut out for business.
Marketing burnout isn't just feeling tired after a busy week.
It's that bone deep exhaustion that comes from constantly creating, posting, promoting and engaging without seeing the results that you were promised.
It's a feeling that you're running on a treadmill that keeps speeding up, but you're not actually getting anywhere.
Trust me, I know what it feels like.
Here's what marketing burnout typically looks like.
You're posting on multiple platforms every day, but your engagement is dropping.
You're creating more content than ever, but you get fewer inquiries.
You're spending hours on marketing tasks, but you can't clearly connect them to actual sales.
You feel guilty when you're not creating content, even during, you know, family time or during weekends.
And really, this is the main one. You started to resent marketing altogether, even though you know it's essential for your business.
I don't know if it sounds familiar, it does for me.
You're absolutely not alone, and it is not your fault.
The reason so many of us end up burnt out is because we've been sold this lie that more marketing equals more results.
More platforms, more content, more posting, more engagement, more, more, more, more.
Here's the truth.
More marketing activity doesn't automatically equal more business results.
In fact, doing too much often gets you worse results than doing less.
Why?
Here's three main reasons. The first one is quality dilution.
When you're trying to be everywhere and do everything, you can't do any of it well.
Your content becomes generic because you're rushing to fill posting schedules.
Your engagement becomes superficial because you don't actually have time for meaningful conversations.
Your messaging becomes confused because you're trying to appeal to everyone on every platform.
And I see this all the time.
Business owners posting the same generic motivational quotes across five platforms because they've just simply run out of time and they've run out of ideas.
And that's not marketing. That's just noise.
The second reason is audience confusion.
When you're scattered across too many platforms with inconsistent messaging, your audience doesn't know who you are or what you stand for.
They see you posting.
You know you might be posting daily affirmations on Instagram, industry news on LinkedIn, behind the scenes content on Facebook, and they can't figure out what you actually do or why you they should care.
And confused customers don't buy. They need clarity about who you are, what you offer, and why it matters to them.
And reason number three is strategic drift.
When you're caught up in the daily grind of content creation, you lose sight of the bigger picture.
You're going to stop asking yourself questions like is this actually moving people closer to buying from me?
Or what business goal does this activity serve? You just literally just you're marketing for marketing sake. You're not doing it for business results.
You need to stop and ask those questions. Why am I doing this? Is this going to get me to where I want to go rather than just keep running on that thread meal?
So how do you know if you're on that marketing hamster wheel?
Here are the warning signs.
First, you can't take a day off. If the thought of not posting for A day gives you anxiety. You're probably doing too much.
Sustainable marketing doesn't require daily content from you personally.
The next one is that you're measuring vanity metrics. And I see this so often.
You're obsessing over likes, over follows, over shares, instead of actually tracking leads, tracking sales and profit. Don't get me wrong, engagement matters, but only if it's leading to actual business outcomes.
The next one is you're copying everyone else.
You see other people doing reels, so you start doing reels. You see people having success with newsletters, so you start a newsletter. By the way, I do think email marketing is super, super important, but not to create more noise.
You're reacting to what others are doing instead of making strategic decisions for your business.
And the next one is you feel like you're always behind.
There's always a new platform, a new feature, a new trend that you feel like you should be trying.
You're constantly playing catch up instead of focusing on what's working.
I'll tell you right now, I am not on TikTok.
I don't need another platform.
It's too much for me to manage.
And my clients. I don't need to be everywhere. I'm sure that some of my clients are on TikTok, but a lot of them are on Instagram and a lot of them are on Facebook. So I don't need to also create noise on TikTok.
So don't feel like you're always behind.
Another one is your marketing feels disconnected from sales.
You're busy with marketing activities, but you can't clearly explain how they lead to customers.
If someone asked you which marketing activity generated your last five customers, what would your answer be? Can you actually tell?
And then you need to think about where you are putting so much of your time and effort and whether or not it's worth it.
So at the heart of marketing burnout is what I call marketing fomo, the fear that if you're not doing everything, you. You're missing out on potential customers.
And this FOMO is actually fueled by a few things.
Firstly, guru pressure.
I know, it's horrible. Every marketing expert is telling you that you know their method is essential.
The Instagram guru says you need to post daily. The email marketing expert says you need weekly newsletters. The LinkedIn coach says you need to be posting articles.
If you try to follow everyone's advice, you'll be working 25 hours a day.
I know.
The next one is success story bias.
You see other businesses posting about their wins, but you don't see all the things that they tried that didn't work or all the activities they stopped doing to focus on what did work.
Next one is platform fomo.
Every time a new social platform launches or an existing one adds, you know, a new feature, there's that pressure to jump on it immediately or risk being left behind again.
I'm telling you, I am not on TikTok.
Just, you know, focus on two platforms.
One or two platforms that do well for you.
The next one is comparison trap.
You might be seeing competitors who seem to be everywhere and assume that you know, that that's why they're successful. So you're trying to match their activity level without actually understanding their strategy.
Here's what I've learned from working with hundreds of businesses.
The ones that get consistent results from marketing are not doing more, they are doing less,
but they're doing it strategically.
They focus on one to two platforms max.
So instead of being mediocre everywhere, they become excellent somewhere.
They understand that their audience deeply and they know which platform their audience hangs out on. And they create content that genuinely serves those people on that platform.
They also have a clear content strategy.
Every piece of content serves a purpose in their customer journey. They're not just creating content to fill a schedule. They're they are creating content to solve problems, to build trust, and to move people towards a purchase decision.
