I know what it feels like to do marketing that does not feel good.

I know what it feels like to create marketing content for businesses I didn’t care for and causes in which I do not believe.

I know what it feels like to park my personal beliefs and convictions about what good, ethical marketing is, and do what I was getting paid to do.

Crap. That’s how it made me feel. I didn’t feel proud of the work I was doing. I felt stifled. I felt not good enough.

The thing is, nothing that is created from a place of negative feelings will have long-term positive effects. If you don’t actually care about the thing you are making, you do not create it with the love it needs to thrive. It might serve its purpose for a while, at least on the surface, but, like a neglected plant, after a while you’ll notice droopy leaves and a lack of flowers.

When I speak to business owners who are struggling with their marketing - they have their heads in the sand, they don’t results, they can’t find time or a rhythm to create consistently - it often boils down to the fact that marketing just doesn’t give them joy. The hassle and challenge of getting marketing content out there outweighs the fun and positive vibes that made it worthwhile for them.

It’s no wonder they don’t do it consistently and don’t get results. Their energy is all off, and who wants to persevere with anything that feels joyless and without benefit?

Feel-good habits

Before I get into feel-good marketing, let me tell you what I think of when people share their marketing sob stories with me. There are multiple parallels between their experiences and my experience of running. I used to hate running. Then I sort of liked it. Then loved it. Then hated it again. After building up from Couch to 5K to a solid running habit which saw me running 3 times a week on average, even cranking up my distance to doing some 10k races and a couple of 10-milers - I pretty much stopped.

I no longer enjoyed it and couldn’t find the motivation to get out any more. I had to reconnect with the joy.

Because there has to be something deeper to make me want to push myself physically and mentally to the point of deep discomfort, running in all weathers and persevering through injury.

So when I lose my mojo (not if, when), I focus on the good stuff. Being outside. Exploring new trails. That feeling of satisfaction when I’ve run to the top of the hill. The smugness afterwards. Telling people I’m a runner. The camaraderie with others. The Strava kudos.

When you focus on the feel-good stuff, and do more of that, the bits I find unenjoyable dissolve. And that makes me persist with something I want to do, but struggle to do consistently.

Sound familiar?

What makes marketing feel good to you

The first step to doing marketing that feels easier, more aligned with you and just more fun, is to figure out what it is that you actually enjoy about marketing. Do you know?

Once you know what it is you actually enjoy, see if you can theme the activities together based on type. Maybe you really enjoy writing captions for social media, but you feel bogged down by tech, finding photos or choosing hashtags. Maybe you actually really enjoy being on videos, but somehow you never find the time.

List these things and get a feel for the activities you want to do more of.

How can you create that new reality? Do you need a course or workshop to nail your marketing tech? Do you need someone to take some great photos of you to allow you to pick from a stash of photos and just writing amazing captions for them? Do you need help with hashtag research? Who can you outsource elements to that you don’t enjoy doing, or can you establish processes that will free up your time for more fun?

Building feel-good marketing habits into your week

If you’re interested in creating and maintaining good habits, make it your priority to read Atomic Habits by James Clear. The man’s a genius and I won’t even try to sum up all the good bits of the book, but one thing that has really stuck with me is to tether new habits to existing habits.

I wanted to build more squatting into my day, so I started squatting while brushing my teeth. The habit stuck, but so did the toothpaste (to my hair and floor, mainly). I kept forgetting to take my daily multivitamin, so I moved them to live next to the pack of chocolate biscuits, because I was already in the habit of reaching for them when I made my afternoon brew.

So how can you build more feel-good marketing habits into your week?

If you like taking photos, maybe you can tether the habit of taking some nature photos on the school run?

If you work in a coffee shop on a Friday morning, maybe that’s when you write your blog post.

When you do your monthly invoices or accounts, perhaps you also log your social media metrics for that month.

Find ways to build ease into your marketing, by creating habits that just sort of happen as part of your day.

Feel-good marketing: Tamsin’s story

I first met Tamsin Caine through Freshwalks, the best type of networking imaginable as it happens while walking out in nature. There is no better way for me to connect with others!

