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The Biggest Piece Of Your Q4 Marketing Strategy (Most Business Owners Miss!)

October 16, 2025

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I'm Kara - the voice behind some of the brands you know and love (I know because I love them too!). I'm results-driven and ambitious, just like YOU.

Hello there!

Winter is coming! If you’re heading into Q4 still clinging to Instagram like it’s your life raft, you’re in the right place. Today I want to talk about how to build a Q4 marketing strategy that actually works (not just for 2026, but for years to come).

As a marketer who works with small business owners, I know how tough this season can be. For many of you, this could be the year that makes or breaks your business, and I want you to win so badly.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I love Instagram. I genuinely enjoy creating content there… when my paycheck doesn’t depend on it. But truthfully, Instagram has never given me the kind of results marketers promise. I’ve taken all the courses, hired the social media managers, and put in the hours — and I’ve never seen a positive ROI from Instagram.

Still, I think it’s a valuable place for connection. In 2025, having a semi-active social media presence can help… if only because people often check your Instagram to see if you’re legit. But that doesn’t mean you need to be posting constantly. And it definitely doesn’t mean your entire Q4 marketing plan should revolve around how many posts you’re putting out.

In case we haven’t met, I’m Kara Duncan, founder of The Kara Report. My team and I handle content marketing — blogging, Pinterest management, podcast repurposing, YouTube scripts — basically, anything that helps your business get found online. Whether you want to show up on Pinterest, Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Claude — if it’s search-driven, I want to help you get seen.

Today, I’ll be focusing mostly on Pinterest and blogging, since those are my bread and butter. But you can apply these ideas to any kind of search-based marketing strategy that fits your business.

Should You Hire a Social Media Manager?

Now, I mentioned earlier that I’ve hired a social media manager before, and I want to touch on that quickly — especially if you’ve thought about outsourcing your marketing. This video isn’t about outsourcing, but let’s just acknowledge something: outsourcing social media is hard.

If you’re like most small business owners (myself included), you’re deeply attached to your Instagram self. You analyze every caption, every emoji — and if someone else writes something that feels even slightly off, it’s hard to post. Because you know your friends, your family, your clients — current and future — are all going to see it.

Outsourcing something like blogging or Pinterest, on the other hand, feels different. Those platforms reach a cold audience — people who don’t know you yet. That gives you the chance to bring them into your world and warm them up over time. You still care that the content is high-quality and in your voice, but it doesn’t feel quite as personal as Instagram.

And even when you do outsource Instagram, you’re still the one recording the talking-head videos, shooting the B-roll, and approving the captions. It doesn’t always buy back as much time as you think it will.

Now, don’t get me wrong — hiring a social media manager is a dream hire for many business owners, and I am absolutely pro–social media managers. But I don’t think it should be your first marketing hire. It’s something to consider later, once your foundation is strong — and even then, it often works best in stages, especially if your business is heavily tied to your personal brand.

Alright, with that out of the way, let’s dive into the heart of this episode: the six things you need to do to build a Q4 marketing strategy that lasts for the long haul.

Step 1: Start With Keywords

First things first — start with keywords. They’re the foundation of any search-driven marketing strategy.

Now, hear me out: I want you to open up your SEO tool of choice. My top recommendation for most small businesses is Keysearch. It’s affordable compared to the big-name SEO tools that have been around forever — tools that, honestly, are often overpriced for what small business owners actually need. Keysearch gives you plenty of useful data without the heavy price tag.

If you’re on a tighter budget, you can also try Ubersuggest. It has a free plan and a very low-cost option, but I’ll be honest — the data isn’t as detailed or as actionable as what you’ll get from Keysearch. That said, a lot of SEO pros recommend it as a starter tool, and I understand why — it’s inexpensive and gets the job done at a basic level.

If you’re planning to go all-in on SEO through Q4 and Q1, you might consider a more advanced tool like SEMrush. I used SEMrush for a long time — it’s powerful, data-rich, and their site audit tool is excellent if you want to tweak your website for better performance. But for pure content strategy, I think Keysearch is more than enough — and it’s about half the price.

So, step one: find your keywords.

talking about your q4 marketing strategy

Step 2: Create Rough Outlines

Ideally, I’d love to see you publish a blog post once a week. That means finding around 12 solid keywords to carry you through the next three months. Once you’ve got them, move on to building your outlines.

