The Best Marketing Podcast Ever

Hannah Isted
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Welcome to The Best Marketing Podcast Ever! I’m Hannah Isted, I run HI Communications and I love helping small businesses with their marketing. This podcast is all about making marketing easy for small business owners. Find out more on my website www.hicommunications.co.uk.

  1. 12/27/2025

    167. Planning your marketing for 2026

    Sign up for Xero ⁠⁠⁠using my link here⁠⁠⁠! http://www.xero.com/hicommunications Sign up to The Best 90 Days Ever here! https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever Are you feeling the pressure to have your entire year figured out before the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve? In this episode I break down my stress-free approach to annual planning. Learn why I waits until January to start her own strategy and discover the five essential categories you need to map out to ensure your marketing supports your life—not the other way around.  In this episode we cover: The Permission to Wait: Why you don’t need to "hit the ground running" on January 1st to have a successful year.  The "Holidays First" Rule: Why mapping out vacations, school holidays, and birthdays is the non-negotiable first step of any marketing plan.  Dates Set in Stone: Factoring in pre-determined events like public speaking engagements and recurring membership launches.  Audience Growth Strategy: How to plan lead magnets and challenges before your big launches so you aren't always selling to the same group of people.  Business Milestones: Using anniversaries and awareness days to create easy, pre-planned content.

    15 min

  2. 12/16/2025

    166. Being a person who is organised

    Sign up for Xero ⁠⁠using my link here⁠⁠! http://www.xero.com/hicommunications Sign up to The Best 90 Days Ever here! https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever Episode 166: Being a Person Who is Organised In this episode, Hannah Isted explores what it truly means to be "organised" in business and marketing. While she admits she hasn't always felt like an organised person, she shares the specific systems and mindset shifts that allow her to stay consistent and avoid the overwhelm of content creation. Hannah explains that organisation starts with a clear structure, beginning with a year-long marketing overview that identifies upcoming launches, holidays, and growth goals. She emphasises that planning ahead makes a person much more likely to follow through with their intentions.  To support this, she highlights the importance of content batching sessions, which provide a "bank" of ideas and posts for an entire quarter, effectively removing the daily stress of wondering what to say. A central theme of the episode is the necessity of a dedicated "home" for your content. Hannah shares her personal reliance on Trello for organizing launches and seasonal content, though she notes that tools like Notion, Google Docs, or even a large sheet of paper can work as long as a consistent system is in place. She also discusses the benefits of using templates in Adobe Express or Canva, explaining how keeping these projects labeled and organised saves significant time when repurposing content from previous years. The episode concludes with a call to make a conscious mindset shift toward becoming an organised person. Hannah encourages listeners to gather their scattered ideas from notebooks and phone memos into one central place where they will actually be used. By putting these systems in place now, business owners can ensure that "future them" is grateful for the preparation and ease created for the year ahead. The Best 90 Days Ever: The next round of this marketing membership starts January 1st, featuring daily 10-minute tasks, goal setting, and community support via Slack. Year of Marketing in a Day: An exclusive workshop for members held on Thursday, January 8th, to plan out the entire year. Content Batching Session: A three-hour deep dive on Wednesday, January 21st, to create a quarter’s worth of marketing material. Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Xero, the small business accounting software designed to help you save time on admin and stay on top of your finances.

