How I Epically Failed at Marketing Today

This morning I noticed on our handy lil’ Daily Specials idea calendar that today, February 16th, is “National Innovation Day.”

I immediately thought, “Oh hey… ‘Innovation’ is literally part of our Ninja Mission Statement! I should write something on the blog about how to innovate… um…. how Bloggin’ Ninja is innovative…uh… how…”

And then… my mind went blank.

Nothing.

No ideas about how I could finish that sentence.

I’ve been doing nothing but developing this product for 4 years — living, breathing, and, yes, sleeping Ninja innovation — and yet I honestly couldn’t think of ONE WAY I could market for “National Innovation Day.”

I got pretty frustrated — like, “OMG! I’m supposed to be this creative person… the one with all the ideas…!!!”

But, when I try to think of something to make a quick social media post about National Innovation Day, I get stymied…?!?

Well, sure, I could think about tons of *THINGS* I could talk about: the innovative Roadmap that leads you through the content creation process… the one-of-a-kind Idea Generator that gives you topics customized for your business.

But that’s just listing features…! And that’s not what you’re supposed to do….

The A-ha! Moment 

And then it dawned on me.

It was a big, stupid DUH moment – one where I literally slapped my forehead (a little hard, I must admit! lol) because I suddenly realized:

THIS is why I’d developed Bloggin’ Ninja: to help small business owners get effective marketing done in the middle of their busy daily life.

I was trying to quickly force a marketing idea into existence by sheer force of will. I was trying to pull an idea out of thin air (while I felt like what I was supposed to be doing is working on other things).

I was doing the exact same thing I saw other people do — getting stuck for an idea because I needed it now — hurry! — so I could get back working on my “real” business.

But… that doesn’t work. Sitting down and saying “Okay, create now. GO!” won’t work.

I’ve seen it time and time again; small business owners need their businesses to grow, but they can’t find the time to set aside for effective planning and marketing. And trying to just “get it done real quick” leads to frustration (on good days) and just plain old skipping marketing (on bad days).

The Science Behind the “Creative Rut”

There are actual scientific reasons why trying to force creativity and writing RIGHT NOW doesn’t work. (You can read about the science behind writer’s block here – from The National Endowment for the Arts (arts.gov) – it’s pretty interesting!)

Because when I think about Bloggin’ Ninja, I think about the tiny details: the Asset Tracker graphics need to be smaller to accommodate small laptops…. or the Content Calendar detail view popup window is still missing the Vimeo icon.

So it makes sense that I can’t think of marketing ideas because I’ve been mired in the day-to-day details of the business for years. I haven’t been thinking about it from the perspective of the people I’m trying to help. I’ve been too busy MAKING it to think about MARKETING it.

And that’s what Bloggin’ Ninja is all about: helping you get into the mindset of potential customers. Our bite-sized prompts help you discover how to market to people coming to your brand or business for the first time.

After the realization that I’d done the EXACT same thing I’d made a product to ELIMINATE, the eye roll I did was so big it actually gave me eyestrain or a pulled muscle or something. (So yeah… I guess I should actually listen to my eye doctor and give my eyes a break more often. Coz if a simple – albeit huge! – eye rolling sesh can hurt this much, well, that’s too much forward staring at my computer!!!)

Instead of getting frustrated by my lack of ideas for the blog post, I just needed to go to Bloggin’ Ninja. So I did!

Blogging the Ninja Way

In under 10 minutes, I not only finished that sentence that’d flummoxed me, but I had absolutely everything I needed to make this blog post. Here’s what I made:

Ten minutes to go from frustrated and stressed, to now just calmly getting it done.

From absolutely NO idea what I was going to write… to having everything I needed.

And when I got done outlining and writing in Bloggin’ Ninja, I literally said to my teenager (who’s homeschooling and happened to wander into my office between “classes”), “Phew! I’m glad that’s done.” To which he replied, “You sound like one of your commercials.”

Then… I realized that I’d just done it again. I just went through the exact same process that I made Ninja for. One I hope you can have too; feeling relief at having my marketing done, so I can blog and get back to business.

I know, I know… That all sounds cheesy and salesy!! But it’s the way I really feel.

So instead of not owning my authenticity, I figure I just need to own up to something. Are you ready…? Here goes…

I HATE writing blog posts.

I LOVE to write, but I completely FREAK OUT about having to fit the whole big long process of writing posts in to my business schedule. I hate it. It’s like, who has TIME for that?!?!

But, well, that is why I developed Bloggin’ Ninja in the first place! I tell myself… “Just do this one piece.. just come up with the idea.” And when that gets done quickly, it’s so easy to go on to the next little part… and the next.

When I only have to commit to a few minutes at a time, I get more done. Breaking down the writing process into little bite-sized pieces  just makes the whole thing feel easier, more manageable. More do-able!! 

But five minute writing sprints are AWESOME!

And now that the software is all done, I’m super excited that it’s working — and I’m happily writing content in my little bursts, between doing all my other stuff —  just like I’d hoped it would work!  Woohoo! 😀

Okay, now on to the fun stuff! (Well, fun for me ’cause I’m such a video nerd… 🤓)

Want to see how I came up with everything you’re reading right now? Here it is in Bloggin’ Ninja!

I made a little screen recording of what I did (and sped it up – I don’t type THAT fast..! hahaha). This way you can see the Outline Organizer and Writing Window in action — on this very blog post! Here it is:

And finally… back to where this all started…  the original idea for this post: “National Innovation Day.”

We did end up putting out a little blurb and photo about National Innovation Day on socials earlier. (See… I worked in little Ninja Sprints throughout the day, coming back and writing this as I had time. Posting to all four socials is just one of those other “real job” things I did in between writing, formatting, and posting this blog post.) 

Here’s the social media post I created in the Startline of the Writing Roadmap. (You may have seen a variation of it if you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest. 🙂 )

(See… We really do practice what we preach; I worked in little Ninja Sprints throughout the day, coming back and writing this as I had time. Because posting the “Happy National Innovation Day” graphic to social media was just one of those other “real job” things I had to do in between writing, formatting, and posting this blog post.) 

Finally, just to be thorough with our recounting the time it took to create everything for this post.. here are the final stats. 🙂

In addition to the ten minutes mentioned earlier, it took about 1 hour and 15-20 minutes to write everything up to here in the Writing Window. (I don’t have an exact time, because I was doing other things in between… Next time, I’ll have to set a timer so I know for sure!)

Now all we have to do it copy everything from Bloggin’ Ninja and paste it into this blog post page. That’s about 5 minutes.

So it’s basically done and it’s been, what… just under two hours…? That seems about right. To go from nothing… to developing the idea, writing the social media blurbs, the one liner, the title, the rough outline and  the basic blog post.

Yeah. I think it’s officially working… 🙂 Because Bloggin’ Ninja made it pretty easy for me to blog and get back to business today.