Slow Marketing: The Business Revolution You’ve Been Looking For
Slow marketing is going to benefit your company far more than following the latest trends will. Take it from someone whose full-time job for over two years was managing the marketing for an international packaging company.
In this article I’m going to tell you how to harness the power of slow living business principles, and why it will revolutionise your marketing strategy.
Not only will slow marketing leave you and your employees feeling more in control, less burned out and more inspired with your brand. It will also help you to stay tapped into your ideal audience, their search routines and keyword uses. Bear in mind, slow marketing is different to quiet marketing, which you can find out more about in this article.
Slow Living and Its Impact On Business
The first question I should answer is: what is slow living?
Slow living is a way of life that started in Italy as a direct reaction to how industrialisation and machine-production sped up consumerism in the 1980’s. It was threatening - in this case - traditional food techniques, recipes and community structures in the wake of McDonalds opening its first branch in Rome.
Slow living is a way of living that aligns with sustainable production and humanist philosophies; individuals who practise slow living don’t literally live slowly, they just take time over things and buy products that are natural, rooted in craftsmanship rather than quick production times.
So, slow living as a business principle is basically the same theory turned into a strategy to make money. You’re not going to literally make your business slower, you’re just going to make sure that your business is built from the ground up and with a structure that lasts for years, rather than one that looks good but took a day to do and rots from the inside out. While every business is different, most founders create a business because they want to make something that lasts.
Slow living is having a huge impact on consumerism, especially since the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness of environmental issues, sustainability and more individuals than ever took the leap to set up their own business. More consumers are aware of the affect their buying choices have on larger world issues, and they also want to connect to the humans behind the business. This is what slow living in a business is all about, it’s a hugely marketable strategy if you can tap into it and make it work for your business. So here’s how you’re going to do it.
Why Slow Marketing?
Slow marketing is taking the idea of a slow business and focusing it entirely into your marketing strategy. You don’t have to be a slow living business, you don’t even have to be sustainable. But not only will slow marketing take the pressure off your marketing team, it will take the focus from quantity to quality. And make your business visible where right now it’s probably fighting competitors for a 24 hour spot on the Instagram search page.
So, slow marketing… you’re going to be focusing on evergreen content. What’s that? From blogs, to SEO and social media it’s the content that is made to last the test of time, optimised for search engines. Not here today and gone tomorrow, but made today for tomorrow and every day after that.
Relatable?
Instead of looking for quick fixes and trends, you want to look for content and design strategies that last. In other words, prioritise evergreen, long-form and branded, over paid and fashionable content. Why? Well we’re going to play a little game called, ‘Do you do this too?’:
Are you worried that if you don’t constantly make content your audience will lose interest?
Evergreen long-form content lasts forever on the platforms that you post it, if you use the right keywords, phrases and tags, the audience you want to attract will find it any time of the day or night at any point from the moment you publish it. Make it easy to find, advertise where it is and plug, plug, plug the links.
Do you make content that isn’t as good as you’d like it to be but you’re trying to post every day so that the algorithm connects to you?
First thing’s first, no one knows what you should be doing to connect to the algorithm. Not even Meta, not even Google. I know that meeting deadlines set either by our solopreneur business brain, or ticking off the ones set by people who make deadlines rather than content is every content creating marketers biggest headache.
So, do you a) create content that you know isn’t as good just to get the deadline done? Or do you b) risk the wrath of your employer and spend ages ‘taking pretty pictures’ and ‘researching words’ to get it right? Well from now on it’s going to be neither. Have a bank of words that work and content that’s ready to go, top it up at every opportunity but don’t post every day. Don’t even post every other day if you can’t create high quality content to keep up with that. Slow marketing is about being prepared, having content that’s ready to go so that you don’t have any extra stresses or last-minute panics and being consistent. Plod at a comfortable pace rather than sprinting at a pace that will give you a stitch halfway round. This isn’t a race.
Do you worry over the fact that most social media platforms (except Pinterest) won’t show you content after 48 hours (at the most)?
