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Slimline Your Christmas Marketing & Slay the Festive Guilt

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Slimline your christmas marketing

Oooh… there’s a whiff of excitement in the air and it smells like cinnamon and mulled wine! People are officially using the C word… which can mean only one thing. How the jeepers did Christmas creep round so quickly?

The Christmas holidays are just around the corner, and those festive fairs and Christmas markets don’t just mark the end of another year.  Second only to the six week summer slog, the Christmas holidays can be a bit of a panic season for doulas, particularly those of you working around children!

Are you already feeling those panic twinges about managing your Christmas marketing? Wondering how to keep your doula offerings visible while you’re taking care of kids, working on a leaner schedule, and relishing in a big plate of turkey, stuffing and sprouts?

Perhaps the odd Cadbury’s Roses or two… three… four!

Well don’t worry! The Nurturing Birth team is on the case and we’re here to share four secrets to keeping your marketing efforts on point so you can slay that festive guilt, and focus on more pressing things, like your next cocktail choice, thinking up creative ideas for Elf on the Shelf or which present to open first!

You see the secret to staying visible, active and sustaining your marketing efforts throughout the Christmas holidays is to take a more relaxed, slimline approach.  This way you’ll still look like you’re blogging, posting on social media, and chatting with your subscribers, but, secretly, you could be lying (totally laptop-less) on the sofa letting your lunch go down and catching up on TV.

Your doula biz doesn’t have to take a back seat, just because you are. So with that in mind, here are…

4 Ways to Slimline Your Christmas Marketing Strategy and Slay the Festive Guilt

Republish your Blogs

You don’t always have to create brand new blogs you know. If you’ve been blogging for a while you’ve probably got more than enough content to republish some of your favourite older articles instead. Your newer followers may not have noticed a particular blog first-time around (or second or third in fact) so don’t worry!

Sharing them again isn’t the lazy-doula’s way out either. Republishing blogs is a great marketing tactic, it gives you the opportunity to update any out-of-date content, it’s great for your SEO and you can even build your mailing list or give your conversions a boost by adding links to your new freebies, products or services.

Schedule Your Social Media

There are stacks of social media scheduling apps around and some are worth their weight in brandy doused Christmas pud! Scheduling your social media in advance gives you that Superdoula feeling of having everything organised for the entire week by 7am on Monday! Scaling back on the number of posts you write and publish is another way to dilute the Christmas biz pressure too.

Maintaining your visibility is important and if the bare minimum is one post a day, then schedule one post a day on each of your social media platforms. Manage your follower expectations by posting that you’re taking a wee break over the festive season. Many of your followers will likely be doing the same so they will totally understand.

Not sure which scheduling app to go for? Here at Nurturing Birth our favourite free social media scheduling platforms are Hootsuite and Later, whilst our fave paid platforms are Post Planner or Buffer.

Create & Schedule Your Newsletter(s)

If you’re a weekly newsletter sender, then ease that festive burden and adopt a monthly approach during December and January. A bumper Christmas edition or two (which also directs your subscribers to your republished blogs) is perfectly acceptable – and sometimes more likely to be consumed. Save more time by creating and scheduling your newsletters in advance and you’ll know your subscribers won’t assume you’ve abandoned them. Ah… the beauty of automation. We love it!

Decide on a Simple Christmas Content Subject and Stick to it

Another great way to avoid trying to post on Facebook while you’re tucking into your trifle is to think about (and plan) the type of content you want to focus on over the next six to ten weeks.  Keep it easy by sifting through your calendar and finding any upcoming National or International days which fit with your industry. Take a handful of your blogs and weave the same subject thread through your social media pages and newsletters too.

In need of inspiration? Check out:

So go and enjoy your Christmas, make family memories (kids grow up so quickly!) and slay that Festive business guilt.

Come January you’ll feel refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to conquer the world, again!

Video interview with Liz Stanford, The Calm Birth School

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Sophie caught up with Liz Stanford who recently took over The Calm Birth School from Suzy Ashworth. They chat about Hypnobirthing, the science behind it, the mind body connection and how empowering it is for women approaching birth. They also talk about how the term hypnobirthing can be off-putting for some and dispel some of the myths around it. Liz shares her experiences of using hypnobirthing for the birth of her three children.

