Updated April 2024
Stay-at-home moms are capable of doing a lot. And somehow, amid cooking dinner and doling out hugs and kisses, we find the time to run small businesses, too. If you’re like me, you started your business as a way to funnel your creativity and maybe save up for a vacation. So if the goal is to drive income to fund the things we want to do, let’s hone our skills in marketing and get this business growing!
Can I really run my marketing?
You don’t need a degree, or frankly any experience, in marketing to market your own business. Read that again.
I’m a firm believer in learning more about what we don’t know. And marketing is a great place to start! Marketing is so much more than pretty pictures and copy that rolls off the tongue. It’s consistently showing up with quality content that benefits your consumer. As you educate them about your brand, you can grow to foster a connection with them. And it’s through that connection that they will be convicted to start making purchases.
In any business, you will have those outliers. Some consumers are quick to take to anything and buy your product after only just hearing about it. And other consumers will never be pleased with whatever you produce. Keep them in mind and adapt where you’re able, but I want you to focus your efforts on growing that community that resonates with your messaging. Give them more of what they want. Foster stronger relationships with them. Never forget who your audience is and you will always see success in your marketing.
This post contains affiliate links. That means when you click on a link and make a purchase, I make a commission at no extra cost to you. For more information about my disclosure and privacy policy, visit this page.
How to market your business as a stay-at-home mom
As a busy mom to two toddlers, I know the importance of being effective with what precious time I have. I want to see the biggest return on investment (ROI) for my time since I don’t have a lot of it to go around. But my biggest tip for you is to be consistent because marketing can be slow.
As a social media manager for clients across a variety of industries, I usually don’t see great, organic success until my clients have been consistently posting for at least three months. There are many ways to fan the flame, but sometimes a marketing budget just isn’t an option for people starting small. Consistently creating content for your target audience is a great way to drive awareness about your business.
Do you want to market your own business, but you have no idea where to start?
Finding your ideal client isn’t as easy as you thought it would be. And with so many social media channels our there, how do you know which one is the one for your business?
Enter in – Marketing for Mamas – You Guide to Getting Started with Social Media Marketing.
In this guide, I take my proven methods for finding – and building – a social media following. You will learn the 5Ws and H to marketing (a trick I learned from my days in journalism) as well as how to make a power post. As if laying this solid foundation isn’t enough – I’m giving you 50 post ideas to get you started!
Get my FREE marketing ebook!
Tips, tricks, and 50 FREE post ideas! The perfect tool to get started!
Table of Contents
Know the Ways to Market Your Business
Potential Customers to Paying Customers
Building Brand Awareness as a Busy Mom
Quick Ways to Build Brand Awareness
Creating Your Marketing Materials
Programs I Love/Affiliate Links
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Here Are the Steps I Take to Market My Business
1) I know who I’m marketing to.
2) I use that to determine how I’m going to market to them.
3) I create content for my niche intended for my target audience.
4) I’m always thinking of ways to create a sales funnel so my customers can find my content, love my content, and be moved to make a purchase.
Know the Ways to Market Your Business
As a social media manager, I have produced content for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs. And there are so many more you can take advantage of – Threads, Reddit, Snapchat, and Pinterest, just to name a few.
When selecting a way to market your business, you first need to ask yourself this: Where is my audience?
After understanding who your audience is (think demographic information and interests) you can decide where you should begin marketing your business.
Need help doing this? Scroll to the top of the page and get my FREE marketing guide emailed to you! I give you all the questions you need to ask so you can find your target audience.
Luckily, every social media site that I know of publishes demographic information. If you have paid or business accounts on each platform, you can get even more demographic information about your audience. Use that information to determine where you should be marketing!
For example, if you run a beauty products business for women ages 20 to 65, which social media site has women ages 20 to 65 on it? Find the answer to that question and begin creating content there.
Market Research – Finding Who to Market to
When you’re thinking about your business, go back to what inspired you to start in the first place. What need do you fulfill? What problem do you solve? What inspired you to get started? Now go one step further – who do you serve?
Begin researching your audience.
-What does your ideal customer like to do?
-Where do they spend time online?
-How much time do they spend online?
-Which social media platform do they spend the most time on?
-Do they prefer to receive something in the mail? Email? Text message?
