Running a business comes with a never-ending to-do list, deadlines, and the occasional meltdown in front of your laptop. Stress is real. But so are the little rituals that help you reset.

In this episode of the Big Bad Marketing Podcast, we’re getting real about the practices that keep us grounded and sane while building our business. Think of it as a menu of stress-busting ideas you can pull from when your brain feels fried.

Here’s what we dive into:

• How we define stress (and why it shows up so often in entrepreneurship)

• Simple daily resets: water, movement, breaks, and knowing when to stop

• Creative outlets that unlock flow: pottery, watercolors, doodling, guitar

• Body and breath: yoga, kundalini, strength training, dance cardio, breath work

• Cozy vibes: cooking, gardening, reading, cleaning, skincare, face masks

• Social and mental resets: belly rubs (yes, really), meeting people IRL, keeping a clean desk

💌 Want more behind-the-scenes convos like this? Join our Big Bad Marketing newsletter for tips, strategies, and the real talk of running a business: bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter

🎧 More BBM episodes you might like:

• Take these 3 simple steps to make marketing feel less overwhelming

• The $500 marketing budget challenge (because money stress is real, too)

Running a business doesn’t mean running yourself into the ground. Tune in for a reminder to breathe, reset, and get back to creating.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a Big Bad episode!

This Halloween, we’re digging up the cursed advice that haunts small business owners everywhere.

From “post every day no matter what” to “your product will sell itself,” we’re calling out the scary, bad marketing advice you should definitely not follow.

Brooke and Jenné break down why these ghostly mistakes happen, how to fix them fast, and what to do instead so your marketing doesn’t end up six feet under.

💀 Sign up for the October BBM Newsletter at bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter for smart (not spooky) marketing tips and our free 2026 Marketing Calendar!

Ever put weeks of effort into an event only to feel like crickets when the doors open? We’ve been there. In this episode of the Big Bad Marketing Podcast, we’re breaking down exactly how to promote an in-person event so people actually show up, without blowing your budget.

Whether you’re hosting a workshop, pop-up, open house, or expo booth, this step-by-step guide will help you:

• Map out your event goals and plan ahead (so you’re not scrambling)

• Build a smart digital promotion timeline that creates hype and urgency

• Use print the right way (flyers, postcards, signage) without wasting money

• Create must-have collateral and avoid last-minute rush fees

• Follow up after the event so you keep momentum and turn attendees into customers

We’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and the lessons we learned the hard way so you don’t have to.

💌 Want more step-by-step marketing tips like this? Join the Big Bad Marketing newsletter at bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter

🎧 More episodes to check out:

• How to crush your first expo without being cringey

• The $500 marketing budget challenge for when you need to stretch your dollars and still get results

If you’re serious about filling seats and creating buzz for your next event, this episode is your playbook.

👉 Be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss all the upcoming goodness!

Ever stood in front of a folding table, wondering if anyone actually wants to talk to you about your business? Same.

In this episode, we’re sharing everything we learned from our first in-person event, the Mt. Pleasant Small Business Expo!

You’ll hear:

• How we prepped our booth (what worked and what didn’t)
• How to attract attention without being cringey
• Why relationships beat hard sells every time.

If you’ve got an event coming up, or you just want to know how to show up bigger in person, you’ll walk away with real, tactical tips you can use right away.

Join the newsletter! bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter

If you’ve got 3,000 subscribers but only 17 people opening your emails, that’s not an audience, it’s digital dead weight. In this episode we break down why cleaning your email list can actually increase sales, improve deliverability, and make your marketing work harder for you.

You’ll learn:

• The cold, hard truth about email list engagement

• Signs it’s time to clean your list (and what to look for)

• How to run a simple re-engagement campaign

• Why fewer subscribers can actually mean more impact

💻 Want more tactical marketing tips delivered straight to your inbox by people who send amazing emails? Sign up for the Big Bad Marketing Newsletter. It’s packed with practical, funny, and usable advice, and you’ll get our list of marketing levers as a bonus.