To find out more about Liz and the Calm Birth School visit their website, Facebook Page, Instagram

Click here to watch Sophie’s interview with Alex Heath, Hypnotherapist about Birth Trauma recovery.

Dear Natasha – a response to Grazia Editor Natasha Pearlman’s recent birth trauma article

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Dear Natasha

I read your Times article, now reproduced in the online Mail, with a mixture of emotions – primarily sadness that someone felt so unsupported and uncared for during her birth.  Rage too that our maternity services is able to let women down on what seems like a regular basis and that your story does not stand alone.  And a sense of despair that those of us who work so hard to try and improve the situation aren’t reaching enough people, or having enough of an impact to make the necessary changes.  It is those people who have traumatic or terrible experiences in birth whose voices are heard loudest, and with reason.  No one should have to experience what you went through – no one should feel unheard and unsupported.  No one should feel like their birth experience is still affecting them negatively on a day to day basis years afterwards.

Trauma, for it does seem as if your birth experience has been traumatic for you, is a bitch.  And it can play out in so many ways.  The interesting thing is that someone can have what would be interpreted by many as a traumatic experience and not feel any of the symptoms of trauma at all, and someone could have a relatively “easy” time in other people’s eyes and be left with horrible, recurring feelings.  What matters is the feelings.  And so many of the debriefing and reflecting options available can actually be more negative than positive, helping to retrigger and retraumatise the person involved, allowing the amygdala (the monkey brain) to head off in to fight or flight yet again, stirring up the crazy heartbeat, sweaty palms, bowel-evacuating, dizzy panic feelings once more.  So it is important to find the right option for you in helping to recover from your experience.  Ultimately no one wants to stay in trauma long-term – it affects relationships, self-esteem, life choices.

Birth is a really sticky topic.  It’s emotive.  There are those who fall in to the pro-natural camps and those who are resolutely anti.  As a doula it is often assumed that I wholeheartedly and exclusively support those mothers who want to breathe their babies out in water at home.  And, believe me, those births can be magical to watch.  However, I am not naïve – I realise that that experience is not available to everyone, for many reasons.  I have also supported magical caesarean sections.  Many women choose to work with a doula having had a negative first experience of birth.  Knowing that you have continuous care and attention from someone who has built up a relationship with you, understands your previous experience and the potential trigger points can be invaluable and has been proven statistically.  A doula will help you to negotiate your options with your care-providers, without foisting her personal opinion or judgement on the situation.  She will listen, empower, help to move you to a place of readiness for a subsequent labour.

Antenatal preparation is key and I am really interested to hear people’s experiences of classes and courses.  How to achieve the right balance … how to keep it real without terrifying …  how to show the possible magic without setting up unrealistic expectations … how to help women and couples take responsibility for their unique situation … how to pitch something that suits the women with huge medical complications AND the women who have a low risk, straightforward pregnancy?  It is complicated and I don’t envy the teachers.  I do, in one-to-one situations, always want to look at different potential scenarios so that women are empowered and know their choices – we never know how birth is going to go and sadly I haven’t managed to create a crystal ball or magic wand yet!  But I am passionate about physiology and so shocked and surprised how little emphasis is placed on physiology in antenatal prep.  Understanding how the body works, what causes the mechanical changes – the dilation, the contractions, the pushing etc is invaluable.  But so is discussing comfort measures and that includes pharmacological pain relief.

So, what do I wish for?  More than anything I hope you find a place of acceptance of what happened for you in your birth, a release of the feelings that are affecting you personally and in your closest relationships.  Separate to that I have a much bigger wish, and one that seems challenging given the current state of our NHS.  I hope that we can magic a significantly larger number of midwives in to our birth units, midwives who are properly supported in delivering quality, compassionate care, midwives who are able to be “with woman” as their name suggests, not run ragged, exhausted, unable to eat, sleep or even go to the bathroom during a ridiculously long shift.  I pray for communication and respect between health professionals, a recognition that the job each of us does is valuable.  I pray that anyone who experiences trauma in the birthing room, from mothers to partners to health professionals is able to find an effective way to recover and not carry the trauma forward with them into the rest of their lives.  Perhaps if we get those things there will be more positive stories coming out in the press, rather than distressing ones.  Given that half of the population might choose to have a baby at some point in their life wouldn’t it be great if the majority of what they heard was affirming?

