Ever walked into a networking event and felt like you were the wrong shape for the furniture?
That’s what it’s like when you’re marketing yourself to the wrong audience. The problem with marketing yourself to the wrong room is you feel about as welcome as a dose of syphilis on a Sunday in church. This blog talks about how to fix this.
The Room Full of Suits Problem
I once had someone tell me flat out: “You’re not suitable for Chamber.” Once upon a time, that would have stung. I mean, what’s wrong with me? The maverick business owner in me would have once challenged this sweeping statement. After all, I can write in many voices – why wouldn’t I be able to write for someone who was a member of the Chamber of Commerce?
The thing is, this person was right. A room full of pinstripes, small talk, and delicate sensibilities? I’d stick out like a sore thumb. I’d be getting weird looks and eyerolls simply by opening my mouth.
Could I tone it down? Sure. Could I convince a Chamber member to hire me as their marketing expert and content writer? Maybe… but it would take endless persuasion, careful editing, and biting back my natural wit and charm. And honestly, why waste that energy trying to prove myself to people who will never really get me?
Wouldn’t it make far more sense to spend that energy in the right room with business owners who actually want a content writer who understands their audience, speaks their language, and can help them nail their message without me pausing mid-sentence to check if I’ve offended someone?
The Problem with Marketing to the Wrong Room
When you’ve been in business a while, you know your stuff. You’ve put in the graft, you’ve got the testimonials, you’ve delivered results.
Yet you’re still struggling.
The problem isn’t your service; it’s that your marketing keeps falling flat.
You’ve tried the marketing advice: post more, show up everywhere, throw money at ads. Switch messaging, try another tack. Perhaps it attracted some clients, but they weren’t the right ones for you. They questioned your methods. They ignored your advice. They haggled over the price. They ghosted you when the invoice landed. They told you that they’d wasted their money on your business.
And instead of doing the work you love, you found yourself drained, resentful, and wondering if all this marketing bollocks was just a colossal waste of time.
That’s not because you can’t market. It’s because you’ve been in the wrong room.
When your message isn’t tuned into the specific problems your ideal clients are struggling with, you’ll always end up attracting the wrong crowd. Marketing becomes a grind. You keep switching tactics, trying the next shiny thing, and still feel invisible.
But once you nail your message – once you know exactly who you’re talking to and what keeps them awake at night – writing content becomes easier.
And then, your job is simply to keep banging that drum.
Consistently. Relentlessly. In the right places.
But before you can do that, you have to find your room. The room where your ideal clients are already waiting, ready to hear what you have to say.
Why We End Up in the Wrong Room
- Fear of missing out: We’re told we have to be everywhere. So we scatter our energy across every platform, networking group, and marketing fad, terrified that if we don’t show up everywhere, we’ll disappear. And sometimes, yes, a client bites. That little hit of validation convinces us we’re on the right track. But here’s the catch: to get them over the line, we bend. We tweak our service, shift our tone, water ourselves down until, suddenly, we’re doing work we resent for clients who were never really a fit.
- Talking about the wrong things: It’s easy to fall into the trap of teaching, preaching, or endlessly explaining what we think our audience needs to know. The problem? People don’t buy because you’ve educated them into submission. They buy because you’ve shown you understand the thing they actually care about. If your content doesn’t meet them where they are, you’ll always lose them to someone who does.
- Shiny object syndrome: Someone else swears by TikTok, or swears networking breakfasts changed their business. We assume it’ll work for us too, because hey, if it worked for them, it must be the room we need to be in. (Look at that room of Chamber members?) It’s not their room you need. It’s yours.
- Old habits: Maybe you’ve relied on referrals, or the same platforms, or the same pitch that worked five years ago. But in that time, your business has evolved. Your skills have elevated. You’ve got five years of experience under your belt. And in that time, your client’s needs will have changed. Your client’s goals might have switched. They have lived through five years of this modern hellscape, and they need you more than ever. An ideal client exercise is never a one-and-done.
If your marketing hasn’t kept up, you’re standing in a room you outgrew a long time ago.
How to Market Yourself to the Right Room
When you know who you’re talking to, your marketing stops sounding like a garbled announcement over a broken tannoy and starts feeling like an actual conversation. The right people lean in. The wrong people quietly leave through the fire exit (an unsubscribe, an unfriend, a snarky comment left on your content), and that’s exactly how it should be.
So how do you stop marketing to the wrong room and build content for the right one?
1. Speak their language.
Not jargon. Not consultant-speak. Not ‘synergy-led optimisation of stakeholder engagement’. (Nobody talks like that at the pub, and neither should your posts.)
Your ideal clients have a way of describing their problems. Use their words, not the ones you think make you sound clever. People don’t have time to decipher word salad bollocks.
Be clear. Be concise. Be specific.
2. Tell the stories that matter.
You don’t need your socials to look like an autobiography. Not every story needs to be shared. Just tell the relevant ones. The ones that make your ideal client think, “That’s me. That’s exactly what I’m dealing with.”
If your story bank is full of tales about battling red tape, surviving toxic bosses, or laughing at the madness of corporate jargon, you’re not writing for the Chamber of Commerce crowd, who thrive on suits and scripts. You’re writing for the small business owner who’s left that world behind and never wants to go back.
See the difference? One group wants tips on climbing the corporate ladder. The other wants reassurance that they were right to burn the ladder and build their own.
3. Share where they hang out.
Stop chucking word spaghetti at LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and whatever new shiny platform popped up this morning. If your ideal client isn’t scrolling TikTok while procrastinating over invoices, then why are you wasting your breath there? Pick the places they actually spend time.
4. Be consistent.
The right people can only find you if you’re in the room when they show up. That means regular content. Pick a consistency that fits your routine. Once a week is much better than a mad flurry followed by three months of radio silence. Show up, share, repeat. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to be you.
The Payoff of the Right Room
When you’re in the right room, marketing feels lighter. Conversations lead somewhere. Clients come in pre-warmed because they already get you. You don’t have to justify your fees or explain why you work the way you do.
They already know what you’re about. They already know that they’re getting a badass business owner who knows things and fixes shit.
They want that. They were looking for it.
Instead of chasing, you start attracting. Instead of draining, you start enjoying. And instead of trying to sand your square edges down to fit someone else’s round hole (think of that what you will), you can build the business you actually wanted when you started all this.
Your content not only repels the wrong people, but it also rolls out the red carpet for your perfect ideal clients.
And once you’re in the right room, you don’t need to shout, bribe, or beg for attention. You just need to show up and talk like yourself.
Marketing to the Right Room
If you’ve been trying to squeeze into rooms that make you feel itchy, weirded out, drained, or flat-out invisible… stop. Find the room where your ideal clients are already waiting. Then build your content to welcome them in.
And if you’re not sure which your room is yet, that’s where I come in. I help business owners cut through the noise, figure out their ideal client, and create content that lands with the people who actually matter.
Want me to help you find your room?
So, if you’ve ever found yourself pitching your services and wondering why it feels like you’ve accidentally wandered into the wrong room — surrounded by medieval freaks in metaphorical armour — it’s time to fix that.
In my Ideal Client & Marketing Clarity Sessions, we dig into who your real audience is and how to talk to them so your message lands every time. You’ll get two 1:1 sessions (both recorded) and a clarity document that becomes the foundation of all your future marketing.
No more blank stares. No more wrong rooms. Just marketing that finally fits.
Book your Marketing Clarity sessions HERE today and start speaking your people’s language.