Passion Fruit
Empowering creative women with business skills for life
You don’t need another content marketing course
Not like the ones you see advertised on social media anyway.
The Instagram gurus who promise you 10,000 followers in 30 days, or to get your Facebook ads seen by 1000 people a day, and the “done-for-you” social media companies who charge thousands of dollars a month only to tell you the lackluster outcome is because your photos weren’t good enough or your business isn’t interesting enough.
I call bullsh*t.
Vanity metrics are the best thing to sell you in a 10-second TikTok because they’re the easiest to quantify. But they’re meaningless in the real world of running a small business.
The fact is 10,000 random people “smashing the follow button” or 1000 zombie-scrolling eyes on your Facebook ad isn’t what builds a thriving business.
You need a comprehensive digital marketing plan customized for your business and life.
you have a story to tell
Most social media courses don’t work because they’re generic.
They teach algorithm tricks to get people to click the like button and Facebook ad strategy designed to get views but don’t help you figure out the story you’re trying to tell about your business or who you’re talking to.
Your story is what inspires strangers to become customers, followers into fans.
Thousands of likes from people who don’t go on to actually buy from you equals a waste of your time.
Humans are hardwired for stories
Your story is the foundation of your marketing.
It’s the reason you got into business in the first place and what inspires you to keep going now.
Think you don’t have a story? I promise you do.
It’s who you are, why you’re different than your competitors, and the connection that turns strangers into customers.
Anthropologists tell us that storytelling is central to human existence.
Simply put, we evolved into storytellers because we didn’t have fangs and needed to develop problem-solving skills and cooperation with other humans to stay safe from predators who wanted to eat us. Stories were the best way to share and understand a mutually beneficial objective.
As well as being super useful in protecting you from being eaten, telling your story will make your marketing strategy rich and full and your audience flourish.
By focusing first on your story, we create a marketing plan that attracts customers who are a perfect fit, aligns with your values and personality, and feels easy to stick with because it’s a story that deeply resonates with you: yours.
Writing your story is the first step in our plan because everything else, your audience, goals, style, vibe, and content, stems from it.
Why not just pay a social media manager?
Paying someone to create and implement a marketing plan for you is a perfectly acceptable short-term solution. They have the knowledge, and you don’t have the time, so why not do that forever?
Because the only expert on your story is you, and your story is the secret sauce for your marketing success.
You can explain to an SSM what you want them to do online, the personality you’re trying to present, and the tone of voice to use in captions and comments, but it will always be an inferior version of the real thing - and customers can always tell.
Learning how to turn your story into a marketing plan yourself allows you to create a killer plan now, again next year, and the next year as you and your business continue to grow and change.
At the end of this program, you’ll understand design, SEO, analytics, and social media algorithms, allowing you to refine your strategy continually. If you get too busy to do the daily posting, you can teach an intern or assistant to implement it.
Instead of renting knowledge from a social media manager, you will own the knowledge, and knowledge is power.
I Can Help You Because I’m You Too
Unless you’re completely new to running a business, you probably already have a passable website and a social media presence.
Things are going generally okay, but deep down, you’ve known for a while that logging into Instagram once a week to post a badly cropped photo isn’t the way to grow your business.
Whenever you open Instagram to “do some social media” for your business, your stomach sinks because you know that posting a badly cropped photo once a week isn’t the way to grow your business.
You probably hate the idea of being on camera, feel like a narcissist talking about yourself, and never know what to say in a caption.
When you start googling “how to grow a small business,” you see terms like SEO, data analytics, geo-targeting, UX, and A/B testing; you’re left confused and resigned to never have the business you dream of.
Here’s the truth:
It isn’t the algorithm you don’t understand; it’s storytelling.
Testimonial
“Vanessa McGowan took my limited knowledge of Squarespace to the next level. The photos she chose and the colors she recommended for my website were all cohesive to building my brand.
One of my favorite aspects of working with Vanessa is that she listened to my suggestions which she transformed into a user friendly website producing organic growth.”
- Laura Sawosko, Nashville
I’ve Been A Small Business Owner Since I was 17 years old
Born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, I played my first gig as a professional bass player in my senior year of high school. It was the after-party for a rally car event, and I negotiated the deal, created the contract, booked the musicians, and my life as a small business owner began.
My music career has taken me all over the world. From Auckland to Nashville, and from rally car after-parties all the way to playing arenas, iconic venues, and even for President Biden at The White House. I’ve had success in music because I’ve always run my career as any other small business.
My first band, Auckland New Zealand (me on far left)
With POTUS and FLOTUS after performing at The White House, Washington D.C., 2021
Performing with Brandy Clark at The Ryman, Nashville, TN, 2023
In March 2020, I landed in Door County, Wisconsin, to visit my long-distance boyfriend for two weeks before an extended music tour. Four months later, I was still there; the music industry was shut down for the foreseeable future, and I found myself helping my now live-in boyfriend run his convenience and apparel store.
As well as playing bass for the last twenty years, I’ve managed bands, run independent labels, and was the Managing Director and owner of an entertainment agency in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2020, I discovered that running a small business is fundamentally the same whether you’re selling songs or sweatshirts.
I love being a small business owner.
I love the independence, autonomy, creativity, and satisfaction of building something from scratch.
But I also know how stressful and lonely it can feel and how easy it is to become completely overwhelmed.
I know what it’s like to be taking care of customer service, bookkeeping, managing staff, long-term planning, and at the end of the day - when you’re down to your last shred of energy - to think, I ought to do some online promotion.
Case Studies
Goal: create the online home for Americana duo Tattletale Saints including links to video and audio streaming, high res photos, and an online store.
Primary objective to create a visual representation of the band’s musical energy with clear paths to purchasing music and merch.
Goal: informational website providing business details and service descriptions for a seasonal summer business. Featuring high resolution, professional landscape photography to pique interest of potential visitors.
Outline: Story, Style, Share, Systemize
Stage One - Story
Your story is the central core of your digital marketing plan.
Where you’ve come from, where you are now, and where you want to be in the future impact every area of your business plan and marketing.
1) I will interview you, learn all about your business and history, and provide you with:
A full biography, ideal for use on your website and as background for press interviews
A boilerplate, perfect for business listings and ads
Single-line bio, great for sub-headings and social media profiles
2) We will then use your story to determine your ideal target audience, including demographic information, personality, how they’ll interact with your business, and wants, needs, pain points, and goals.
3) Using your story and business goals, we’ll define your brand values, the filter through which all future marketing decisions will be made.
4) The tone and style of communication you use online and in marketing materials must align with your brand values, sound authentic, and stay consistent. I’ll guide you through a process to decide the tone of voice you will use as a business.
5) We’ll define four ways to tell your story to appeal to the four distinct personality types so your message attracts all iterations of your target audience.
Stage Two - Style
The style of your website, social media posts, and advertising is how you tell the story of your business visually.
Every color choice, font style, and graphic selection tells prospective customers something about you and impacts their decision to buy from you, or not. These decisions are incredibly important to get right but not difficult to make with a little guidance.
1) I’ll coach you through defining the design style of your business, choosing a color palette and fonts, and establishing the visual style that best suits your business. Whether starting from scratch or wanting to freshen things up, I will guide you through a straightforward process to create the brand kit that best suits your unique personality and business.
2) Using your new brand kit and style guide, I’ll work on my own to completely overhaul your website’s style, text, links, headers, photos, background images and textures, dynamic page features, and footer.
3) I will optimize your website for UX (user experience) and ready the backend for easy tracking of traffic and ads to ensure the best ROI
3) I’ll edit your photos to create a cohesive feel, create background images and graphics, set up your email list and capture points, and optimize every page for desktop and mobile. We’ll also build a blog and create a post plan for Search Engine Optimization.
4) I’ll create personalized video lessons using your website backend to show you how to update text, change images, and adjust page layouts. This is a key stage in the process because it will allow you to rework your website as needed, without any help.
Stage Three - Share
Once we’ve defined your brand voice, created a comprehensive style kit, and nailed down exactly who you’re talking to, why you’re talking to them, and the message you want to share, it’s time to get that message out there!
1) A sales funnel shows you the journey someone takes from complete strangers to repeat customers. We will use the five stages of the funnel, awareness, interest, desire, action, and loyalty, to map your overall marketing strategy and how each element aligns with the customer journey.
2) We’ll decide which social media platforms should be your focus based on your schedule, target audience, and growth potential.
3) We’ll use your bio and brand kit to create visual unity between all the profiles.
4) We will use your story and style kit to create Repeatable Content Frameworks for social media. Each framework will have an assigned platform, goal, asset description, and templates for captions, hashtags, and links (if applicable).
5) I’ll teach you simple editing tricks and best practices for reels, posts, and videos.
6) We will create Canva templates for text-based social media posts and event fliers.
7) I’ll teach you about geotargeting and A/B testing using Meta Business Suite so you can ensure you’re getting the best return on your Instagram and Facebook ad spend.
Stage Four - Systemize
Learning how to analyze the data, understand the patterns, optimize your process, and refine your marketing plan as needed will ensure continued growth - long after this program has ended.
My goal is that you don’t have to hire a social media marketing manager or digital marketing consultant for many years to come.
1) We’ll learn how to use unique QR codes in advertising to track individual traffic sources and determine which ads perform best.
2) I’ll show you how to track social media analytics, dissect the data, and refine your posting plan accordingly.
3) We will determine the short and long-tail keywords to optimize your business around and create a metadata and blog post plan specifically for website Search Engine Optimization.
4) We’ll use website analytics and Facebook pixels to track user behavior and learn how to adjust SEO accordingly
5) I will optimize your Google My Business profile and create a simple plan for your continued growth.
This is what I know
Ten thousand followers on TikTok or 1000 random people seeing your latest Facebook ad doesn’t help your business.
You need to understand how to tell the story that will hook those random people and make them loyal customers.
Learn how to track the data to be confident in where you’re putting your ad spend.
You need to build an online community now so they’re already in love with what you’re doing the next time you have a big announcement or if you need to pivot your business quickly in the future (hello, Covid).
You shouldn’t have to pay a website designer hundreds every time you need an update, and if you have a website customized for your business and have learned to update it, you can do it yourself, quickly and for free, forever.
You can stop paying someone every month to make your social media content for you and create a plan so simple, effective, and user-friendly you can delegate posting to an intern, virtual assistant, or staff member when you get busy.
All you need to know to make marketing work for you is your story. And, conveniently, that’s something you’re already an expert in.
When you have a content marketing plan that is simple, effective, customized for your lifestyle, and makes running your business easier, you are empowered.
That’s why I created this plan. A comprehensive digital marketing plan empowering small business owners with creative marketing skills for life.
Case Studies
www.vanessamcgowan.com (the one you’re on now)
Goal: create a showcase website for professional bass player, Vanessa McGowan, with basic bio information on the home page and a spotlight on her work with Brandy Clark and Tattletale Saints.
Goal: create the online home for Americana duo Tattletale Saints including links to video and audio streaming, high res photos, and an online store.
Primary objective to create a visual representation of the band’s musical energy with clear paths to purchasing music and merch.
Goal: simple one-page website providing links for all podcast episodes.
I created the color palette and thumbnail images for all episodes with the goal of building interest around each guest or topic.
Learn More
Complete the form below to express your interest in the program.
This isn’t a firm commitment from either of us.
It’s a chance to get to know each other better and see if we’re a good fit for working together.