You've gotten your first (or second, or third) tentative yes from a prospective client. What do you do now? You need a more formal proposal that sets clear expectations of what you'll deliver, a contract so you look like a real business, and an invoice so you can actually get your $$$. In this episode of the Big Bad Marketing podcast, we cover everything you need to do from the initial "let's work together!" to actually delivering the work.Sign up for the Big Bad Marketing newsletter at https://www.bigbadmarketing.com/newsletterOther resources we mentioned:Business proposals episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-create-business-proposals-that-get-signed/id1793837831?i=1000703469101Invoicing episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/invoice-like-a-pro-without-fancy-software/id1793837831?i=1000701584871Testimonials episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/testimonials-that-work-what-to-ask-when-to-ask-and/id1793837831?i=1000718316840

Defining your “target audience” shouldn’t feel like writing a Pinterest mood board.

In this episode we get real about how to actually figure out who your customers are, using a mix of data, common sense, and a little tough love.

You’ll learn:

• Why your audience isn’t who you want, it’s who’s already buying

• How to use data (and simple questions) to find out who that is

• The traps that make audience-building way more complicated than it needs to be

• How to test, refine, and pivot without a market research budget

📬 Want more common sense marketing tips like this? Sign up for the BBM Newsletter. You’ll get practical, funny, and genuinely helpful marketing advice straight to your inbox (plus our full list of marketing levers as a bonus!)

Got the marketing basics down but still want to build a client-creating machine?

You’ve got a real business and a $500/month marketing budget. Now it’s time to spend it where it counts. So, where should you invest?

In this episode we talk through how to make your next $500 work smarter, whether you're online or local. We’ll cover:

• What to do for free before you spend a dime

• How to use content and email to build trust and get leads

• Low-risk ways to test ads, grow visibility, and boost referrals

• What not to spend on (yet)

Perfect for solo service providers, side hustlers turned full-timers, or local pros looking to get booked solid. Let’s turn your “I hope this works” into “damn, this is working.”

Want bite-sized, free business tips in your inbox?

Sign up for the Big Bad Marketing Newsletter, an email you'll actually look forward to.

If this episode helped you make sense of your marketing budget, do us a favor:
💥 Follow the Big Bad Marketing Podcast
💥 Leave us a 5-star review
💥 Share this episode with another small biz owner who needs a strategy

Your support helps us keep showing up!

Got $500/month for marketing, but no audience, and no idea where to start?

You’re not alone. And, good news: you don’t need a massive budget to get visible and land your first customers.

In this episode, we explain exactly how to spend your first $500/month to market your brand-new business strategically (not randomly). Whether you’re a digital service provider or an in-person business, we’ll help you make smart, scrappy moves that build trust with your prospects, and get them to buy in!

We cover:

• What to do before spending money on marketing

• The best free marketing moves to give you a head start

• How to prioritize website, email, and content basics without blowing your budget

• Smart ways to market yourself locally

• What NOT to waste your money on (no, you don’t need a $2,000 logo)

💌 Want more budget-friendly marketing tips? Join our monthly newsletter.

🎧 Subscribe to the podcast to keep getting kick-@$$ marketing tips. And if you love us (or hate us!) leave us a five star review.

You’re posting, emailing, showing up on social… but is any of it actually working?

In this episode, we walk you through how to track your marketing data like a professional marketer, without getting overwhelmed by spreadsheets or vanity metrics, or buying expensive software. You’ll learn what to measure, what to ignore, and how to use data to make smart, strategic decisions.

Here’s what we cover:

• The 2 questions all data should answer: What’s working? What’s not?

• What to track across your website, email, and social media

• How to set goals that make sense for your business (not someone else’s)

• What to do when you hit a dip, plateau, or confusing trend

• Smart tools to help you track without overcomplicating it

• Why small, consistent tweaks win vs. complete overhauls

Going with your gut is great...until it’s costing you sales. So let's rewrite the story with a strategic plan to track the right metrics!

📩 Want help figuring out what’s actually working in your business?
Join the Big Bad Newsletter for smart, actionable marketing tips (with a little sass!)

🎧 Subscribe or follow to get all the small business marketing ideas. And, leave us a five star review to help us reach more small biz owners who have no clue what to do!

