How Much Time Should You Spend on Marketing?
Oct 09, 2025
I’m often asked how much time my clients should spend on marketing - it's the classic ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question! Ultimately, there’s no right or wrong answer, but the more time you commit to marketing your business (assuming you are working on the right things), the quicker it will grow.
How much time each week do you currently spend on marketing? Two hours? Five? Ten? I’d estimate that you’ll need to spend at least 10 hours a week, especially if you’re just starting out. Does this number scare you?
If it does, relax. You’ll be surprised how much you already do but didn’t realise it comes under the marketing banner, such as chatting about what you do with family and friends, commenting on social media posts, or attending community events. By making marketing fun and part of your routine, it’ll be much easier for you to market yourself and find clients.
Remember, this doesn’t all have to be done at once. You can break it down into chunks throughout your week to make it manageable and sustainable. Once you have your foundations in place and enough clients, you can easily reduce the time spent on marketing.
When I first started working as a practitioner, I could easily spend 20 hours a week on different marketing activities (I’ve always loved my marketing). Once I’d established a routine, it dropped to about 6 hours and some weeks as few as 2 hours. Knowing what works and having systems in place made it efficient, but I had to put in the legwork.
There’s no ‘one-size fits all’ with your marketing. The important thing is to work out what works for you and create your own marketing recipe; one you can repeat again and again. This will help you make the most of your precious time and your marketing efforts. It also helps prevent burnout and overwhelm.
And remember, marketing is simply sharing your health and wellbeing solutions with the people who need them most.
Always Ask Why:
Whilst you should always strive to be visible and get yourself out there, make sure you do it strategically and not as a knee-jerk reaction to something you’ve seen someone else do. Any marketing you do should always have a reason and should point the recipient toward their next step. Before you do the next marketing activity, simply check in and ask yourself why:
- Why am I doing this?
- Does it help me achieve my goals?
- Is this what I really want to spend my time doing?
- Does it make my clients happy?
- Will it attract clients to my business?
Work to Your Strengths
Just because your peers are marketing themselves in a certain way, it doesn’t mean it’s right for you. The more you market yourself in a way that plays to your strengths, the easier, more efficient (and even fun) it will be.
Give yourself permission to stop doing the things you really struggle with. There’s a huge difference between doing things that stretch you and having to force yourself to do things you hate or find really difficult. These are often the things where you don’t show up as your best self, so you’re unlikely to connect with the right people and will probably stop doing them altogether.
Recognise your communication strengths and pick marketing activities that reflect them:
- Writing: press articles, blogs, guest blogging, social media posts, email marketing, newsletters, or books
- Talking: being interviewed, speaking opportunities, podcasting, and videos
- Visual: creating infographics, animated videos, social media posts, and photographs
- Personal connection: networking, talks and workshops, conferences, and stands at events
Make Time for Marketing
Ensure you have time to spend on your marketing by booking time in your diary. If you don’t set yourself a routine, it’s far too easy to find other things to do and leave the marketing for another time, which ultimately will never happen! Treat your marketing time as a non-negotiable appointment - just like you would with a client.
When you’re starting out, use the time you’ve set aside for clients (but don’t yet have bookings for) to focus on your marketing. For example, if your goal is to see 10 clients a week for an hour each, and you only have 3 booked in, invest the other 7 hours in your marketing in addition to your scheduled marketing time.
Start Where You Are
Keep your marketing as simple as possible and start with what you already have available. There’s no point investing in fancy marketing software and courses if you’re not making the most of what you already have.
Audit your current marketing to identify where you might be underutilising your existing resources. What else could you be doing with these that also works to your strengths?
Focus on two or three core activities and become confident with those before expanding. Trying to do everything at once will leave you feeling scattered and ultimately ineffective.
Identify What’s Working
The more time you focus on doing the things that work, the more likely you are to get better results. Every time you have a conversation with a new client, find out how they heard about you. This will start to give you an idea of what’s attracting clients to your door. How are you maintaining the relationships you have with your existing clients that keep them returning? Do more of those things.
Have you heard of the Pareto effect or the 80/20 rule? Basically, 20% of your efforts will provide 80% of your results. By identifying and focusing on the 20% of your marketing that’s working, you’ll save yourself a huge amount of time.
For example, if you’re a medical herbalist and you spend hours on social media, but your clients find you through the local monthly market where you sell your skincare products, focus on making the most of your markets and free up the time you spend on social media.
Final Thoughts
Without marketing and attracting clients to your business, you will be the world’s best-kept secret. You’ve invested so much in your training; don’t let your services stay hidden. Marketing helps ensure the people who need your help can find you.
Love it or hate it, you need to embrace marketing and do this by creating your own marketing recipe. One that you’ve tried and tested, and you know works for you. Trying to do what other practitioners do is a surefire way to spin your wheels and feel discouraged about marketing. So, start working to your strengths and save yourself time in the process.
