Your Sowing Seeds List
Before we jump in: This article was originally shared with my email community in January 2021. I'm sharing it with you on the blog today in the hope that it may be of some encouragement and insight to you in your creative journey right now, and also give you a little sneak peak of what you can expect from Weekly Letters too. If you'd like to receive letters like this one straight to your inbox every Monday, you can sign up below. You'll also have access to all of my Mini Books too!
What if marketing could feel simple?
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself in my business for years now, and it’s the question so many of my clients ask me too:
Jen, how can I market my business in a way that doesn’t feel exhausting and overwhelming, or sleazy and manipulative too?
And what I always encourage them to do is see marketing like sowing seeds.
Because our marketing can be slow, human, and rooted in connection over conversion if we want it to be.
Marketing isn't always about creating a direct cause and effect. We don’t always write a blog post or share something on Instagram and that directly leads to a new client or customer.
Instead what we’re doing every time we show up in our business is sowing seeds that can generate client and customer leads in an organic and consistent way.
Some marketing will have more of a direct impact than others: having a big marketing campaign for a new offering will of course gather more attention during your launch period.
But those big launches can fall pretty flat if you haven’t been consistently sowing seeds for the clients and customers who will actually be interested in what you have available for them.
Sowing seeds is how we build relationships with potential client and customers, share the stories, messages, and ideas that will resonate and connect with them, and hold space for them to see whether diving deeper into our work is a good fit for them in this season.
And without consistently sowing those seeds in our business we will most likely find ourselves with big fancy marketing plans that lack the foundations to truly have meaningful impact in our work.
So when my clients are feeling overwhelmed with their marketing, or are unsure of where to start, I encourage them to write their own sowing seeds list, a list of ways they will consistently show up and sow the seeds that can lead to clients and customers along the way.
And that’s my encouragement for you today too, if you’re itching to simplify your marketing a little so that you can start taking small steps forward that will actually move the needle in your work: write your own sowing seeds list.
Ask yourself: what are the ways I can gently and consistently sow seeds in my business during this season of my work?
Perhaps that looks like consistently sharing on Instagram, or starting that podcast or newsletter you’ve been thinking about, or writing blog posts that are more optimised for SEO. Maybe it looks like nurturing the community you’ve already built with new resources, or experimenting with a new bridge to your island with something like Pinterest.
Make a list that feels doable for you, it can be as big or as small as you’d like. I especially encourage you to start small if marketing is something you’ve found a little overwhelming so far - you can always add to it as you start to find your feet.
And the biggest challenge? Don’t sit around waiting to see results straight away. Those seeds that you’re sowing need time to bloom, so keep focused on showing up and doing the work and gently pay attention to what actually moves the needle along the way.
Because we’ll always learn so much more about what our business needs to thrive by experimenting and seeing where it takes us.
And we can make so much more happen in our work with one small intentional step after another instead of waiting for some big fancy marketing plan to become the secret to our success.
Here’s to sowing seeds in our business and seeing how they bloom...
I’ll be rooting for you always!
With love,
Jen
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