The work I do to help people supercharge their website messaging is like oxygen for a fire.

It’s great to add oxygen if you already have a spark and some fuel…

But it’s not going to do a darn thing if you’re missing the spark or the fuel in the first place.

In other words, blowing on cold sticks doesn’t help.

Translated to business: It’s not worth investing in an awesome website or clear messaging unless you know you have an offer that people want to buy.

But.

How do you know that?

Validating your offer can feel like a catch-22.

How can I know whether my offer is good unless I put energy into making my marketing good?

My answer: Minimum Viable Marketing (MVM).

Ask yourself: What’s the minimum I can do to find out if I’ve created something people want to buy?

This is partly about starting small with the offer — before launching an 8-week series, try a single afternoon on the same topic.

But it’s also about letting yourself market in a duct-tape, low-budget, minimalist way early on, until you know enough to justify pouring resources into doing it better later.

Step 1: Use guidelines like the StoryBrand framework to make sure you’ve sketched out the core elements of what your marketing needs to say.

“Sketched out” is the key. Move fast here, don’t get obsessed with making it perfect.

That link above has good info about getting started with it all.

Step 2: Stay quick and dirty with how you deploy that messaging.

Here are some ideas of MVM you can use, all BEFORE building a website (which is a great thing to do, don’t get me wrong. Just not too soon. Unless you’re the kind of person who can pop up a website in like 3 hours with no stress. Then go for it!):

Write a description of your offer in a Google Doc — share it in View Only mode
Create a booking/calendar link for your service with a short description in it — just send that out. (Some even let you take payments.)
Message people in your network and ask for a 1:1 catchup call or coffee. Ask their feedback on your offer as you actually talk, live.
Use your LinkedIn profile as the main place you send people (make sure there’s a clear call to action)
Build a LinkTree with the most important things you want people to see or know about you and your offer
Use Canva to create a quick PDF one-pager about what you’re up to (you can also use it to build a really simple website).

Got it?

The key question: “What’s the least I can do to find out if this is a good offer?”

Here’s to conscious laziness,

Rachel

PS – Just thought I’d share my all-time favorite TikTok video. It’s like 7 seconds and it cheers me up every time. You’re welcome.

PPS – Many of you are marketers, and all of you are smart and creative, so my turn to ask you for YOUR ideas: If you wanted to double a newsletter’s subscribers in the next 30 days, what’s one thing you would you do?

This post was originally sent as an email to the Magic Words of the Week newsletter list. Every week, I share reflections on a word, quote, or phrase I think will help you thrive in your life’s work.