Before I started my own editing business, I associated the word marketing with manipulation and greed. I think a lot of people carry that association with marketing, especially creatives who make services and content primarily to inspire or teach or just feeds souls with good stories. For authors and other creatives to then turn around and market that content to make money can easily feel just . . . off. Like it’s disingenuous or undermines your fundamental goal as a creative to help people. And there are a lot of marketing strategies out there that are manipulative, that do prioritize squeezing people for all they’re worth regardless of how much value the product or service adds to their life.

But that doesn’t need to be the way your business and marketing works. And that isn’t even the most effective marketing mentality anyway. What I found really helpful when I started my business was realizing that marketing is not inherently manipulative. It’s not only possible but far more effective to market from a place of genuine empathy and integrity than to market from a place of (often poorly) disguised greed and self‑centredness.

Let me illustrate this point with a personal story.

What Bad Marketing Looks Like

The past few months, my life has been fairly hectic. I got engaged, planned my wedding, and got married. All of which was very exciting but also a lot of work. And while we were planning the wedding, our car broke down, on the way to a family dinner, no less. We had been considering selling the car and getting a new one already. So we decided to get a quote for a trade‑in at a car dealership while we were at it.

We came into the dealership with our limping car and asked for an assessment. We were directed to a car salesman. He asked us almost no questions, talked very fast, and immediately took us out to look at a new car. He already had a car waiting for us to test drive before he had even asked us what we were looking for in a new car. He had simply pulled out the most recent version of our current car. In other words, he made the fast, easy, and inaccurate assumption that we simply wanted an upgrade on what we already had.

We politely listened to his runaway car pitch and watched him open the driver door for us before we could get a word in edgewise to tell him we weren’t there for a test drive. We were just there to assess our situation and the financials of a trade-in. Once he realized we weren’t going to go along with his regular sales‑pitch routine, he finally started the assessment process.

Why That Style of Marketing Is So Bad

Needless to say, we did not trade in our car there. And here’s why.

That car salesman’s pitch prioritized speed and efficiency over quality of service and meeting his clients’ needs. This was his mindset: get these people in a car and take their money as fast as you can. Was this the car they needed? Was this the car they wanted? Was this the car they could afford? He did not ask a single question to find those answers and make sure he was serving us well. He just had one priority: do whatever you need to increase profits and shareholder value as efficiently as possible. It didn’t matter how that mentality affected the quality of service. All that mattered was money. The company’s money. Not ours.

That is bad business practice. That is bad marketing. Not just from a moral or social perspective (which hold very legitimate concerns), but from a practical perspective too. We were entirely put off by that dealership. Especially for a pair of introverts, the experience was exceedingly stressful. Instead of alleviating our stresses, his style of service compounded them. I personally hope to never walk onto that lot again. That business mentality actively drove clients away. It’s bad marketing on so many levels.

And it’s a business mentality that only works when you’re able to hide it and trick people into not realizing that it’s there. That those shining ads and frozen smiles are glossing over bad service and bad practice.

What Good Marketing Looks Like

Good marketing is all about empathizing with your client and then using that empathy to communicate with them and maintain your quality of service. That is good marketing, in terms of both morality and efficacy.

My partner and I weren’t walking into that dealership as blank emotionless slates looking for a car. I described the personal background of that story because it illustrates how all your clients (or your readers or listeners or watchers) are coming to your service or content from their own unique context, with their own complex sources of joy and stress. Good marketing is all about empathizing with that. It’s all about communicating how your service or content can help meet your client’s needs and alleviate their stress. Good business practice is then about following through and fulfilling that promise to meet your client’s and audience’s needs.

The Empathetic Marketing Approach

Here is what this empathetic marketing looks like in three steps:

1. Care: Identify who your target client or audience is. Pinpoint their needs and their stressors.
2. Create: Ensure that your service or content meets their needs and alleviates their stress.
3. Communicate: Find a way to reach your base. Then let them know how your service or content will fulfill their needs and alleviate their stress.

That’s it. That’s all there is to good marketing. It’s founded on empathy, communication, and quality of service. And there’s nothing sleezy or manipulative about that. As long as you’ve done your best to ensure that your content or service meets your audience’s needs, there’s nothing wrong with communicating that to them. Marketing is simply letting your audience know that your story or service is out there and ready to entertain, enlighten, or just help.

Some Additional Resources

In my own marketing journey, two sources have been really helpful. Louise Harnby has a ton of great resources on her website that are all about helping freelancers learn how to market their business. Her content is primarily targeted toward editors, though many of her discussions are applicable across freelancing domains.

Another framework that I’ve found helpful is Kevin Daum’s three steps to compelling messaging: empathy, objectivity, and differentiation. You can read about that marketing framework here. The three Cs above are my variation on that framework. His framework’s emphasis is more on using those concepts as marketing communication tools. My emphasis is on using those concepts not just as marketing tools but also as a business mindset. His approach is still very helpful though, so go check it out if you want to learn more.

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