Sophie Brigstocke is an award-winning birth and postnatal doula, as well as Director and Doula Course Facilitator at Nurturing Birth.  See here for more information

Click here to hear Sophie talking about the “superpowers” of doulas, particularly around listening to previous birth trauma experiences

To contact Sophie go to sophie@nurturingbirth.co.uk

 

Don’t call me an expert!!!

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Image thanks to www.suitcasesandsippycups.com

I think I am becoming more pernickety in my old age.  I really care about the language used around birth to the point that my own family tease me relentlessly – they’ve cottoned on to the fact that I hate the word “delivery” and will therefore take every chance to use it in front of me, hoping to provoke a reaction.  Most of the time I try to ignore it – sometimes I take the bait and the teasing persists!  Much has been written about the use of the words delivery and deliver when it comes to birth – how galling for a mother who has been labouring for hours to have someone come in and say “I’m going to deliver your baby now”.  What does that imply she has been doing?  Does it say that her body is somehow less than and it requires someone else to get involved for the main event?  Does it reduce birth to something akin to pizza or parcel postage?

Yesterday I was listening to a Marie Forleo video blog where she talked about research that has been done around the difference between “I don’t” and “I can’t”.  Apparently those that say “I don’t” are far more empowered and likely to stick to a resolution rather than those who say “I can’t”, so if I am trying to avoid eating more chocolate (I’m not – that would be crazy) I should say “I don’t eat chocolate” rather than “I can’t”.  The power that two different letters makes is significant.

Empowering is one of the key words we discuss on our doula courses and we talk a lot about how a doula’s behaviour and language can disempower a woman or couple.  Let’s take advice-giving for example.  If someone says to their doula “what do you advise?” that immediately puts the doula in the position of authority – raises her up on to a pedestal of sorts.  To my mind there are three possible scenarios if a doula gives advice.

  • The client takes the advice, follows it through and finds it to be the answer to all her prayers.
  • The client takes the advice, follows through but the results are not positive or helpful
  • The client doesn’t take the advice and chooses a different path.

It’s easy to look at scenarios 2 and 3 and see how those situations might be detrimental to the doula-client relationship, but what about the first?   Some might say, “fantastic, job done, everyone’s happy”.  But is it really?  I’m not so sure.  How has the client been empowered and supported in that situation.  If clients reach out to the doula for increasingly more advice they start to lose or not trust their own instincts and abilities to come to an answer that is right for them. The doula is placed in the “expert” role and the client takes less responsibility for decisions which might have a long-term effect on their lives and relationships.

Being an expert implies that you are an authority on a subject, that you know a great deal.  As a doula I love to learn, to read, to take courses and workshops, to discuss all things pregnancy, birth and postnatal with others who share my interest.  But, over time I have come to realise that there is a vast difference between theory and practice.  Just because someone has written the ultimate book on parenting doesn’t mean that they will have the right answers for you and your baby, particularly as the baby won’t have read the book!  I have also come to a place of feeling that the more I read the less I know.  Each topic I explore opens new doors for further investigation.  So it is not with false modesty that I say “don’t ask me for advice”.  I invite conversation on a topic, I want to know what you know and what you think, what you believe and where those beliefs come from.  I want to signpost information for you to explore options and choices, and ultimately I want to support you in making the decision which feels right for you.  My feelings on a subject don’t matter – the decision is not being made for me, but for you, your family and your baby.

So, don’t call me an expert – the only person who is an expert on the baby is the parent/primary care-giver.  I may be there in a supportive capacity, but my ultimate role is to empower the true expert in the picture.

To contact Sophie, or Nurturing Birth about anything pregnancy, birth, postnatal or doula related email info@nurturingbirth.co.uk

To find out more about Nurturing Birth doula courses visit the website

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