Each week, I teach you a new way to market like Jesus.

But today, we're mixing things up.

I'm not going to teach you how to market like Jesus, but someone else instead...

....someone whose birthday is today....

...and who is the next best thing to marketing like Jesus...

Mary!

In honor of Mary's birthday, here are a few ways we can Market Like Mary:

Market with grace.

From the few stories we have in the Bible about her, the word that always sticks out to me when it comes to Mary is grace.

(Probably due the incalculable number of Hail Mary's I've prayed in my life.)

Everything she did was not only graceful, but also grace-filled.

Marketing from a place of gratitude first allows us to not only have a more positive spin to our marketing, but it also just makes for better marketing.

Marketing from a place of desperation shows. It feels desperate because that's the place it starts from.

Marketing from a place of grace, seeing everything as a gift first, is so much more convincing because we aren't in a PLEASE DO THIS OR I'M GOING TO FALL APART place.

It's more relaxed, inviting, and natural.

Mary could have had every reason to not see the grace in the situations thrown at her: Becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit and facing potential shame and divorce, giving birth in a stable, fleeing to Egypt, losing Jesus in the temple, seeing her Son brutally murdered...she had every right by human standards to complain a little.

But we don't hear that from her — and since the Old Testament is basically one long complaint reel from the Israelites, I think it would have made it into the Scriptures if she had complained.

So start with finding the grace, the gifts, first, and then do your marketing. Your results won't just be better; they'll also be grace-filled.

Take time to ponder.

One of my favorite mental images of Mary is imagining her pondering. Turning over these incredible happenings in her mind, savoring them, having a beautifully open curiosity about how they will take shape.

She doesn't just rush to the next thing on her to-do list.

She recognizes the need to slow down and reflect, even amongst the busyness of her life, especially in those early years.

If we don't take time to reflect on our marketing, we cannot learn from it for the next time. This doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out weekly analytics review (although that isn't bad!). It could even just be a 5 minute check in after a campaign to see how things went.

And then, reflect on it.

Look back at those posts, those emails, those touchpoints. If you were redoing it now, what would you have done differently?

Ponder these things with the Lord, and ask Him to show you how they aren't just impacting your numbers, but also your soul. What lessons does He want you to learn from your marketing as it relates to your spiritual life? (Because trust me, it all interconnects.)

Focus on others.

I'm going to be real with you: If I found out I was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, my first thought would not be to take a 100 mile journey by foot to go help out my other pregnant relative.

Now of course, part of that was to confirm the sign given to Mary by the angel that she was indeed carrying the Messiah.

But the fact that she stays for three months tells us she was also likely there to help Elizabeth out in the final trimester of her pregnancy.

Mary's focus is oriented towards others. We see this also in the Wedding Feast at Cana, where she's tuned into what is happening and asks Jesus to help.

We need to do in the same in our marketing.

Now of course if you want to take this charitably or through physical service, fantastic!

But in a marketing sense, what I most want you to do is focus less on what you're offering, and more on the people you're offering it to.

What do they need? How do you serve them through what you do?

Then, market that — not what you do, but how you help. It's natural in business to focus on promoting ourselves, not even from a place of self-centeredness, but because we think that's what we're supposed to do.

But shift the focus from yourself to your customer, and you'll unlock the key to effective — and Marian — marketing.

Do whatever He tells you.

Speaking of the Wedding Feast at Cana, Mary gives us the entirety of a Catholic marketing plan is five words: Do whatever He tells you.

That's it, folks. That's the whole "secret" to Catholic marketing: Bringing your thoughts to the Lord, and then doing whatever He tells you.

Which leads me to another way to market like Mary — we can't be afraid to take action.

Mary is grace-filled, but not passive. She immediately goes to visit Elizabeth, which again, with being a 100 mile journey, is not something you do on a whim or if you aren't really trusting what the angel said.

She doesn't sit around hemming and hawing about whether to flee to Egypt.

She doesn't sit idly by when Jesus is lost in the temple.

She doesn't hesitate to ask Jesus to act when the wedding couple runs out of wine.

She acts — even when that action requires a lot of trust.

Mary didn't know how any of those things were going to turn out. Maybe she even had to learn some skills along the way she didn't think she would ever have to know.

In the same way, maybe you never thought you'd be needing to learn how to update a website or figure out social media or fight through email tech troubles.

But if Jesus called you to a business or ministry, the "call within a call" likely includes those things too.

There's a good possibility Mary intended to remain a virgin her whole life. Having a baby and learning how to be a mom was probably not on her bingo card.

But marketing like Mary is believing "that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled" — and then acting on it.

Always point back to Jesus.

In all her apparitions, Mary never focuses on herself — it's always an opportunity to point people back to Jesus.

She calls people to action, typically prayer, and always leads them back to her Son's Sacred Heart.

That's what we're called to do in our marketing too. Whether directly in our marketing or through the offerings we provide, our job is to simply be a conduit by which people draw closer to Jesus.

We do the work to reach and convince people, and then we pass them off to Jesus.

Then we'll truly be marketing like Mary.

Saying a Hail Mary for your work now!

For His greater glory,

Emily

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