Marketing advice for people who are absolutely slammed right now ☀️

Happy Tuesday! If your summer looks anything like mine right now, your to-do list has a to-do list. Client work is full, the calendar is packed, and somehow "post on Instagram" keeps getting bumped to tomorrow.

This week I want to talk about the one marketing mistake that quietly kills small businesses every summer, and the dead-simple fix that takes about 20 minutes a week. That's it. No strategy overhaul. No content calendar. Just enough to stay in the game while you actually enjoy the season.

74% of small business owners say they expect to spend more time on marketing this year. Not less. More.

Which is wild, when you think about it. Most people got into business to do the thing they're good at, not to become a full-time content creator on the side.

But here's what that stat is really telling us: marketing pressure is going up. The businesses that figure out how to show up consistently, without it eating their entire week, are going to have a real advantage over the ones who burn out and go quiet.

That's exactly what this issue is about.

There's a marketing mistake that doesn't feel like a mistake when you're making it.

You get busy. Genuinely, legitimately busy. A big project lands, the kids are out of school, a client needs something urgent. So you skip a week of posting. Then two. Then it's been six weeks and your last Instagram post was before Memorial Day and now it feels so weird to just... reappear.

So you don't. And the silence stretches.

This is going dark. And it's the thing that quietly does more damage to small business marketing than any bad post ever could.

Here's why it matters more than people think.

When you disappear online, your audience doesn't wait for you. They just stop expecting you. The algorithm stops showing your stuff. The new potential customer who found you in April and was warming up? They moved on. Not because they didn't like you. Because you stopped reminding them you exist.

The fix isn't a big comeback strategy. It's just not going dark in the first place.

Not ten posts. Not a full content calendar. One thing. A LinkedIn post, an email, a reel, a story. Something that says "still here, still thinking about you, still worth paying attention to."

That's the floor. Everything else is a bonus.

Consistency is the unfair advantage most small businesses are leaving on the table. Not because they don't know it matters, but because they set the bar so high that when life gets busy, they can't clear it. So they do nothing.

Lower the bar. Clear it every week. That's the whole strategy.

A business that posts once a week for a year will outperform a business that posts ten times in January and ghosts until fall. Every single time.

This summer, your goal isn't to crush your content calendar. It's to still be standing in September, having never fully disappeared.

If "what do I even post?" is the thing stopping you, here's a rotation that makes the decision for you.

Every week, you have three options. Pick one.

Teach. Story. Ask. Rotate. That's it.

You'll never stare at a blank screen again, and your audience gets variety without you having to reinvent the wheel every week.

Maine summer is not like summer anywhere else.

It arrives fast, it's outrageously beautiful, and it's gone before you've had a chance to actually exhale. Suddenly it's August and you're trying to remember if you ever made it to the lake.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately, about how easy it is to let the busy season swallow the good stuff whole. The long evenings. The farmers markets. The way everything smells different when it's finally warm.

The hustle will always be there. The summer won't.

So this year I'm giving myself permission to slow down a little and actually be in it. To let the marketing be simple. To do enough, not everything.

I hope you do the same.

See you on the sunny side,
Heather ☀️