    17 min

  3. 12/11/2025

    165. The Art of Underthinking

    Sign up for Xero ⁠using my link here⁠! http://www.xero.com/hicommunications Sign up to The Best 90 Days Ever here! https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever The Best Marketing Podcast Ever - 165. The Art of Underthinking Host: Hannah Isted In this episode, Hannah Isted dives into the concept of The Art of Underthinking and how it is the key to overcoming procrastination, perfectionism, and the common business paralysis that comes from overthinking your marketing and content. Hannah shares her personal struggles with overthinking, from the ironic procrastination of recording this very episode to worrying about wind speed after a greenhouse incident. She argues that the problem isn't the thinking itself, but the resulting lack of action. Discover how simple boundary-setting tools, like a 10-minute timer and the structured approach of The Best 90 Days Ever program, can help you bypass the overthinking cycle, get content out quickly, and achieve your business goals. Underthinking is about Action: The core message is that perfectionism and overthinking often lead to procrastination and "paralysis," stopping you from doing the thing you need to do. Underthinking is the deliberate choice to take action instead. The Power of the 10-Minute Timer: Set a timer (like the yellow one used in The Best 90 Days Ever) for just 10 minutes to focus on an intimidating task without overthinking it. This is how you "get past that stuckness" and get out of your own way. The Marketing Overthinking Cycle: Many business owners believe marketing must take a long time, so they don't set limits, which makes the task take longer, thus confirming their initial belief and leading to overwhelm. Practical Underthinking Tips for Content: Simplify Visuals: Don't overthink the look of your content. For a carousel post, consider using the same photo for every slide to save significant time. Reuse Templates: Duplicate a successful social media template (e.g., in Adobe Express), only change the text, and post it again to avoid designing from scratch. Be 10% More Annoying: Stop overthinking the need to be repetitive. Hannah's most popular presentation slide was "Be 10% More Annoying" as a call to action—most of your audience won't notice the repetition anyway. Practice in Life: Practice making quick, low-stakes "underthinking decisions" in your personal life, such as deciding what dessert to have or what route to take on a walk. Hannah even successfully haggled £20 off her Christmas tree by choosing not to overthink it.

    19 min

  4. 11/17/2025

    164. The content system that will save your business this Christmas

    Sign up for Xero using my link here! http://www.xero.com/hicommunications Join my free Christmas content workshop here - https://noble-lab-369.myflodesk.com/ze3s8lznjx The Best Marketing Podcast Ever - Episode 164: The content system that will save your business this Christmas In this episode, Hannah shares the "Christmas Content System" she has developed that has been a game-changer for reducing stress and saving time during the busy festive season. The goal of the system is to create a foundation of reusable content that saves "future you" time and allows for strategic flexibility in December. The Purpose of the System Saves Time and Prevents Stress: The end of the year can be stressful, especially for product businesses focused on sales or service businesses trying to make their offers seasonal. This system is built to help you look after your future self. Enables Flexibility: Having a bank of ready-to-go content allows you to choose your strategy for the upcoming year—whether you decide to push hard on launches (like last year) or pull back into "maintenance mode" (like this year). Creative Freedom: When the foundation is sorted, you gain the brain space to come up with new, creative ideas. Focus on Audience Sentiment: Even if your service isn't seasonal, the way your audience feels will be seasonal. The system helps you address their current thoughts around end-of-year tasks, Christmas content, or January planning. Building Your Content System Choose Your Platform: Hannah uses a Trello board to store all her festive content. Members of The Best 90 Days Ever also use platforms like Notion, Air Table, and Google Docs. The key is to pick a platform that works for you. Capture Reusable Concepts: The system is for capturing content ideas that resonated with people in previous years. Go Back Through Your Work: Look at content from previous festive seasons that either grew your audience or resulted in sales. Repurpose, Don't Just Copy: You don't have to copy and paste old posts. Use the system to save a good concept, hook, or visual that can be reused and updated (e.g., turning an old idea into a new Reel). Current Offers and Promotions Free Workshop: Join the free workshop, "Help, I've got no Christmas content" , on Wednesday, November 19th, at 12:00 UK time. It's designed to help you create a library of content you can reuse every year. If you miss it, you can still sign up for the recording. The Best 90 Days Ever Membership: The next round of the membership starts on January 1st. You can join the wait list to receive a weekly email with one of the tasks currently being done by members to get a taste of the community. Episode Sponsor This episode is sponsored by Xero. Xero helps small business owners streamline and supercharge their business by simplifying admin like invoicing, expenses, and chasing payments. Use Xero to get paid twice as fast and make tax simple.