The holidays sneak up fast, and if you wait until November to start planning your promos, you might end up with a big lump of coal.

In this episode we share why September is the secret weapon for holiday marketing and what you can do now to make Q4 less stressful (and more profitable).

We cover:

• The biggest mistake small businesses make with holiday planning

• How to map out offers, deadlines, and capacity before the rush

• Simple steps you can take this month to get ahead (without burning out)

💌 Want more tactical tips like this? Sign up for the BBM Newsletter. It’s like hot cocoa for your business, except useful year-round.

📌 Related blog posts we mentioned:

• Business Math: Make Your Margins Make Sense

• Annual Marketing Calendar

Trying to grow your social media following, but the people just aren't following? Chasing likes and views but still not seeing results?
In this episode we talk about vanity metrics, the shiny objects you're chasing, that are really just killing your strategy.

We break down:

• What vanity metrics actually are, and why they don’t matter

• The question to ask before you post: “Does this provoke real action?”

• What does matter if you want your marketing to help you make more money

• How to grow your audience without selling your soul to the algorithm

• Real strategies for building connection (and later conversions) not just content

Because the real flex isn’t a viral reel, it’s a small, engaged audience that buys, shares, and sticks around.

📩 Want marketing tips that actually work for your small biz?
Sign up for the Big Bad Newsletter.

🎧 Subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode! And, leave us five star review! It helps us reach more scrappy small business owners like you.

If your small biz sales funnel is messy, or nonexistent, this is for you.

Today, we’re breaking down exactly how to build a simple, strategic sales funnel that guides people from “just found you” to “ready to buy” without expensive, fancy tools or building a whole tech stack.

In this episode, we’ll show you:

• The 4 core stages of a working funnel: Attract, Engage, Nurture, Convert

• How to tie your content to each phase so it actually moves people forward

• Real questions to ask about your audience at every stage of their buyer’s journey

• Tools to help you map your funnel and keep it scrappy

• Common funnel mistakes (and how to fix them fast)

Plus, we drop our favorite tech tools and give some content examples to help you turn your random posts into a clear, effective funnel.

📩 Want help putting this into action?
Sign up for the Big Bad Newsletter for real examples, plug-and-play templates, and marketing strategy tips delivered straight to your inbox.

🎧 Hit follow or subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

Loving the show? Leave us a quick review. It helps more scrappy small business owners find their way.

If you’ve ever thought, “I’m doing all the marketing things, but nothing’s really clicking,” this episode is your wake-up call.

Today, we’re breaking down what a sales funnel actually is and why every small business needs one. Yes, even if you’re just getting started. And, yes, even if your making less than $100K.

We walk you through:

• The three key stages of a simple funnel (Awareness, Consideration, Conversion)

• Why your marketing feels chaotic without one

• What to post (and when) to actually guide people to buy

• Real-world symptoms of a broken or non-existent funnel

We break down what a funnel really is (not some techy, complicated thing) but a simple way to guide people from “just found out your brand exists” to “ready to buy” by connecting all your marketing efforts into one clear path.

📩 Want simple, actionable marketing tips delivered straight to your inbox?
Sign up for the Big Bad Newsletter

Love this podcast?

🔔 Subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode where we show you how to build your funnel from scratch, and align your content to every stage.

In our last epsiode, we talked about why staying focused as a small business owner feels impossible (it has something to do with juggling every single role in your business.)

But, we didn't want to leave you hanging!

In this bonus episode of The Big Bad Marketing Podcast, we share the tools, tips, mindset shifts, and strategies we use to stay (mostly) on track while swimming through a million tabs, to-dos, and distractions.

You’ll learn about our favorite focus tools, like project management, time blocks, no-meeting days. We talk about how to protect your time, do deep work, and what to do when you inevitably derail.

If you’re building a business, wearing all the hats, and trying to hold it all together, this one’s for you.

Need help keeping staying on track?
The Big Bad Marketing Newsletter is your monthly check-in for clarity, strategy, and focus.
It’s free, it’s actionable, and it’s like a mini reset button in your inbox.
👉 www.bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter

Ever feel like your brain has 87 tabs open, and none of them are loading?

