How to Market and Sell Naturally in a Softer Way

Marketing can bring up a lot for feminine-led souls in business.

Because traditionally, we associate marketing with in-your-face advertising. Cold calling. Sales funnels. Sleazy, manipulative or cringe-inducing copy. Convincing, proving, hustling.

And even nowadays, this type of selling is rife. There’s a constant and overwhelming amount of online content and advertising being thrown in our faces. Especially via social media, where it seems like everyone is competing for their voice to be heard. 

But while it’s true that you do need to share your business with people, what you don’t need to do is use icky marketing strategies that make your feminine soul wither.

A much better way to approach marketing for feminine souls, is though something called content marketing.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is simply the process of creating intentional, valuable content that’s designed to support the people who are looking for exactly what you’re offering (the second part of this is about optimising your content so it actually gets found by those people- but I’ll chat about that more in a future blog post).

When you create intentional content, instead of adding to the noise, you’re actually cutting through the noise and getting to the right people (aka the people actually interested in what you offer).

For feminine souls, a big block in sales and marketing can be feeling like you don’t want to push your work onto people. But this feeling isn’t something that you need to overcome, as it actually comes from a deep sense of emotional attunement- you innately know that it’s more natural to connect with the right people, instead of marketing yourself to people who may not appreciate what you’re offering.

So instead of trying to push aside this natural trait, content marketing helps you work with it, by encouraging you to narrow and direct your focus so that you’re attracting potential customers who are actually the right fit for your product or service.

Instead of convincing, proving and selling, you’re naturally attracting. Attraction (which is the art of naturally drawing something to you, instead of needing to seek it out), is a deeply feminine energetic- which means that as a feminine-led soul, you’ll feel energised and confident executing marketing strategy that works with principles of attraction. It’s how the feminine soul is naturally designed to do things, and it actually creates much better results for feminine-led souls.

So how do you get started with content marketing?

Effective content marketing is about creating content that not only naturally attracts and connects with your ideal audience, but also inspires action.

And the way to do this isn’t through convincing, manipulating or telling people what they need. It’s about creating resonance. Resonance with people who are meant for you business. Resonance with the people who have been yearning to find what it is that you offer.

For feminine-led souls, this is so important. Because if we don’t understand how to create resonance with our ideal clients, then we end up churning out content to everyone, thinking that we need to be on all the platforms, doing all the things.

When in reality, if we instead focus on creating resonant content, we can narrow our focus and do much less, in a more intentional (and ultimately profitable) way.

So, to create the type of deeply resonant content that doesn’t require you to be pushing out content constantly, the first thing you need to have is a deep understanding of what exactly your ideal client is looking for.

Because while you may have a good understanding of your offer (you know the mechanics of it- eg. what it is, the benefits, why it’s needed..), this isn’t what ultimately creates the deeper resonance that attracts people to your business and compels them to actually buy.

What actually creates this deeper resonance, is how well you can understand and articulate the challenges, intent and deeper needs and desires of your ideal customer.

How to do this

A simple way to explore this, is to make a list of at least 5 challenges that you believe your ideal client/customer is dealing with or struggling with.

These may be the same challenges that you’ve struggled with (which may be why you set up your business in the first place) and this means you can draw heavily on your own experiences.

You might also just innately understand the challenges of your ideal client through your natural attunement, or through observing, listening, relating or getting feedback. Or, you may have done some informal or formal market research to help you better understand your customer’s challenges.

You might find that you need to do some additional research, or spend quite a bit of time reflecting on this. And that’s okay! These challenges form such a big part of not only creating resonant content, but in helping you understand the deeper purpose, message and intent of your business, so it’s important to take the time to really explore the challenges that are facing your ideal customer.

Once you’ve done this, it’s time to think about the outcomes that your ideal client is desiring.

To do this, look at each challenge, and then think about the outcome that your customer is desiring (aka what do they want to be able to feel, do or have as a result of overcoming the challenge?)

If you’re finding it hard to articulate this, you might just start by listing words. For example, when I reflect on what the women interested in my Feminine Healing services are desiring, some words that come up include: worthiness, naturalness, ease, love, support, softening, honoured, sweetness, held, seen, valued, cherished, integrity, open heart, radiance, truth.

In many businesses, especially if you’re in any type of healing or inner transformational space, the outcomes may be less tangible- which is why making a list of words to start can help here.

These words can also help you tune into the emotional drivers of your ideal client. Emotions play such a big part in our buying decision. In fact, veteran marketers will tell you that nearly everyone makes decisions driven by emotions, not logic. Therefore, tuning into your ideal clients’ emotions (instead of just the more tangible benefits) will help you create the natural resonance that they’re seeking.

If you’re struggling with creating these lists…

Try doing your list in the reverse order. Start by listing what you believe your ideal client desires (the outcomes) and then think about what is currently blocking them from reaching these desires. Whatever is blocking them will be your list of challenges.

