Even Solo Creators Need a Marketing Plan

As a creator, your “product” is what you produce. Whether you write or make videos or host a podcast, you’re putting something into the world that your intended audience will (hopefully) find entertaining or useful.

In addition to your product, you are also your own small business. In most cases, your product alone is not enough to grow your business. You need to actively find ways to:

• Reach a larger audience
• Become discoverable on new platforms
• Retain your existing audience’s attention

In other words, you need a marketing plan.

While it’s true that some creators find wild success by going viral, that isn’t the case for most. The ones that continue to build a following put a lot of energy into their visibility on multiple platforms.

Try reframing your thinking around your creative product. Imagine that it is a physical product with inventory that you have to move. How would you go about making it more desirable? How would you bring in new customers? And what goals do you have for your business overall?

Identify your niches and audience

Startups often talk about product-market fit, or, having a product that meets a specific need and is in demand. There are a lot of failed products in the world, and it wasn’t necessarily that the product itself was inherently bad… it’s that no one saw the need for it.

The same is true for creators. You have to outline the type of value that you bring to your audience: Why are they trading their time/attention or money in exchange for what you provide?

To break it down further, start by identifying your target audience. Who likes your product? Why are you a good product-market fit for that audience? It may be that you have more than one audience. In that case, list out each segment.

Then think about where that audience is likely to exist. Are they on any (or all) of the main social platforms, like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook? Do they join any specific forums? You can use a product like SparkToro to do some basic audience research.

Of course, the other reason that your product can fail is that your audience never finds you. Your creative product may be exactly what they need, but they don’t know you exist. This is why you need a marketing strategy to reach your audience on their platform of choice.

Develop a strategy for each platform

Identifying your audience and resonating with your audience are two entirely different things.

Creating social posts or applying the same tactics across multiple platforms are exercises in futility. You need to think about what will apply to that audience on that platform. Ask yourself:

• Why do people come to this platform versus others?
• What do successful creators do on this platform?
• How can I engage with my audience on this platform (comments, etc.)?
• What would success look like for me on this platform?

Odds are, constant self-promotion (buy my book! subscribe to my newsletter! hire me!) won’t work. Your success will come from building an audience of people who truly care about what you create, whether through behind-the-scenes peeks at your work, sharing valuable insights, or humor.

What’s unique about creators is that your audience will deeply feel like they know you (even if your online persona is different than your real-life persona). Letting an audience get to know you is a strong marketing tactic for creators: you are creating demand for yourself and your “product.”

The good news is that you don’t need to apply the same tactics to each platform — which leaves a lot of room for experimentation. The bad news is exactly the same: you may not be able to apply the same tactics because the audience interactions look so different.

I put a lot of work into repurposing my content for different platforms. One Medium post will usually be reworked into one or two LinkedIn posts and a few tweets. Even though I’m tweaking, I’m not completely reinventing the wheel. I’m recycling the parts that make the most sense for that platform.

I also have a calendar for publishing on each platform (how many tweets per week, when my newsletter goes out, etc.). I experiment here also; if I see a boost in engagement, I’ll change the type of content or the frequency on a particular platform.

Plan your objectives in the short-, mid-, and long-term

Just like formal marketing departments at full-fledged businesses, you should have goals. If you’re not gaining traction, you may need to revisit your strategy on that platform. Or you may decide that the platform isn’t right for you as a creator: you’re not able to mesh with your audience. And that’s ok. As a creator/solopreneur, you only have so many hours in the day — don’t waste them on a platform that isn’t working.

But your goals should be tangible. They should also be progressive. You can’t start by saying, “I want to build an audience of 10,000 Twitter Followers.” True, that might be a long-term goal, but you need to outline the steps to get there. Those small steps in the short term should lead to your long-term goal.

For example:

1. Short-term goal: Engage consistently on your platform (post X times per week)
2. Mid-term goal: Grow your audience to 10,000
3. Long-term goal: Increase your freelance revenue by X per month based on new revenue from your audience.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Start with your long-term goal (or goals!) and work backward.

Remember that marketing tactics take time. They are not quick wins. They require time, attention, and experimentation. And while I, too, am constantly experimenting, I also know that I can’t iterate too quickly. If I’m not seeing results yet, it doesn’t mean that the tactic has failed; it simply may not have gained steam yet.

You may reach your goals sooner if you put in more time up front but, again, there are only so many hours in the day.

Create your plan and make time for it

One of the hardest parts about being a creator is that it requires so many different skills. You might be thinking, “Wait, what? I have to create a marketing plan? I don’t know how to do that.”

I elicited the help of a consultant who specializes in small businesses and solopreneurs. She helped me clarify my audience and messaging. I gave her my long-term goals, and she offered some suggestions for getting there. I plan to check back in with her in six months and in one year, to see if she has any suggestions for things I should do differently.

You can also reach out to other creators, especially those that have seen a lot of success. Ask them for specifics, such as how much time they spend on a particular platform and if they tried anything that didn’t work.

Solidifying a plan actually makes things easier, not harder. Your marketing plan becomes a checklist of things you need to work into your schedule and complete.

But the worst thing would be to have no plan and just hope for the best. Think of the small neighborhood pizza place that hoped to grow based on word-of-mouth. Yes, it’s possible that tactic would work. But growth would happen much more slowly. Instead, if the pizza place really puts itself out there, finding customers who like pizza, the growth can be exponential.

Be the local pizza place that did such an amazing job with marketing that there’s a line out the door.

Check out my eBook — a guide for creators looking to better manage their time and content across multiple platforms.