    21 min

  5. 11/03/2025

    163. Putting my business in maintenance mode

    Sign up for the free Christmas content workshop here -https://noble-lab-369.myflodesk.com/ze3s8lznjx Order your wall calendar here - https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/product-page/2026-printed-wall-calendar The Best Marketing Podcast Ever - Episode 163: Putting my business in maintenance mode In this episode, Hannah shares why she is intentionally pulling back from major launches and putting her business into a "maintenance mode" for the final two months of the year. This strategy is designed to maintain the momentum and success achieved throughout the year while creating space to rest, avoid burnout, and enjoy personal activities during the festive season. An Amazing October  Best 90 Days Ever: The latest launch was a success, achieving the highest-ever member count of 169 (with a goal to reach 200). Bucket List: Saw Simply Red live in concert. Anniversary Trip: Celebrated her second wedding anniversary in Rhodes, Greece (a last-minute swap after their original trip to Zante was cancelled). Vision Board Goal: Traveled to LA with Adobe, fulfilling a vision board goal to be in America for Autumn/Halloween. The Decision: Entering Maintenance Mode This mode is the opposite of a website being in maintenance for updates; it's about maintaining current success to prevent burnout. The final two months (November and December) will be used for rest and breaking from the busy pace of the previous year. Last year's end-of-year included promoting wall calendars, a retreat day, a free online workshop ("Help, I've got no Christmas content"), the Best 90 Days Ever launch, and a paid online workshop, leading to minimal downtime. The Maintenance Mode Strategy Hannah was able to set herself up for a break by planning ahead in September. She calculated the amount needed to cover her set monthly salary for October, November, and December and achieved that goal with the September Best 90 Days Ever launch. Her three rules for maintenance mode are: No New Launches: Focus energy and time solely on promoting existing offers. Time to Be Creative: Use the extra space to play around with new tools and content (inspired by Adobe Max in LA) and feed that knowledge back to her community. Still Focus on Audience Growth and Promoting The Best 90 Days Ever. This includes maintaining her track record of doubling her email list every year using Flowdesk. Current Offers and Promotions Free Workshop: "Help, I've got no Christmas content" workshop (Pushed back to November 19th this year). Wall Calendars: Launched two months earlier this year to reduce pressure. The Best 90 Days Ever: The next round starts on January 1st. Key Takeaways and HighlightsNew Member Bonus: The previous paid workshop (which cost £100 last year) will be included as a free bonus for members of the January, February, and March round of The Best 90 Days Ever (which costs £90), serving as a powerful incentive without a full launch.

    20 min

  6. 09/28/2025

    162. Back to Business Bootcamp Day 14 - Cool down

    Episode 162 - Reflecting on Back to Business Boot Camp: Setting, Shifting, and Scoring Your Goals We’ve reached the final day of Back to Business Boot Camp! In this episode, I’ll walk you through a gentle Sunday cooldown, giving you space to reflect on your goals, your progress, and how to carry that energy into The Best 90 Days Ever. What we cover in our cool down Two weeks might not sound like long, but so much can shift in that time. Today, I’m inviting you to look back at the goals you set at the start of Boot Camp and reflect on what’s changed, what you’ve achieved, and what still feels challenging. We’ll talk about why it’s perfectly okay to change your goals, how to stay curious instead of critical when things don’t go as planned and how reflection can set you up for even bigger wins in the next round of The Best 90 Days Ever. Plus, I’m sharing a little bonus task for members who want my personal feedback on their posts — and how I plan to build more of that support into the membership moving forward. What You’ll Learn in This Episode Why it’s okay for your goals to shift (and how to reset them). How to reflect on what worked and what didn’t over the past 14 days. The power of curiosity over comparison in your marketing. A simple way to score your progress and track growth over time. A sneak peek at a brand-new feedback feature inside The Best 90 Days Ever. Resources & Links Mentioned in This Episode Join The Best 90 Days Ever here: https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hicommunications_/ Let’s ConnectIf you’ve found these Boot Camp episodes helpful, please share this podcast with a friend who might need it too. And if you’ve got feedback, I’d love to hear from you!

    8 min

  7. 09/27/2025

    161. Back to Business Bootcamp Day 13 - Repurposing

    Join The Best 90 Days Ever here - https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever

    9 min

  8. 09/26/2025

    160. Back to Business Bootcamp Day 12 - Sales!

    Join The Best 90 Days Ever here - https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever

    13 min
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About

Welcome to The Best Marketing Podcast Ever! I’m Hannah Isted, I run HI Communications and I love helping small businesses with their marketing. This podcast is all about making marketing easy for small business owners. Find out more on my website www.hicommunications.co.uk.

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