-What kind of problems do they have regarding your industry?
-What’s a solution you can provide?
-What company has dominated this industry? What is their competition? What do customers have to say about this company?
All of this information will help you in your marketing efforts.
When you find out whether or not they like social media marketing or physical marketing products, you can begin generating content for them.
Each social media platform has recommended posts per day, so I’d encourage you to start there.
If they prefer email over social media, begin researching email marketing providers.
Finally, if they prefer physical products, you can research business cards, flyers, door hangers, postcards, and maybe even free samples to include as you work to reach your target audience.
TIP – Remember how I said my clients don’t see success until they’ve been consistently posting for 3 months? Mesh that with your posting on social media. Facebook recommends posting 1 to 2 times per day*. Pinterest recommends pinning 10 to 15 times per day*. I want you to follow the social media platform recommendations and check back in three months. What is your audience interacting with? What are they ignoring? Use this information to adjust the type of content you’re producing. Serve your audience what they want!
*These numbers are from a variety of sources. Data from 2023.
Going from Potential Customers to Paying Customers
The technical side of marketing is steeped in research that shows how customers perform and interact with different marketing tactics. One of the oldest is a marketing funnel. And there are a thousand names for this – purchase funnel, sales, funnel, conversion funnel, etc.
The idea behind this funnel is that it’s the journey your consumer takes before purchasing a product. There are five common steps – awareness, interest, desire, action, and loyalty.
Awareness. At the widest part of your funnel is awareness. Your consumer has heard about your product, business, or brand. Congratulations! Your marketing efforts just paid off!
Interest – As your consumer learns more, they start to understand what your business is about. This step equates to the different types of content you will produce and what your marketing pillars are about. Your content should do a few things for your consumer – tell your story, educate about your products/industry, and tell them what you want them to do next (you may know this as a call to action).
Desire – Your consumer is sold. They know enough about you and your brand that they want to support you. Congratulations! They have officially decided to support you over other businesses in your industry. Let’s make the experience as best as we can for them to thank them for their business!
Think of ways you can incorporate a sort of sales process into your marketing strategy. This could be flushing out your call to action and making sure that your current sales system is working properly so your customer has a seamless buying experience.
Action – A sale has been made! Congratulations! You have worked hard to craft a marketing message that resonates with your consumers and it has worked!
Loyalty – Every business owner dreams of repeat customers. And you now have one! This customer enjoys the entire process (from marketing to ordering, to trying and loving your product) so much that they are now loyal to you.
To honor their loyalty, you can consider creating a sort of discount program or special sales catered to this audience. For social media followers or email followers, you could also create sales for them. Offer a discount for customers who show a specific social media post at the time of service. Or send a discount code for online orders only to your email subscribers.
In your marketing efforts, creating content for a marketing funnel may look something like this –
Awareness – facts about your business/product, about me, milestone business achievements, great hashtags, a strong bio
Interest – user-generated content, referrals/reviews, how-tos showcasing the ebooks and products themselves, education about your industry
Desire/Action – highlighting loyal customers, referrals/reviews, call to action, compelling visuals and information
Loyalty – (takes things off of social media, insider perks if you will) Specials for social media followers, email newsletter sales codes, extra goodies included in products like stickers or free product
Building Brand Awareness as a Busy Mom
Brand awareness is exactly what it sounds like – when people hear your name or see your logo, they know what your business is about. And that’s the goal! You want to be recognized by your target audience.
There is some data to suggest that a customer needs to see something 7 to 8 times before they will decide on making a purchase. You may have heard this called “the marketing rule of 7.” However, it’s an incredibly dated piece of information.
What may be more relatable in this day and age is a connection with your audience. In numbers, that may look like producing 80 percent of your content that’s educational and seeks to serve your audience and producing 20 percent of your content that’s aimed at selling your products or services. What we’re doing is establishing trust.
This trust is what will engage new customers, retain current customers, and drive all customers to share their positive experiences when interacting with your brand. It will also add authenticity to what you’re doing. Because let’s be honest – humans still want that human interaction! The internet is great for finding information, but it can be tricky when finding information to trust.
Quick Ways to Build Brand Awareness
Maintain continuity in your marketing efforts
All of your logos, brand colors, fonts, and images to be the same across all your social media platforms. We will talk more about this in “Refining Your Online Presence” below and why it’s important. But the key thing to remember is – a customer has to recognize you wherever they go. Make it easy for them.
