Are you an introverted entrepreneur? Six marketing lessons you need to know

Love more customers (and profit) but feel uncomfortable about promoting yourself? Here are six marketing lessons for introverted entrepreneurs.

While introverts often make the best entrepreneurs, they can find marketing and putting themselves out there hard. It’s all too easy to feel promoting your business is not authentic or aligned to the values you hold.  And when you do spend time marketing, the feeling of overwhelm or exhausted soon follows.

However, you can’t avoid marketing if you run your own business – the benefits of becoming more visible are too good to miss out on. More clients and higher income being the obvious advantages.

Six marketing lessons introverted entrepreneurs need to know

But marketing yourself doesn’t have to be that hard. I’m going to share with you six lessons that won’t take you out of your comfort zone and will bring you results fast.

If your business is not making money you have a very expensive hobby. I’ve seen too many business owner friends not monetise their brilliance. I feel passionately that everyone can have an abundantly profitable business (yes I mean you too!)

You can easily become more visible in a way that feels comfortable to you, gets you excited to market your products and makes you never want to hide again.

Three marketing activities you can start doing now

To help you, here are three introvert-friendly marketing activities you can start trying.

1) Find the right networking group

Even if the thought of networking events triggers anxiety, try to find a group of people you enjoy spending time with and figure out what events they attend.

Set your intention before attending any form of networking. This could be to get in front of your ideal clients or to escape cabin fever if you work from home and are missing human contact.

Whatever your objective, you’ll find the right type of event or meeting if you look. If you can’t find anything in your area, you might even consider starting your own group. (If the thought of networking really does send chills down your spine, try this easy hypnotherapy exercise.)

2) Embrace hiding behind your laptop

If you know you need more clients but aren’t ready for hosting live streams or podcasts just yet, don’t fight it. Instead, embrace it – play to this strength and own it.

Spend time creating your own blog content or writing for others in guest posts or magazine articles. And use social media to network from behind your laptop screen. Find a way to get out there without actually needing to get out there.

Need blogging help? Check out these articles:

3) Offer your awesomeness for coffee

Love to grow your network of local clients but no idea how to meet them, and too shy to pitch your services cold? Why not host a morning in a cafe where a local business owner can buy you a coffee in exchange for 20-30 minutes of your time.

They get an quick expert opinion on their business, and you get to showcase your expertise and being new relationships without feeling uncomfortable about selling. (Warning though – you will need to switch to decaf by person number three!)

Three marketing activities you need to stop right now

And here are three activities you’d be well-advised to give up.

1) Stop mass marketing and find your niche

Becoming more visible isn’t about putting yourself on TV – it’s about being where your ideal client is. So stop trying to be everything to everyone, and offering any service you can think of. Instead, niche down your services and the people you work with, and only market to those people.

Start by defining who your audience is. Then consider what media and information they are consuming and what they are reading, watching and listening to. (If you want to do this properly, write a marketing persona for each audience group.)

Once you have this knowledge, you can find ways to contribute to those media titles and strategically get right in front of your ideal clients.

2) Quit advertising and use PR

A 2014 study by Neilsen on the role of content in the consumer decision-making process concluded that PR is almost 90% more effective than advertising.

So stop wasting money on Facebook ads or local advertising and instead invest time into gaining publicity for your business through media coverage and collaborating with your clients industry influencers.

Clueless at where to begin with PR? These articles will help:

3) Give up trying to do it all

I give you permission to not do every marketing strategy you have been told to in the past. Declutter your workspace from old business memories that are holding you back. Make way for your abundant future.

In my book, I list 200 marketing ideas and suggest picking three of your favourite tactics and focus on only those for a short amount of time. See what works, what you enjoy and evaluate client reactions to tweak your strategy for the long term.

Your turn!

The magic happens when you take inspired action. Think about how you can put all this into play right now in your business.

Use strategies that are aligned to your personality and quit the time-wasting mass marketing. You’ve got this!

Kerri Walker is a marketing and PR strategist and author. She supports businesses to step into the spotlight, get media coverage and find new clients. Find out more on her website.

Photo by Drew Coffman