Marketing is not a verb. At least not anymore.

There was a day, under the old regime of one-way legacy media, when audiences were captive to marketers who “targeted” them—like fauna grazing in the wild forests of content—in order to collect them like trophies in bundles called “market share.”

But in the internet age of continual two-way communication, community, and choices, those old methods of selling seem cruel and unusual. (If you need proof, just visit the YouTube page of pretty much any major global brand and notice how alien and disconnected from reality the content seems, even when they try to be “authentic.”)

While megacorps may be able to afford to create billions of dollars worth of weird advertisements designed to brainwash entire swaths of culture, not everyone has that luxury. The good news is that people hate to be sold to anyway, what people want is to be talked to, and that’s what the internet does best.

Ultimately, marketing ought to be the natural outcome of communication.

Put another way, marketing is what happens when you effectively communicate something of value.

As a small business, you are more personally connected with your audience than the megacorps will ever be. You already speak their language and you know what they need to hear, all you have to do is speak up.