They also prioritise relationship building, so they actually spend more time engaging meaningfully with their audience than they actually do creating new content.
They understand that 10 engaged followers are worth more than a thousand passive ones.
And they also measure what matters. I know a lot of people don't measure. They track metrics that directly relate to business outcomes. They look at how many leads they generated, they look at how many sales they made.
They look at customer lifetime value.
They might, you know, every so often glance at vanity metrics, but they don't make decisions based on them.
And also they batch and they systemize.
Instead of creating content on the fly every day, they set aside time, dedicated time for content creation.
They often batch a week's worth at once because it allows them to be more strategic and consistent. And they're freeing up time for other business activities.
So one of the most powerful concepts for avoiding marketing burnout is the 80/20 principle.
And in marketing terms, this means that roughly 80% of your results come from 20% of your marketing activities.
The problem is that most business owners spend their time on the 80% of activities that only generate 20% of the results.
So how do you identify your high impact 20%.
You need to look at your customer journey.
Where do your customers, your best customers actually come from?
If most of them find you through Google searches, your SEO, your search engine optimisation might be your 20%.
If they're mostly referrals, then relationship building might be your focus area.
Also analyze your content performance.
Which pieces of content have actually generated the most leads or sales?
Then look at what do they have in common and can you create more content like that Instead of trying to cover every possible topic.
Track your time versus your results.
So for one week, track how much time you spend on different marketing activities and what results each of them generates. You might actually be shocked to discover that you're spending hours on activities that generate zero business impact.
And here's a simple one. Ask your customers.
Simply ask your recent customers what actually convinced them to buy from you and their answers will tell you which marketing activities actually matter now.
How do you recover from marketing burnout?
Here's how you get back on track.
Take a marketing audit break Stop all non essential marketing activities for one week. I know it feels scary, but the world won't end if you don't post for a week.
Use this time to audit what you've been doing.
Step two is list everything that you're currently doing. So write down every marketing activity that you're currently involved in.
Platforms that you're posting on, content types you're creating, networking events you're attending, email sequences.
Everything.
Step number three Categorize them by impact and effort.
So for each activity, honestly assess whether it's high or low impact on your business results and whether it requires high or low effort from you.
Step 4 Cut the low impact activities.
Be ruthless about cutting activities that take significant effort but don't drive results.
Yes, even if you've been doing them for months.
Just like it's not a reason to continue ineffective marketing.
And step number five is focus on your top three. Choose the three highest impact marketing activities and focus only on those for the next month.
You can always add more later, but start with less.
Sustainable marketing isn't about doing less forever. It's about being strategic about what you do and when you do it.
So be realistic. You don't need to post every day. You don't need to be on every platform. You don't need to try every new trend.
Give yourself permission to do less,
but do it better.
You also need boundaries.
Set specific times for marketing activities and stick to them.
When it's family time, it's family time.
When it's customer service time, it's customer service time. Marketing doesn't need to bleed into every moment of your day and plan.
Instead of trying to maintain the same marketing intensity all year round, plan for seasons.
You have seasons of higher and seasons of lower marketing activity. Maybe you batch your content like heavily in one month and focus on delivery the next and schedule in breaks.
You need breaks from from content creation even. It's just one week per quarter where you don't create anything new because these breaks help prevent burnout. And often you actually get fresh ideas.
So how do you know when you found your sustainable marketing rhythm?
Here are some green flags.
You can take a weekend off without anxiety.
You can clearly explain how your marketing activities connect to your business results.
You're excited about your marketing plans instead of trading them.
You're getting better results with less effort than before.
And you have time for other important business activities like serving customers and improving your products or your services.
So there you have it why doing more marketing often gets you less results and how to get off the hamster wheel without sacrificing your business growth.
Here's the key takeaway.
Effective marketing isn't about doing everything.
It's about doing the right things consistently.
Your business doesn't need to be everywhere.
It needs you to be excellent somewhere.
I've got an action step for you this week.
I want you to do a marketing audit using the steps I outlined.
List everything you're doing honestly, assess the impact versus effort and then cut at least three low impact activities and focus on your top three for the next month.
And if you're feeling overwhelmed by all the marketing options out there and you want a clear framework for deciding what to focus on first, I've got something that will help.
I'm running a free masterclass called the Marketing Priority Matrix.
How to Stop Doing Everything and Start Getting Results.
Here's the thing.
The reason your marketing feels chaotic isn't because you're not doing enough.
It's because you're doing too much of the wrong things.
In my masterclass, I'm going to teach you a simple two by two matrix that helps you categorise every marketing activity into what you should do first, what you should schedule strategically, and what you should batch or delegate.
And also what you should stop doing.
It's exactly the tool I wish I had when I was burning myself out trying to be everywhere at once.
It'll give you the clarity to focus on your efforts where they'll actually make a difference whether you're just starting out or whether you've been in business for years, but you might be feeling scattered across too many platforms.
Okay, my masterclass is on Wednesday, October 15th at 11am Melbourne time.
And it's completely free.
You can register at biancamckenzie.com/matrix and I'll be there live. So bring your marketing challenges and let's sort them out together.
Sustainable marketing is a marathon, it's not a sprint.
Give yourself permission to slow down, to focus, to do less, but do it better.
Your business and your sanity will thank you for it.
Thanks so much for tuning in to the new School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie and I'll catch you next week.
Until then, keep making marketing work for you, not the other way around.
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