One of the reasons I started Curation Marketing Co was because I don’t really believe small businesses always need more marketing.
Sometimes you need a strategy.
Sometimes you know exactly what you’re doing, you just don’t have time to create the content this month.
Sometimes your content is fine but your website has been sitting there untouched for two years and no longer really reflects your business.
And sometimes everything is actually ticking along pretty well and you don’t need me at all.
That’s kind of the point.
Your marketing needs probably aren’t the same every month
Small business isn’t particularly predictable.
You might have a quiet month where you have plenty of time to sit down, plan your content and get everything scheduled.
Then the next month someone is sick, you’re ridiculously busy with clients, you’re launching something new, or life just generally decides not to cooperate.
Suddenly marketing is the thing sitting at the bottom of the list.
I get that more than ever now.
Running Curation around a six-month-old has made me very aware that having a good plan doesn’t necessarily mean life is going to follow it.
And I don’t think the solution should always be signing up for another monthly expense just in case you need help.
So, what does flexible marketing support actually mean?
For me, it means being able to say:
“I just need help with this bit.”
Maybe you have plenty of ideas but need someone to help you work out which ones actually matter. That might be a Strategy Session.
Maybe you know what you want to achieve but staring at an empty content calendar every month is doing your head in. I can plan it.
Maybe the plan is sorted, but this month you genuinely do not have the time to turn it into finished posts. That’s where Content Creation comes in.
Or maybe content isn’t the problem at all. Your website needs another set of eyes, or you need someone to look across your marketing and help you see what’s working and what needs attention.
You don’t necessarily need all of those things at once.
And I don’t want to sell you all of them just because they exist.
Sometimes you might need me. Sometimes you won’t.
That’s why I’ve deliberately built Curation without requiring ongoing retainers.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with retainers. For some businesses and services they make perfect sense.
They just weren’t how I wanted Curation to work.
I wanted someone to be able to come to me and say, “This month is chaos. Can you just take this part off my plate?”
And then next month? Maybe they’re completely fine doing it themselves again.
Or they might start with a Strategy Session, take the direction away and work on it themselves for six months before they need another bit of support.
That works for me.
Because the goal isn’t to make you dependent on Curation
I’d actually rather help make your marketing feel more manageable without me.
A clear strategy should help you make better decisions after our session.
A content plan should make creating your own content easier.
If I create content for you, it should give you finished marketing you can actually use — not create another complicated process you have to manage.
And if I review your website, you should come away knowing what deserves attention whether you decide to make the changes yourself or ask me to help.
You should be able to take what you need and run with it.
Marketing has to fit around a real business
There are a million things you could be doing with your marketing.
That doesn’t mean you should be doing all of them.
For most small businesses, there are already enough things competing for your time without marketing becoming another full-time job.
So sometimes flexible marketing support looks like getting some direction.
Sometimes it looks like outsourcing something for a month.
Sometimes it’s having someone look at what you’re already doing and say, “Yep, keep doing that. But maybe focus over here next.”
And sometimes it means doing absolutely nothing new.
The point is to get the support you actually need, when you need it — without automatically signing yourself up for everything else.
That’s what flexible marketing support looks like to me.