It’s easy to stop after the research and think, “Okay, I’ll write one post a week.” But I like to take it a step further — and yes, you can absolutely use ChatGPT for this. Ask it to generate rough outlines for each blog. I usually ask for four or five bullet points per post.

Just be careful — sometimes when you ask ChatGPT for an outline, it gives you a giant wall of text that’s hard to digest. Keep it simple and structured — short, skimmable ideas you can build from.

Personally, I like to stick with four or five bullet points for each outline. That gives me enough structure to stay focused, but still plenty of room to write naturally.

Once I have those bullet points, I’ll look at what pages are already ranking for that keyword and ask myself: How can I make mine better? That’s where the real strategy comes in.

I build all of my outlines in a simple Google Doc. Honestly, when clients hire me for blogging, this is exactly what I deliver as part of their Q4 blog plan — and it’s intentionally simple. I’ll create 12 topics with rough outlines for each one. Then my clients can go in and leave comments like, “Don’t agree with this point,” or “Definitely mention X, Y, Z here.”

Most of them spend maybe 30 minutes to an hour reviewing that plan — and that’s their entire quarter mapped out.

So if you’re planning to DIY your content, build something like that for yourself. Having a structured plan like this makes your week-to-week workflow so much smoother and way less stressful.

Step 3: Write Your Blogs

Step three is simple: write your blogs.
Aim for once a week if you can — or at least every other week. The key is to just start.

If batching works for you, great — but if it doesn’t, that’s totally fine. Most of us can’t sit down and crank out four full blog posts in a day. What’s more realistic is finding a couple of hours on a random Monday morning to write one post and call it done. The best workflow is the one you’ll actually stick with.

Step 4: Format Your Blogs For Readability & Skimmability

Now, step four: format like a pro.

As a professional blog writer, I can tell you I spend about half my time writing and half my time formatting. Formatting is what turns a wall of text into something people actually want to read.

If you’re using WordPress, that might mean adding spacers, adjusting headings, inserting images, and optimizing your alt text. For images, there are three things I always do:

  1. Rename them (use descriptive keywords).
  2. Resize them (for fast loading).
  3. Add alt text (for accessibility and SEO).

And here’s a hard truth: most people are skimming.
I know — it’s painful to hear when you’ve spent hours writing your blog. I wish everyone read every single word I wrote, too. But the reality is, readers skim, and Google pays attention to how people interact with your content.

If your site feels overwhelming — giant blocks of text, no white space, no visuals — people will click away immediately.

So make your posts skimmable:

  • Break up paragraphs.
  • Add images and white space.
  • Use subheadings and lists.

Spend just as much time making it look good as you do writing it. Especially if you’re using AI tools to help draft content — don’t just copy and paste. Use AI to get started faster, but take the time to format, edit, and refine so the final version feels human and engaging.

Step 5: Find The Repurposing Wins

Before we dive in, I want to back up for a second. When we hear about repurposing blog content, a lot of us immediately start overcomplicating it. We think, “Okay, I’ll write the blog on Monday, publish it on Tuesday, pull the best one-liners into Threads for daily posts, make a carousel for Instagram, share it on Stories, and then rewrite it for my Friday newsletter.”

And listen — all of that is great. I love when people stretch one piece of content as far as possible. But here’s the thing: sometimes that kind of perfect, best-case-scenario plan actually stops us from repurposing anything at all.

You just spent two hours writing and formatting your blog post. You’re tired. You tell yourself, I’ll come back to repurposing later. But later rarely happens (and I know that because I’ve done the exact same thing).

So instead, I want you to repurpose immediately — either right after you finish writing or right after you hit publish. Get one or two quick wins done.

Take the best one-liner from your blog and drop the whole post into ChatGPT. Ask it to “pull out the most quotable lines.” Schedule those on Threads. Done. Or, write your newsletter right after you finish your blog while it’s still fresh. Done.

Don’t build a complicated, idealized workflow you’ll never follow. Keep it simple.
Once you’ve been consistent with one repurposing method — say, turning each blog into a weekly newsletter — then you can layer in more. Maybe add Threads after a month, then Instagram carousels later. Build it gradually.

Repurposing is powerful because every blog post you create is an asset — something that works for you long-term. You can reuse, reframe, and redistribute that content across platforms over and over again. Just don’t let “perfect planning” keep you from actually doing it.

