Thank you to everyone who joined us for the first Constant Contact 2026 Small Business Growth Series event, held at Brisbane's Howard Smith Wharves as part of Queensland Small Business Month! In this wrap-up post, you'll find our speaker video recordings, key takeaways - and our downloadable deck.
We welcome you to share this jam-packed resource page with your colleagues and business contacts!
Session 1: Building, Scaling, and Growing a High-Performing Business
This session was presented by special guest speaker, Troy Hazard.
Introduction: The Small Business Mindset
Control the Controllable's: Stop stressing over external factors like the federal budget. The only true certainty in small business is uncertainty.
Look Introspectively: Don't panic or constantly pivot. Look at past disruptions, take those lessons, and apply them to the present to protect your future.
Back to Basics: The brilliance of business is in the basics. Success comes down to mastering three areas: Vision, Influence, and Execution.
1. Vision: Aligning Personal & Business Goals
The Emotional Dashboard: A leader's energy is contagious. If you walk in tired and grumpy, you infect the business and ruin the day's results.
The Alignment Formula: Your personal vision must match your business vision. If it doesn't, you will always work for the business, instead of the business working for you.
Remember the "Why": Take a beat to remind yourself why you started. Otherwise, you'll burn out just trying to make payroll.
2. Influence: Shifting How We Lead & Connect
Vulnerable Networking: Deepen peer connections by ditching superficial small talk. Ask: What is your biggest challenge and how can I help? What is your greatest success and how can I learn?
Compassionate Leadership: Lazy leaders only measure metrics. Great leaders lead with emotional connection. Ask your team how they are feeling, not just how they are tracking against KPIs.
Be Distinctive, Not a Commodity: Anticipate customer needs before they ask, drop the confusing industry jargon, and actively mine the "old gold" (existing data) in your current database.
3. Execution: Focus on One Thing
The Revenue Reality: True growth comes from clarity. Look closely at your customer data to find missed revenue streams right in your own backyard.
The Unity Principle: Every single team member must be behind your vision. If someone is dragging the culture down—even a top salesperson or a family member—they need to find a new career.
The "One Thing" Rule: Stop trying to change 100 things at once; you will only confuse your team. Focus on executing one single change at a time, get it right, and weave it into the fabric of your business over the course of a year.
Next steps: What is the one thing you are going to action and change in your business on Monday?
Session 2: The Social Media Lead Gen Playbook
This session was presented by Jess Lenton, Senior Field Marketing Manager - APAC, Constant Contact
1. Introduction & Marketing Foundations
The Results Gap: Most businesses post weekly but don't know how many leads or customers those social media activities actually generate.
The Target Trap: Marketing usually fails because businesses try to speak to everyone and end up resonating with no one. Focus intensely on a specific Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
The USP Formula: Craft your Unique Selling Proposition to immediately address customer pain points: "I help [ICP] to achieve [Outcome] without [Their Biggest Fear/Frustration]."
2. Algorithms & Content Strategy
The Engagement Test: Algorithms run small initial tests on your posts, measuring relevance and engagement to decide how widely to distribute your content.
Content is Your Targeting: Algorithms are smart enough to read your keywords and language to find your audience; you no longer rely solely on platform audience selection tools.
The 2-Second Hook: You have under two seconds to stop users from scrolling. Use problem-based, outcome-based, counterintuitive, or direct ICP call-out hooks to grab attention.
3. The Lead Funnel & Nurture System
The 95-to-5 Rule: Only 5% of your market is ready to buy today. A lead magnet is required to capture and nurture the other 95% of future buyers so they aren't left on the table.
High-Value Lead Magnets: Swap valuable assets for contact details. Use checklists, webinars, or audits for B2B/services , and quizzes, discounts, or VIP access for e-commerce.
The Automated Funnel: Connect your hook-led social posts to a landing page with a capture form. Deliver the asset and automatically enrol the lead into an email nurture sequence to build a clean database you can mine for sales later.
Session 3: Customer Growth Channels that work
This session was presented by Andy Pudmenzky, Customer Marketing Manager - APAC, Constant Contact
A contact moves from "loaned" to "owned" as soon as they commit to providing you with some personal information (such as wishing to download & receive some content from you by filling in a landing page sign-up form). This is the contact conversion point.
50% of leads are "sales ready" if they've been nurtured - you can automate this with an email nurture!
An email nurture is a series of emails (usually 2 - 5) that provides a resource to educate or inform, positions you as the expert in your space, builds trust, conveys your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), subtly rebuts any USPs your competitors might be using - and promotes further action by the contact.
The emails should always be useful, personalised and eventually (as your marketing becomes more sophisticated) - segmented to suit your different buyer personas.
Nurtures shouldn’t stop once a sale is made! It costs 5x less to retain an existing customer than to get a new one - so why not tap into your existing customer base with a nurture to improve adoption, keep your brand front of mind, and promote further (or repeat) purchases.
While this might all sounds complicated and time consuming, you can use Constant Contact to create the emails and automate the workflow in (probably) under 20 minutes - especially if you use our AI email builder to help you with the design and a foundation for the key talking points.
Next steps: Download the slide deck from our event (below) for your actionable checklist!
Download the slides
Next steps
Feel free to explore our growing library of Power Sessions - short, sharp webinar recordings covering everything from building a sign-up page, to creating your first email and even a deep-dive into small business marketing fundamentals like messaging and competitor analysis!
If you're keen to make the most of your small business marketing journey and grow your business with easy to use digital marketing tools - specifically designed for small businesses? Start a free trial of Constant Contact today.
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