When You “Don’t Have Time” to Market Your Squarespace Business
If you’re like most designers and developers I talk to, you already know you should be marketing your business.
You also probably feel like you never have the time for it.
Client work fills your week. Family, life, and everything else fills whatever’s left. So marketing becomes this nagging obligation you carry around, but never quite get to.
In this article, I want to reframe that.
Because in my experience, the problem usually isn’t time.
It’s how we’re thinking about marketing in the first place.
Problem #1: Everything You Call “Marketing” Is Something You Don’t Want To Do
When a lot of people think “marketing,” they think:
Posting every day on social
Dancing for the algorithm
Cold outreach
Aggressive DMs
Playing some persona that doesn’t feel like them
On top of that, maybe you have tried a few of those things:
You posted for a while and nothing seemed to happen
You tried a launch and it fizzled
You experimented with Reels or TikTok, felt ridiculous, and bailed
Totally normal.
But if all the “marketing” you’re aware of is stuff that drains you or hasn’t worked, of course you’re not going to “have time” for it.
So let’s start with a different definition.
Reframing Marketing
Here’s how I think about marketing now:
Marketing is making it easier for buyers to find a seller, and easier for sellers to find a buyer.
That’s it.
If you imagine a literal market — an open marketplace with tables, stalls, people selling things, people buying things — then marketing is about how you facilitate that connection.
Now picture yourself as a seller in that market:
If buyers are walking around but can’t see you, your first marketing challenge is visibility
If buyers are approaching your table but misunderstand what you actually do, your challenge is communication
If buyers are interested but get stuck in uncertainty, your challenge is clarity and trust
When you look at it that way, “marketing” stops being this mysterious, separate activity.
It just becomes: What would make it easier for the right people to find me, understand me, and hire me?
Why You’re Already Marketing (Even If It’s “Just Referrals”)
If you have any clients at all, you’ve already been marketing.
Even if they all came from:
Referrals
Past co-workers
A friend of a friend
In that situation, someone else stepped in as the “marketing channel.”
They did the work of:
Explaining who you are
Vouching for what you do
Connecting buyer and seller
In a sense, they become the middle-person in your marketplace. They’re doing marketing for you.
Honestly, they probably deserve a commission.
The question now is:
How do you start doing some of that work on purpose, in a way that doesn’t eat your entire calendar?
What Buyers Actually Want to Know
Let’s zoom in on what’s happening when a potential client shows up.
Whether they say it out loud or not, every buyer is carrying some version of the same questions:
Will this get me what I want?
What is this going to cost me? (Money, time, energy.)
What is it actually like to work with you?
Has this worked for other people like me?
I feel a little unique — will this work for me?
If every potential client is walking around with those questions in their head, then your marketing challenge becomes very simple:
Answer those questions before they show up.
When you do that, you:
Make it easier for them to buy from you
Remove a lot of friction and hesitation
Respect their time and attention
That’s marketing.
Marketing Is Solving “Buying Problems”
If we zoom out even more:
Marketing is about solving buying problems.
Buying problems are all the little pieces of friction that get in the way of a yes:
Confusion about what you actually offer
Doubt about whether it works
Anxiety about the process
Uncertainty about price and scope
Imagine that same market again.
You’ve got a table, but:
There’s a pile of boxes blocking the front
Your sign is half torn off
Your price list is handwritten in tiny letters
Your product is hidden under a sheet
Moving the boxes out of the way is marketing.
Making a clear sign is marketing.
Showing your product is marketing.
You are not “doing social media.” You are removing friction from the path between your clients and the result they want.
My Favorite Marketing Channel
Here’s my favorite place to market from:
Your support channel.
If you sell products, you already know this. Support tickets, pre-sale questions, onboarding emails — that’s where you see what people are confused about right now.
If you sell services, the same thing is true:
Every time you work with a client, you are supporting them through a change.
When you’re transparent about that work — when you let people see:
What you’re doing
How you’re solving problems
What the process looks like
What your clients are experiencing
You make it much easier for the next buyer to say:
“Oh, that’s me. That’s what I need.”
So one of the simplest, least time-intensive forms of marketing is just:
Sharing the work you’re already doing
Answering the questions you’re already answering
Documenting the value you’re already delivering
You’re not inventing content from scratch. You’re exposing what’s already happening inside the business.
Marketing as an Extension of Your Service
This is the part I really want you to get:
Good marketing is just your service, moved in front of the sale.
If you can:
Answer questions before money changes hands
Give people a feel for the process
Help them understand what’s possible
Support them in making a clear decision
Then your marketing is a form of service.
It should feel good, not gross.
In other words:
When you serve people before they pay you, that’s marketing
When you remove confusion before they inquire, that’s marketing
When you show them what’s possible before they commit, that’s marketing
If that’s your definition, it becomes much harder to say:
“I don’t have time to make it easier for people to buy from me.”
What we’re really saying in that moment is:
“I don’t have time to support my own business.”
The Real Blocker: Misaligned Work
Now, there is one place this gets tricky.
If you’re doing work you don’t want more of:
Misaligned projects
Underpriced retainers
Clients who drain you
Services you’ve outgrown
You’re probably not going to want to share that work.
You’re not going to want to:
Talk about it
Showcase it
Turn it into case studies
And honestly, that’s your system telling you the truth:
“I don’t want to replicate this.”
That’s why alignment matters so much.
When the work you’re doing is:
True to who you are
Something you genuinely enjoy
Valuable for your clients
Sharing it becomes natural. In a lot of cases, it becomes unavoidable.
So part of solving the “no time to market” issue is also:
Saying no to the wrong work
Making room for the work you do want
Building offers you’re proud to talk about
Putting This Into Practice (Without Adding 10 Hours to Your Week)
Here are a few simple ways to turn this into action, especially if you’re a Squarespace designer or dev:
Turn common questions into public answers
Take the questions you get in your inbox or consult calls
Turn each one into a short FAQ on your site, a Loom video, or a blog post
Share one client story a week
What was the problem?
What did you do?
What changed for them?
Email it to your list, post it on your site, repurpose it anywhere.
Expose your process
Create a “What It’s Like to Work Together” page
Or a quick outline of your steps with approximate timelines and expectations
Use your support inbox as content fuel
Every time you solve a support issue or answer a detailed question
Ask: “How can I answer this once in public so the next person doesn’t have to ask?”
None of this requires you to become a “content machine.”
It’s just taking the real work you’re already doing, and moving pieces of it in front of the sale.
Final Thought
When you think you “don’t have time to market,” try asking a different question:
“How can I make it easier for the right people to find me, understand me, and feel confident hiring me — using the work I’m already doing?”
That shift alone can unlock a completely different way of showing up.
And you might find that you’ve had more time for marketing than you thought. It just didn’t look like what you were told marketing was supposed to be.
Want Help Turning This Into a Real System?
If “I don’t have time to market” is the loop you’ve been stuck in, that’s exactly what I help Squarespace designers and devs unwind.
Every week, inside my Double Your Squarespace Business coaching calls, we take the work you’re already doing for clients and turn it into:
Clear offers
Simple marketing assets
A repeatable system that makes it easier for the right people to find and hire you
If you want my eyes on your business each week – and a small group of peers doing the same work alongside you – learn more about the weekly coaching here.