Welcome to small business ownership.

In this episode of The Big Bad Marketing Podcast, we’re talking about the hard, messy truth of staying focused when you’re wearing all the hats. This is a real convo about the sh*t we deal with every day, and if you're out here tryna' run a business, you probably do, too.

We talk about why staying focused is harder than ever as an entrepreneur in 2025, and the difference between true distraction vs. overload.

We also talk about how constantly switching tasks keeps you in a mental spiral instead of actually helping you get things done.

Learn our process for pulling each other out of the out-of-focus spiral when we’re deep in the weeds, and a few questions we ask to get re-centered.

💡 Feeling scattered? We got you.
Sign up for the Big Bad Marketing Newsletter. It’s free, it’s focused, and it’s a monthly nudge to keep your brain and business aligned.
👉 www.bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter

In this episode of Big Bad Marketing Podcast, we break down why newsletters are still one of the most powerful marketing tools to reach your target audience, and how to build one that people actually want to read.

We cover why newsletters work (and what they do better than social), how to write emails that feel like conversations, not commercials, and we tell you exactly what to include, how long to make it, and how often to send them out so your prospects are excited to see what you have to say, not scrolling past.

🗞️ Want to see how it’s done?
We send out a monthly newsletter full of marketing tips, real biz updates, and a few big, bad jokes.
Sign up here: www.bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter

Struggling to get customer testimonials that actually do something for your small business? You’re not alone.

In this episode, we break down how to ask for testimonials (without feeling cringe), what the testimonials should cover, and where to put them for max impact.

We include five elements of a killer testimonial, how to prompt your clients so they give specifics that help new prospects convert, instead of the generic “it's amazing!” and what to do if the testimonial you get kinda sucks.

We’re also talking strategy: how testimonials fit into the buyer’s journey, and where to put them to boost credibility and conversions. (Hint: Sprinkle that sh*t everywhere!)

Listen in, then grab our free marketing newsletter at bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter for more actionable tips like these, designed for small businesses that want big results on a budget.

AI is everywhere right now, and makes quick work of A LOT of tasky tasks... but just because you can use it for pretty much everything doesn’t mean you should.

In this episode, we break down how to use AI to level up your small biz marketing, and when to absolutely avoid it.

We talk about:

How prompt AI like a pro (shout out Jeff Su!)

How to build a system that keeps things human

And the biggest AI no-no's, like letting it write your emails to customers... yikes.

Whether you’re curious about AI or already using it in your workflow, this episode is packed with practical tips, real examples so you can make the most of your machine bestie.

🎧 Listen in now! And if you want more smart strategies for growing your biz on a small budget, sign up for our free newsletter at bigbadmarketing.com/newsletter. We’ll send you our go-to list of marketing levers to pull today, with or without AI.

Welcome to your crash course in email automations: drips campaigns, nurture campaigns, and everything in between.

You've already started your email list and you've got the email marketing basics down. Now what?

In this episode, we break down the difference between drip and nurture campaigns (and why you need both to move prospects through your sales funnels and get them to buy.)

We cover:
✅ What a drip campaign is and when to use one (so you can drip it real good 😉)
✅ How nurture campaigns instigate action so people buy things
✅ Why your email provider matters (and when it’s time to graduate from Squarespace)
✅ Step-by-step: How to build smarter email campaigns
✅ Essential automations to set up ASAP (welcome sequences, abandoned cart, lead magnet delivery & more)
✅ Common mistakes small biz owners make (and how to avoid them)

✨ Bonus: We rant (lovingly) about why most businesses get email soooo wrong, like emailing daily with nothing to say, or disappearing for 3 years then suddenly showing up with a “flash sale.” Just. Don’t.

Ready for more from Big Bad?
👀 Follow @bigbadmktg on Instagram
✉️ Sign up for our free newsletter for tips, tricks, and bad jokes
🤑 Share this episode with an entrepreneur who doesn't know how to do email marketing but needs to
⭐️ Leave a 5-star review so we can reach world domination