🤯 How I Researched 30+ Small Biz Marketing Ideas (Without Burning Out)

In this issue:

🤯 How I researched 30+ real-world examples this week

🔍 My custom system to save time on research

🤖 An AI shortcut that shaved hours off my writing week

This week, I’ve been deep in research mode — working on a new article for Backlinko about marketing ideas for small businesses.

But I didn’t want to just list generic tactics. I wanted each idea to feel real and actionable — something you could picture an actual business doing.

And that’s a lot of digging. Especially when you have more than 30 marketing ideas on the list 🙈

I spent hours surfing through Google search results, digging through ChatGPT outputs, and scrolling TikTok and Instagram, looking at how small brands promote themselves.

It was surprisingly fun — but also pretty exhausting. But what kept me going is that I knew the value would come from the real-world examples, not just the ideas.

Why did I need to go this far?

To make the article more useful, I added a mini how-to with every idea. That way, if something sparks inspiration, you’ll know exactly how to get started. Whether that’s launching short-form videos, setting up a loyalty programs, or finally starting email marketing.

It’s not published yet (should be in a few weeks), but I’ll share the link here when it goes live.

Not to be biased, but I think this one’s going to be a good read. 👀

Now, here’s something I realized while trying to pull all these examples together:

I already had a Notion database where I save interesting case studies and marketing ideas, but this week made me appreciate it even more.

I also have a separate resource tracker where I bookmark my go-to research sites — like CNBC Make It, Really Good Emails, and brand campaign directories.

Everything lives in one place, and I can search, tag, and reuse examples across future articles without losing hours in browser tabs.

I also leaned heavily on ChatGPT this week — not to write, but to cut down research time.

I used its Deep Research functionality to surface relevant case studies and examples tied to each marketing idea.

Some still needed fact-checking and refining (which I always do), but it genuinely saved me hours of manual searching.

That’s it from backstage this week.

If you’re working on something interesting or found a marketing campaign that really stood out to you, I’d love to hear about it. Just hit reply and let me know.

See you next Friday,

Kate 🌟