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Whichever way you create your list, once you’ve finished you should have a list of challenges, and then next to this, a list of desired outcomes.

From here, you’ll be able to clearly see a challenge-to-outcome trajectory- in other words, the path between where your customers are, and where they want to be.

Your service/offering/product will then be what allows your ideal client to bridge this gap (and if it doesn’t, that’s okay! You just may need to tweak your offering, or instead change your focus to a different ideal client that has more resonance with what you offer).

But no matter your service or product, and no matter how tangible or intangible it is, there is always this customer path.

In my feminine healing work, I find this path has many intricacies, and it often doesn’t feel as straightforward. That’s because the service I offer here is more intangible, and this means I’m often called to tune into the more subtle desires of my customers, instead of it being a very clear black and white path. Whereas with my content writing and feminine business services, this can often feel more straightforward, as the offerings are slightly more linear in nature.

So if you are offering something that is more intangible or transformative in nature (which many feminine souls are), don’t feel discouraged if this challenge-to-outcome trajectory doesn’t seem immediately clear. You may have to do some trial and error, as you learn how to share your message in a way that resonates.

This is why content marketing works so well. Because you can create a range of different content pieces around your offerings and services, which can help you to see how and what is resonating the most deeply. Often this can surprise you! For example, an article that I wrote about Organic vs Synthetic Femininity, which I thought was veering too far away from what my customers actually wanted, has actually been one of my most popular pieces of content to date. It made me see that I was able to pull in deeper spiritual perspectives into my content (and services), because actually, the women resonating with my work were desiring this.

No matter your service, product or offering, by focusing on content marketing you’re able to move beyond just telling people about your offering, and hoping they’ll buy (or worse, trying to convince them to buy). Instead, your focus is on guiding your ideal customers through a deeply resonant path that aligns with their deeper needs and desires.

Some Examples

For example, one of the challenges my feminine business clients have is:

“I feel overwhelmed and/or repelled by needing to market my business”.

Their desired outcome is:

“I want to naturally attract ideal clients/customers, without needing to put myself out there in ways that feel yuck”

Another challenge is:

“I don’t want to use social media but I feel like I have to, in order to make money/be successful in my business”

Their desired outcome is:

“I want to have a successful business without needing to be on (or rely on) social media”

And a third challenge, that sits a little bit deeper is:

“I don’t trust/believe that I can have a successful business, unless I compromise myself, my femininity and my true nature.”

Their desired outcome is:

“I want to have a successful business where I can do things in a way that feels gentle, natural and in line with who I am as a feminine woman”

I created my Feminine Business service as the bridge to help my ideal client to go from challenge, to desired outcome.

But before I can help a client through my Feminine Business service, they need to know that my service is right for them, and that it will actually help them.

And this is where traditional marketing methods would have me “telling” the person why my service is best- convincing, advertising and trying to sell straight away.

This feels so off to the feminine soul though. It’s the type of selling that repels feminine souls when it’s directed at us, and so we definitely don’t want to be selling and marketing that way in our own business.

Which is why deeply resonant content marketing works so much better for our feminine nature.

Because content marketing doesn’t assume that we know what’s best for everyone and have us convince, hustle and try to prove ourselves. Instead, our content marketing rests on the knowledge that our business is here to serve the right people. And for those right people, our business WILL naturally be the best choice.

Content marketing is what helps people figure out if your business is right for them.

And so, it becomes your job to create content that helps your ideal client figure this out.

Instead of telling and convincing, you’re providing valuable, authentic and intentional content that clearly shows the value that your business offers.

When I was a primary school teacher, one of the creative writing principles that I used to teach was “Show, Not Tell,” In other words, instead of writing “The boy was angry”, I’d teach the students to show me through their writing that the boy was angry- “The boy stomped angrily into the classroom, slamming the door with a bang.”

Similarly to this, content marketing isn’t about telling your customers how great your business is (once again, completely cringe to the feminine soul).

It’s about showing them- through connecting, sharing, storytelling, educating, informing, inspiring- and then letting them decide for themselves.

This type of marketing feels aligned with the feminine soul, and actually ensures that the right people are being attracted to your work. By creating content that focuses on bridging the gap between challenge and desired outcome, you’ll allow your ideal client to discover how your work can help them, leading them to naturally desire what it is you’re offering.

have questions or looking for extra support?

If you need extra support, I provide Feminine Business sessions for feminine souls who want a gentler, more natural way to grow their audience and attract the right people to their work. A way that doesn’t require striving, overwhelm or relying on social media, and instead supports and honours your natural feminine design. Learn more here.

I also offer a self-led training, Growing a Business Without Social Media, where you’ll learn how to use SEO and content marketing to build an audience naturally, sustainably and gently, without needing to be on social media.

Any questions, don’t hesitate to send me a message.

Belinda 💓