Post consistently to social media.
Set yourself apart. Some influencers will wear a particular piece of clothing, wear their hair a certain way, or wear a certain shade of lipstick anytime they’re online. It’s truly as simple as that. If you’re known as “that one person who wears ABC” – you have brand recognition.
Edit your photos using the same settings. Don’t go crazy and think every image has to be unique – the bigger goal is for them to be on brand.
Use the same greeting on social media.
Create a sort of catchphrase. This usually happens organically. You’ll know when you find it because you will catch yourself saying it or your audience will point it out and start using it with you.
Creating Your Marketing Materials
I love to use Canva for all of my marketing materials. I’ve written about them a bit in the past in blog posts like How to Create a Free, Custom QR Code in Canva and How to Make a Transparent Background in Canva.
It’s an incredible, free resource and several creators do in-depth tutorials about them online. I happen to use the paid version. And even that is a budget-friendly option for the budding creator!
However you create your marketing materials, I want you to start with a mood board. Get out your pen and paper – you’re about to showcase your true artistic abilities.
A mood board is a collection of visuals to communicate a concept. If you’ve ever watched home design shows, you have seen a mood board.
But for brand building, we aren’t collecting paint samples and fabric swatches. We are collecting images that represent our brand, colors we love, and fonts that resonate with us.
I’m not kidding when I say you’re about to showcase your artistic abilities. Grab your Mood Board page in your Marketing for Mamas Free Download and define the colors you want for your brand. If you’re a lawn mowing service, your colors may be green, brown, or blue to represent the outside. If you’re a bakery, your colors may be bright or pastel to represent what you specialize in baking (birthday cakes, weddings, etc.)
TIP – Your brand colors have a name – they’re a string of letters and numbers called a HEX code. You can use online websites like this one to find the HEX code of your brand colors! Write these down – these are the foundation of your business! You will also use them across a variety of platforms for brand awareness. Choose three to five brand colors you’re absolutely in love with. And do. not. change. them.
As you create your logo, I want you to draw on those same business ideas. But I want you to review your content pillars, first.
Content pillars are the key pieces of information your business/brand specializes in. For me, that’s homemaking, recipes, and DIY. I’m a stay-at-home mom making a handmade home on a budget.
See how I was able to condense that sentence down into just three words? That’s what I want you to do.
Now that you know what your business is about, I want you to combine your content pillars and your brand colors into your logo. You can do this! If you’re creating your logo, don’t overthink it!
Refining Your Online Presence
As you grow in your social media marketing efforts, I want you to think about your social media as a resume for potential clients. Potential clients will see your social media posts well before they get to interact with you. Refining your online presence is an excellent way to let them know not only what they’re purchasing, but who they’re purchasing from.
Three Things to Prioritize
Consistency
Content Pillars
Most importantly – your audience
Consistency
Consistency in your marketing is what’s going to resonate with your audience. Because they can’t learn about you, learn more about your niche, or know where to go to get product if you aren’t showing up online!
This doesn’t have to be a glamorous process. Search around online and find influencers who don’t even show their faces. I know several who just share pictures and videos they’ve taken throughout the day!
Don’t overthink this process – just develop the habit and get to posting. (psst – what’s great about this? You can do it within your own hours! You don’t have to post on the platform itself. Take photos and videos on your own schedule and upload them to the platform later. Social media accounts aren’t going to care that a video taken in the morning was published in the evening.)
TIP – If you struggle with generating content, here are a few ideas. When you’re planning what content to share for the week, I want you to create 8 posts dedicated to educating, serving, and laughing with your audience. And two posts dedicated to talking about your offers. In one month, your audience would have seen your offers 8 times. But they would have seen how much you serve them 32 times!
The hardest part about starting marketing is the fact you have to find what your audience resonates with. Sometimes, that can take time.
I always recommend my marketing clients give their efforts at least three months before they start seeing organic growth. This is more than enough time to develop the habits to create power posts, learn what your audience wants, and dabble in algorithm research.
Content Pillars
I’m not saying to be married to only three different ideas. But I am saying that it would be odd to see a gardening account suddenly talking about something going on in Hollywood simply because it was trending.