Step 6: Submit Your New Blog to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

This one takes seconds — literally. After you publish your blog, submit the URL to both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Here’s why: ChatGPT pulls data from Bing. If Bing can’t find you, ChatGPT can’t either. And, of course, we want your content showing up in Google search results as well.

Now, if you’ve never done this before, don’t panic — there’s a good chance Google and Bing have already found your site. Their crawlers are incredibly advanced. But submitting manually just helps your content get indexed faster.

Why Start Search-Driven Marketing in Q4

Q4 is prime planting season. Everyone else is chasing Black Friday chaos and you? You’re laying the groundwork for long-term traffic and visibility.

Blog posts typically take three to six months to rank, depending on your niche and competition. So if you start now, by January or early spring, you’ll start to see the results — while everyone else is just starting to recover from their holiday rush.

If you wait until January to start, you’ll start seeing the rewards of your efforts by summer — which, let’s be honest, is when most of us experience a slump in our marketing anyway.

There’s never a bad time to start blogging or focusing on Pinterest, but there is a great time and that’s Q4. I honestly can’t think of a better time, short of hopping in a time machine and starting back in 2020… or even 2010. For the rest of us, right now is the best time to begin.

Q4 marketing is powerful because it lets you lean into New Year’s trends early. Posts that speak to “fresh starts,” “goals,” and “planning ahead” perform best when you publish them a few months in advance — so by starting now, you’re perfectly positioned to ride that wave.

But I want to make something clear: Q4 isn’t just about finishing strong (though I truly hope this is your best quarter ever). It’s about setting the foundation for 2026 — thinking long-term about where you want your business to go and taking action now to get there.

Is SEO Still Worth Investing In?

I get this question all the time and my short answer is: absolutely not.

Here’s why. Old-school SEO was all about one thing: getting to page one on Google. And yes, that still matters to some extent. But here’s what’s fascinating… ChatGPT pulls around 90% of its sources from page three or lower.

That means you don’t have to be the biggest, most authoritative site to get found online anymore. You just have to be helpful.

Now, I want to distinguish between two types of bloggers here. I consider myself a professional blog writer — but I write for small businesses that want to generate sales from their content. That’s different from a lifestyle blogger who earns money from affiliate links and ads.

For those bloggers, massive traffic numbers matter, like hundreds of thousands or even millions of monthly page views, because their income depends on volume. If that’s your model, I understand why SEO might feel “dead” right now.

But if you’re a business owner, it’s a completely different story. You don’t need a million page views to see results. You need the right people… the ones actively searching for your services or products.

So, while the “big traffic” era of blogging might be shifting, SEO isn’t dying, it’s evolving. And the businesses that stay focused and consistent will benefit the most.

At the end of the day, people are still searching for solutions. That’s never going away. Whether you’re a web designer, wedding photographer, or course creator, your audience is still looking for what you offer — they’re just using different tools to find it.

Even if they start on ChatGPT or Perplexity, that’s not where their journey ends. If they’re ready to hire someone, book a service, or buy a product, they’ll end up on a website — ideally, yours.

So block out the noise, stop overanalyzing every trend, and focus on building your search-driven assets now. They’ll serve you over and over again — long after the algorithm changes.

The Bottom Line Regarding Your Q4 Marketing

If you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, Instagram will eventually burn you out if it’s your only source of traffic, connection, and revenue. If that’s the only way people are finding you, being nurtured by you, and buying from you — it’s not sustainable. It’s only a matter of time before it drains your energy and creativity.

That’s why Q4 is the perfect time to start investing in search-driven marketing platforms — things like Pinterest, blogging, YouTube, and podcasting. These are the channels that keep working for you long after you hit publish.

And the best part? You can do it yourself — or you can get help.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is exactly what I do. I help small business owners with blogging and Pinterest management, and I also write podcast and YouTube scripts, or turn your podcast episodes into optimized blog posts that help you get found online.

So if you’re ready to keep those leads rolling in — even while you’re sipping hot cocoa in December — I’d love to help. Head here to check out my services and pricing, or send me a DM on Instagram. Let’s build a Q4 marketing strategy that works for you, not against you.

That’s all for this week — thank you so much for tuning in.
If you found this helpful, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and turn on notifications. I release new videos every Thursday, and I don’t want you to miss the next one.

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I'm Kara - the voice behind some of the brands you know and love (I know because I love them too!). I'm results-driven and ambitious, just like YOU.

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