Where to find step-by-step guides for marketing a new creative business.
When you’re starting a creative business, marketing can feel overwhelming fast.
There’s no shortage of advice — but most of it assumes you already know what you’re selling, who it’s for, and what makes it different. If you don’t yet, step-by-step guides can either help tremendously… or make things more confusing.
This article is meant to help you understand what kind of guides are actually useful at the beginning, where to find them, and how to use them without losing your sense of direction.
What “Step-by-Step” Marketing Usually Means
Most step-by-step marketing guides fall into one of these categories:
Business basics
How to register your business, set up accounts, or create a basic plan.Channel-specific guides
How to market on Instagram, start an email list, or build a website.Growth frameworks
Funnels, lead magnets, ad strategies, and scaling systems.
Each of these can be helpful — but only at the right time.
The mistake many creative founders make is starting with steps before they understand exactly where in the system those steps belong.
Why Marketing Guides Often Feel Confusing for Creatives
Creative business owners tend to struggle with marketing guides for one key reason:
They’re often told what to do without being helped to understand why.
That leads to:
Following advice that doesn’t fit your business
Starting and stopping strategies constantly
Feeling like marketing is something you’re “bad at”
In reality, the problem usually isn’t execution — it’s missing context.
(If this sounds familiar, you may want to read our article on developing a clear brand identity before marketing.)
What to Look for in a Useful Step-by-Step Guide
Before following any marketing guide, ask:
Does this assume I already know my positioning?
Is this about tactics — or about decision-making?
Will this still make sense six months from now?
The most useful early-stage guides tend to:
Explain how things connect
Encourage working in sequence, not in silos
Leave room for your business to grow and change
This is especially important for creative businesses, where intuition and structure need to coexist.
Public Resources vs. Brand-Specific Guidance
Many people turn to:
Small business development centers
Accounting platforms
Design or software companies
These can be great for:
General overviews
Compliance and logistics
Understanding common terminology
What they often don’t provide is a cohesive perspective tailored to creative, small-batch businesses — especially those that value thoughtfulness over speed.
That’s where brand-led frameworks become useful.
A Different Kind of “Step-by-Step”
At The Thoughtful Brand Co., we take a slightly different approach to step-by-step guidance.
Instead of starting with marketing channels, we start with:
Clarity
Strategy
Creative direction
Marketing (last, on purpose)
This helps ensure that when you do follow steps — writing copy, building a site, sharing your work — they all point in the same direction.
If you’re interested in seeing how this works in practice, the Foundations Course walks through the full system in order, without rushing ahead.
How to Use Marketing Guides Without Burning Out
One final note that matters more than it seems:
You do not need to follow every step immediately.
Good guides are meant to be returned to — not completed as fast as possible. Especially in the early days, marketing is less about volume and more about learning how to think about your business clearly.
When that clicks, the steps tend to take care of themselves.
Get to know The Thoughtful Brand Co.
The Thoughtful Brand Co. exists to support small businesses that want to build something meaningful, personal, and sustainable.
You can read more about our philosophy and approach here: