Your next marketing move based on the creative season you are in
Creativity moves in seasons. We understand this instinctively about the natural world, that nothing blooms all year, that the earth needs its fallow months as much as its harvest. Yet we were taught that our work should grow in a straight line, always upward and outward, regardless of what is actually moving in us. Most of the marketing advice we are given was built for one season only, summer, the season of constant launching and being seen.
And here is the part that changed everything for me: the creative season you are in is rarely the season outside your window. You can be in a creative winter in the middle of July, or a creative summer in December. Your body usually knows which one long before your mind catches up.
When you learn to recognise the season you are in, and let your marketing follow it rather than override it, something softens. Your work becomes something you move with again, more sustainable and far more honest. Here is where to put your energy in each one.
Winter, the season of listening
In a creative winter, the most important work is the kind no one can see. This is the time to tend the roots before anything new tries to grow, slowing down rather than producing. Where to focus:
Nervous system regulation and reconnecting with your rhythm
Tuning into the frequency of your work, and what wants to come next
Exploring the emotional and energetic patterns around visibility and collaboration
Winter is a season for inner work, for noticing how you relate to being seen and where that relationship feels tender or blocked. It is also a season for listening beneath the noise, for sensing what your work is asking for before you press it into a plan. One practice I return to again and again is gathering images on a Pinterest board, intuitively and without overthinking, then reading them back to myself afterwards. The images we save often reveal where we are emotionally long before we have words for it. You do not have to disappear from your work in winter, though you can take a digital detox if your body asks for one. You simply have permission to step back and let the ground rest.
Spring, the season of finding language
In spring, the energy begins to return. Curiosity comes back, ideas start to stir, and what was felt in winter slowly begins to find its words. This is not yet the season for launching, it is the season for laying foundations. Where to focus:
Writing your website copy, your bio, your press release
Beginning a newsletter or a gentle writing practice
Brainstorming ideas and starting to create
Reconnecting with people through slow networking and warm messages
You are planting seeds here, not harvesting them. This is a wonderful time to build the language your work will stand on, the words that finally match what you have been carrying inside, without the pressure of putting it all out into the world straight away. When networking belongs to spring, it works best done gently, an unhurried introduction or a warm message, a genuine connection rather than a pitch.
Summer, the season of expansion
Summer is the season your work has been preparing for. The energy to be seen is already there in the body, an openness in the chest, a real desire for your work to meet the people it is meant for. Where to focus:
Launching your offers and inviting people in
Collaborating with people whose work resonates with yours
Pitching yourself to podcasts and aligned platforms
Hosting live experiences and workshops, online or in person
This is when you let your work move outward, into real moments of contact with the people you want to reach. It is a generous season for collaboration, so it is worth asking yourself who you could create something with, whose work would serve yours and whose yours would serve in return. Summer is beautiful precisely because it is not permanent, so when you feel it arrive, you follow it while it is here.
Autumn, the season of refining
In autumn, refining what already exists matters as much as making something new. There is a natural pull toward shedding, toward letting go of what no longer fits so that something truer can take shape. Where to focus:
Refreshing your brand and visual identity
Clearing your digital space, your desktop, files, and phone storage
Reassessing your pricing and the offers that no longer fit
Repurposing the work you have already created
This is the season to bring your visible world into alignment with who you have become, so your brand finally feels like home. It is a good time for the quieter, practical kind of clearing too, the desktop and the files, the storage that quietly fills up, making space in every sense. When I launched my new website, it came into the clearing energy of autumn, and it was that letting go that allowed a whole new framework to emerge.
Moving with your season, not against it
When I stopped fighting my season and started moving with it, the biggest thing that changed was the relief. I was no longer resisting myself, and my work became something I moved with, more alive and more honestly mine.
This is not a one-time exercise. Your season will keep shifting, and the more you learn to listen, the more your work begins to move with you. I recommend checking in this way regularly, even monthly, and adapting how you choose to be visible based on the season you are actually in.
If you are not sure which season you are in right now, my free quiz can help you find out in a few minutes with rituals and gentle next steps for wherever you land. And if you would like to explore the link between your creative seasons and your marketing more deeply, my Rooted Seasons workshop for the Embodied Ecology summit goes further, with a guided visualisation to find your season and space to build a three-month plan that honours it.
Wherever you are, I hope this gives you permission to slow down and trust your own rhythm. We root before we rise.