Anyway, I am always so impressed and inspired by Tamsin’s approach to marketing, and so I asked her about what feel-good marketing means to her. Here’s what she said.

“When I started Smart Divorce in 2018, I was very aware of the fact that I didn’t know anything about marketing or “how to do it”. My training is as a financial planner, which I do know about!

I started with Twitter and followed business that are in my town of Altrincham and other divorce professionals. One of my business friends then complimented me on my account, as it was clear in its positioning as a divorce specialist service in Altrincham. This gave me confidence to do more. However, I was still feeling that I had to do it, rather than I wanted to.

So, I asked for some help from professionals who seem to get joy from their marketing. I was hiking with my good friend Katya, who suggested Instagram might work well for my business. At a similar time, I started to get to know Karen and signed up for her marketing bootcamp in January.

I have also spent time over the past 12 months discovering the me that I want to be, my authentic self. I have had a couple of power hours with Karen (and Katya) and am now mostly confident in what I put out on social media.

“I am also happy to ask if I can appear on other people’s podcasts, guest on webinars and write blogs for others. I now love marketing because I am talking about my business which helps so many people, my purpose with which I want to help many more and about me, who doesn’t love talking about themselves?!”

Feel-good marketing: Joss’s story

Joss Carpreau and I met at a Christmas party for self-employed people in 2019. It was a wonderful evening with great food and conversation, but at the time Joss didn’t love marketing. Things have shifted for her, so I wanted to get her opinion on feel-good marketing too.

Here’s what Joss said.

“I used to really fret about my marketing. Google Analytics made my head spin, and Answer the Public made me want to weep. I knew there were potential clients out there, but I had no idea who they were.  How could I write anything that would interest them, please them or make them cough up a £200 deposit? I help older people write their life stories and get them printed up into beautiful books for their families.

I've now completed twenty projects, and I still don't know who my clients are. They're all different. But I've managed to attract them to Elephant Memoirs somehow. The only explanation I can give is that I've stopped trying to please anonymous strangers, and please myself instead.

It was a Power Hour with Karen that inspired me. I have pages of notes from it, and from Karen's other workshops and courses, and yet the single most inspiring thing from all this never even got written down! She said to give myself permission to use my social media to express my passions. There are loads of things that get me excited in my business, but I never thought they were worth sharing. Karen, however, said to just think of social media as an extension of real life. So now I write as if I'm talking to actual people, and I tell them about my enthusiasms and my news and what makes me happy. 

My current books are always the most interesting ones, and I love telling people about them: Joan, who was in the Wrens during the war, went on a dive-bombing test run in a Barracuda, whilst standing up in the back of the cockpit! Or Les, who grew up mixed race in South Africa during Apartheid. I've recently started re-reading old letters my father sent me when I was in my teens, which might become part of a correspondence project. 

The reason clients give for choosing my business over other people's is that I seem genuine, trustworthy and passionate about what I do. They want to have a relationship with a person, not a company. And they can see from my marketing that working with me is going to be a joyful process.” 

Feel-good marketing mantras

Feeling good about marketing won’t happen overnight. If this is something with which you struggle, I highly recommend considering some mantras to keep you on track.

These should be personal to you, but a few feel-good marketing mantras you might want to try on for size could be:

Marketing my business is an act of generosity.

Sharing my story makes others feel good.

It is safe for me to show up as my whole self online.

I do what brings me joy in my business.

From feel-good marketing vibes to feel-good marketing action

There are two things that can support you when you feel ready to do more marketing that feels good to you. For me, these are:

• Community. Surround yourself with people who do marketing and business in a feel-good way. By that I don’t mean it’s all unicorns and fluffy puppies - but it is people who are energised and optimistic about the work they do in the world.

• Small steps. Understand and accept that change will take time. It will be a while before you may truly feel that you are doing marketing that feels good to you. It may involve some trial and error. Keep going. Baby steps still move you forward!

Ready to do marketing that feels good? Get started with a power hour with me.