You can hop on trends, talk about trending topics, and even branch out into topics you’re genuinely interested in! But remember – you’re serving your audience, not yourself.
So before jumping into anything, ask yourself how this can serve your audience first. You may find that you’ve stumbled onto a whole new way to serve your audience!
Your Audience
Serving your audience will get you sales. Read that again.
Your audience is going to know when they’re being lied to. It’s not hard to figure out. And there’s no balance you have to strike.
By all means – go after every business opportunity you can! Create your own products and build a client base for your business. But remember – service to your clients will resonate with them and that’s when you’ll see conversions.
Programs That I Love
These are the programs I use to help me grow my blog. Please note – these are affiliate links! That means I make a commission, at no extra cost to you.
Square – Affiliate Link
If you sell physical products as I do, you need a simple solution to having an online store and a way to accept different forms of payment. Because cash is great, but cards are convenient! I found a solution to all of those with Square.
Now don’t get me wrong – the website took some getting used to. But whenever I file a ticket, I always see a resolution within a day or two. The Square team is quick to help me find solutions and troubleshoot whatever issues I’m having! I’m able to manage pick-up locations, online listings, and more with my Square account. Use my affiliate link to get your Square store started and we both get rewarded for using the platform!
*This is my account with my backyard homesteading blog, The Learning Life. I launched a line of beeswax beauty products July 2023 and have been able to process all of my sales with Square!
RankIQ – Affiliate Link
As a blogger, the name of the game is search engine optimization (SEO) and keyword research. What’s the use in a blog chock full of helpful information if there’s no way to find it?! And as a busy mom, we both know that I don’t have time to waste.
Enter in – Rank IQ.
RankIQ is an artificial intelligence-driven keyword research service that focuses on just that – keywords. Other keyword research services will highlight data that isn’t helpful or necessary to a blog. We need to know how to rank, and RankIQ gives me the information I need to achieve that goal. Did I mention it was developed by a man who became a millionaire himself via his blogs? These are tried and true methods.
If you’re interested in creating a blog and want to get a jump start on ranking on Google, I highly recommend Rank IQ. When you use my affiliate link, you directly support my business. Thank you for supporting Homemaker and Happy!
Convert Kit – Affiliate Link
There are several email services out there. My favorite is Kit (formerly Convert Kit). In the beginning, your pricing is free for up to 1,000 subscribers. From there, the price changes per month based on what your goal for your blog is.
When you use my affiliate link, you directly support my business. Thank you for supporting Homemaker and Happy!
Need Tools to Get Started?
This camera is an upgraded version of the camera I use. Learning to use a camera is an incredible tool to add to your tool belt!
An external hard drive will help you store all of your graphics and raw images.
A tripod is a great investment, especially if you’re creating all of your own content!
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12 Home-Based Business Ideas
All of the marketing information we have been talking about applies to every one of these industries! Take the advice that applies to your small business and run with it. Go create that extra income!
Online Courses – Creating digital products is a great way to earn a little extra money online!
Affiliate Marketing
Monetize a Youtube Channel
Become a Freelance Writer
Blog Posts – run your own website! There’s plenty of information available today for you to get started.
Open a Photography Business
Become a Social Media Manager – manage social media platforms for clients across a variety of industries
Create Physical Products or host an Online Store
Try Flipping Products – Find treasures at flea markets or thrift stores, restore them, and sell them for a profit!
Become a Real Estate Agent
Become a Virtual Assistant
Become a Graphic Designer
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The 5ws and H of Marketing
If you’ve been around for a while, you know that my background is actually in journalism. As a breaking news reporter and city reporter for small, area newspapers, I learned that my readers were only seeking the answer to a few, key questions. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? When you’re marketing your business, I want you to consider answering the same questions.
- Who are you marketing to?
- What do they need? Education? Tutorials? Fair pricing?
- Where are they spending their time? That’s where you should be marketing!
- When should you market yourself?
- Why are you considering social media as a marketing tool?
- How do you market yourself?
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Us mamas have to stick together. The sticky hands will mature and build their own families one day, but our relationships with each other will see us through those transitions. They can also see us through all our business changes!
So like this blog post and share it with a friend! You can also find me on Pinterest for more side hustle inspiration.
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