A Doula Website That Empowers People Instead Of Pushing Them: Many Moons Birth
Doula Website for Many Moons Birth - Jasmine Stuverud www.manymoonsbirth.com
by Lily Rothrock, Marketing Strategy & Website Copywriting
Many Moons Birth - Doula Website
When Jasmine Stuverud first approached me about working together, she needed a website to help her book doula clients. She also had other offerings—such as counseling for families and pregnant people—that she needed help presenting in a professional, yet authentic way.
While listening to her share about what kind of website she wanted, I realized that it was important for Jasmine that any marketing we created together would still feel like herself—and not some sales-y advertising person!
You see, a key part of what makes her different than other doulas is her approach to empowerment and education—and she wanted to be sure her website did the same thing she would be offering clients.
Jasmine’s Doula Website Goals
Jasmine tried to make a website on her own before she called me, and realized she needed the support of a professional. As I listened to her share during our initial consultation, I could hear how passionate Jasmine felt about her work. She knew she needed a clear and professional website to connect with potential clients, and she was weary of certain common pitfalls that sometimes go along with creating a marketing strategy and website.
She wanted her clients, no matter where they were at in their process of exploring options, to feel right at home on her website, and to be able to gain valuable insights into the process of hiring a doula. She knew that later on, she wanted to be able to write and share more about doula work, birth, pregnancy, and birth advocacy work, so she needed her website to establish herself as a relatable expert in the field. By focusing on providing value and insights, she would help empower potential clients, right from the very start, to choose a doula that was right for them—even if that wasn’t Jasmine herself.
Connective Marketing & Copywriting Isn’t Like Other Approaches
To some marketers, this way of approaching potential clients on a website would seem very counter-intuitive. Why leave the door open for people to leave? Don’t you have to “capture them” and get them to make a purchase decision by pushing them towards the “book” or “buy” button?
Of course, this non-pushy way of approaching writing a website was right up my alley, and my approach to marketing. Anytime I’m working on a piece of copy for another business, I want to be sure that I have their clients in mind. I aim on creating value for the reader, as well as educating them, offering practical tools, and even expanding their horizons.
Some would say this is contrary to classical advertising and marketing approaches, where you must funnel them into making a purchase from you. I don’t see it that way, at all. In fact, click-bait funnels and pushy copy are highly repulsive to me, and always make me hit the “back” button on my browser.
In my experience, by offering as much value as you can through your website and content you share, your readers get to know you, and start to be able to trust you, and will keep you in mind if they are looking for the types of services you offer. Yes, it can be tricky to do all of this together on a relatively short website or article, but it’s incredibly gratifying once you pull it off. This is how you can form relationships with loyal clients, that are well-informed, and the right fit for your business.
How We Pulled Off A Connective Website For Jasmine’s Doula Services
After a couple of interview calls with Jasmine where I listened to her story and asked her questions about how she gets clients, the types of clients she works with, etc, we started writing her website in a shared Google Doc. This is such an important part of website building that often goes overlooked—the website copy. The website copy creates the framework for the entire business. It’s the structure of how the business owner connects with the potential client, and it creates impressions and ideas in the reader’s mind about the business itself.
Many people understand that a website is crucial for businesses who need to connect with clients before working with them, but they don’t necessarily realize that it’s the website copy that will do the work of connecting (or not). Copy is where the story is written, and where the client will either see themselves and feel spoken to, or not.
For Jasmine’s website, we included a broad range of copy, such as:
“Homepage” content designed to make it clear to website visitors what the site is all about, and if they are going to be a good fit for Jasmine’s services
“About” content that connects with the reader by sharing stories and context in a relatable way
A personal letter from Jasmine about doula work, designed to give families an overview of her approach and help establish Jasmine as an expert in her field by sharing insights into the topic
Service descriptions and packages with clearly defined features and benefits to make it easy to understand what working together would look like
Testimonials from past clients to create social proof and add an important perspective of what other people experienced when working with Jasmine
FAQ content to answer key questions before readers have a chance to even realize they were wondering about something
Guides and Resources such as “What Questions To Ask In Your Doula Interview” and a guide to pregnancy and birthing during the pandemic to further establish Jasmine as a go-to resource for pregnant families and expert in her field
Now, this would be the part where I tell you how many perfect-fit clients Jasmine has booked because of her new connective website. But it just launched this month, and those statistics take time. Of course, I’ll update this post when I have more data. But for now, you can check out her website yourself.