Evergreen content is the epitome of slow marketing, the aim is to create something that lasts longer than the 24 to 48 hour social media window. Spending hours on something that won’t be seen by half of your followers just because of the way the algorithm works is not only a waste of your time but also irritating for your followers who want to see your content. Post regularly but not everyday and always, always, always link it to your evergreen content which should also have links to your products/services. Your social media platforms shouldn’t be the main portfolio of your content.
Do you use Pinterest?
Pinterest is the best social media platform for slow marketing. Not only does it focus on visuals and encourage useful and aesthetic content for users, it also has pins coming up on feeds years after they were first published. Depending what your business is about, this may not be the audience you are trying to get, but it’s a great place to put links to that evergreen content you’ve created. And, bonus, you can create multiple pins that link to the same content. Weeks and weeks of content sorted - all full of high quality resources and links for users. You’re welcome!
Do you not create evergreen content because you don’t want to spend hours on something that’s got all the information in one place and you’re only going to hit that post button once?
Okay, I’ve kind of answered this in the last few bullet points. But the point of evergreen content in slow marketing is that you’ve got one massive essay or resource for your audience that has links in it to your services or products. And you can create loads of content off of that one huge resource. Another thing is that you should always be updating evergreen content to keep it fresh and make sure all your links are working. Nothing more frustrating than clicking a link and getting a 404 notice. The more updated your content is, and the more links there are to that resource, the better it will perform in searches. You’re still doing slow marketing, but you’re keeping it relevant and boosting your SEO at the same time.
So, was it a yes to most of those? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.
Don’t Complicate It
Having outlined a few reasons why slow marketing is so effective - and if you’re still reading this chances are you’ve related to a few of the points - here’s how it will revolutionise your business and why you shouldn’t overthink it.
Not everyone is online and available all the time, chances are you’re trying to apply your business and services to audiences that are across different time zones and using different platforms. So you want to make content that can be found anywhere on any of the platforms you’re using…without making it look like the taste of an out-of-date packet of granola.
So you want to make the content last, and ensure that it’s going to show up on someone’s feed and radar for more than 24 hours. And make it look so clickable everyone’s instantly going to comment and click and share and shoot you into viral stardom. Except, with slow marketing, going viral isn’t the goal. Sorry if that’s what you’ve been told you’ve got to accomplish, (also tell them that going viral is purely up to luck of the draw and choosing the right audio, time and content length).
Number One: stop putting all of your energy into social media platforms. They’re great advertising models but that’s all they should be used for, your profile is your billboard. Curate it, feed the algorithms every day on stories with cohesive content that has regular use of key keywords and phrases for your brand but always ALWAYS link, link, link back to that evergreen content and all your services and products. Billboards should be looked at, and be that reminder your audience needs to buy from you. They shouldn’t be taken down every day and added to. Don’t make new billboards, show the old one in a way that makes it feel new. Also remember your audience needs to see something at least seven times before they trust it and are willing to invest in it. Nowadays - considering that old maxim was made in the 1930’s before social media - it probably needs to be a lot more and a lot more consistent to be heard above the noise of your competitors.
Number Two: make your evergreen content high quality so you can make less long-form content and focus on advertising it. The more links you make to your website through other platforms, the more likely you are to get clicks and drive that traffic to your services/products. Also the better the quality of the content on your website, (i.e your evergreen content) and the more links you have to it, the better your site’s SEO will be.
The best way to do this is to make content that has the same message but different designs and tone. One piece of evergreen content can make weeks of posts for your socials. Sound good? I’ll bet it does.
Slow Isn’t Slow
Slow marketing isn’t about slowing down your business, or the speed at which you want to do your business. Slow might seem slow at the time of making the content or waiting for it to catch on, but I can promise it will pay dividends in lasting out any ‘quick’ content you flick out.
It’s not even about aligning your business to slow living principles, it’s simply about making your marketing just that: simple. Stop pumping out low quality content for instant results that last less than 24 hours, focus on high quality evergreen content that lasts for years after you hit ‘publish’.
Good luck, don’t forget to keep an eye on the SOLEMNIKO Instagram to stay up to date with new article releases that will help you to up-scale your business and understand the ins and outs of marketing.