Nonviolent Communication and Marketing: putting empathy and being of service at the center of how you promote, persuade, and connect

by Alan Rafael Seid, CNVC Certified Trainer

This article has two audiences in mind. The first is NVC trainers and practitioners who want to reach more people as well as understand NVC-aligned marketing better. The other is marketers — people already engaged in the practice of marketing — who want to do it ethically and in a way that builds genuine connection.

Those are two worlds that on the surface don’t seem to have much overlap. And yet, there is a valuable conversation happening at that very intersection.

On the one side you have the world of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) — a practice of radical empathy, honest self-expression, personal empowerment, and meaningful human connection.

On the other: the world of “marketing” — often dismissed as the art of getting people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.

I think that dismissal is costing us and the world.

It’s costing NVC trainers who have something genuinely world-changing to offer who also struggle with how to reach the people who need it.

And it’s costing marketers who are tired of feeling like they’re manipulating people but don’t know another way.

The little-explored intersection of these two worlds has the potential to make a big difference. My goal in this article is to show you why, what, and how.

First I’ll briefly define NVC, then describe what marketing is and could be, and then we’ll look at the powerful synergy of the two.

What Is Nonviolent Communication — And Why Does It Matter?

Nonviolent Communication, or NVC, is a framework for human connection and mutually satisfying outcomes developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, starting in the 1960s. He continued to deepen, refine, and expand both his understanding as well as the framework itself throughout the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and beyond.

NVC is rooted in the understanding that all human beings share the same fundamental needs — for safety, belonging, meaning, autonomy, and more. NVC further recognizes that conflict arises not from incompatible needs, but from differences in the strategies we use to meet those needs.

At its depth, NVC is a consciousness practice that also comes with a concrete framework.

Dr. Rosenberg taught that where we direct our attention has the potential to change everything, and the framework itself includes three areas where you can put your attention in the service of connection:

• speaking (self-expression, honesty, vulnerability),
• listening (presence, empathy), and
• self-connection (interior clarity, self-empathy).

Each of these three areas has the same four components, essentially four categories of information that are more likely to contribute to connection:

1. Observations (what you see or hear, separate from your evaluations or interpretations),
2. Feelings (what you’re experiencing emotionally),
3. Needs (the underlying human motivators and values at stake), and
4. Requests (specific, actionable asks that invite rather than demand).

However, what makes NVC powerful goes beyond its structure.

The deeper power of NVC lies in the underlying consciousness and intention.

When I met Dr. Rosenberg in 1995 he had been traveling the world, training people and mediating conflicts, for decades — and he had what I thought was a very astute observation! Everywhere in the world, in every culture, people are playing one of two games: one of those games is called “who’s-right-and-who’s-wrong?” and the other one is called “how can I make life more wonderful?”

This last one — contributing to life — encapsulates the consciousness of NVC.

NVC is fundamentally about connection before correction, empathy before advice, and presence before problem-solving.

If you become skilled at the “tools” of NVC but miss the consciousness and core intention — then it will not be NVC at all. Rather, it would become a subtle form of manipulation which goes against NVC. “Weaponized NVC” is not NVC!

The purpose is not to get people to do what you want! The purpose of NVC is connection and win-win outcomes that arise from the connection!

So NVC is frequently misunderstood.

People imagine that NVC is about being “nice.” But it is not about being nice, especially if nice is not authentic.

NVC is about being real — in a way that also preserves relationships and win-win possibilities.

NVC is not about avoiding hard truths or difficult conversations. Quite the opposite, it’s the best way I know to get through difficult conversations in a way that preserves connection.

NVC is about being real and honest in a way that can also be compassionate and caring. The consciousness and the tools of NVC show you how to have your truth and harmony — reliably.

And this is precisely what NVC excels at: how to create meaningful personal and professional relationships, prevent and resolve conflicts, and consistently generate mutually beneficial outcomes.

I have personally transformed all the significant relationships in my life — toward more harmony, more ease, more connection, and mutually satisfying outcomes.

NVC has also helped me transform how I reach out and let potential clients know about what I have to offer.

As it turns out, the very same principles that can transform your interactions can also transform the way you let people know about your offerings.

Developing Your NVC Skills

Having a tool is one thing — and being skillful with a tool is another!

NVC is typically taught in a workshop or classroom setting — and there are many options, online and offline.

You can learn more about the basics of NVC, here.

This book is a classic text for learning the concepts of Nonviolent Communication.

I highly recommend building your NVC skills through online or in-person workshops and attending a practice group. I facilitate this online practice group every Friday — but do explore; there are many options out there.

Besides workshops and a practice group, if you want to go deep, I highly recommend attending an International Intensive Training (IIT) put on by the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC). At an IIT you live immersed for about 9 days with a group of people sharing the intention to learn NVC — which is one of the most effective ways to deepen your understanding and skills.

What Do We Actually Mean by “Marketing”?

Before we go further, let’s be clear about the word “marketing” — because if you’re an NVC practitioner, there’s a likelihood that this word elicits disgust or aversion (and probably for good reason!).

This distaste for marketing is understandable — especially if you associate it with the kind of marketing that I grew up with: fear-based, manipulative, and competition-based. I will spell this out and contrast it with a different paradigm of marketing, below.

For now, I want to clarify that marketing is not the same as advertising or selling — nor is it inherently spam. It is not manipulation dressed up in clever words your audience likes.

At its most essential, marketing is the practice of contributing to the right people becoming aware that something exists that might genuinely serve them.

So it’s about creating a connection: somebody makes left-handed lion-taming equipment, and somebody is looking for just that — how do we connect them?

And it is far broader than most people think. Marketing includes how you talk about your work at a dinner party. It includes your website, your email newsletter, your social media presence (or lack thereof), the bio in your workshop program, and the subject line of the message you send to a potential participant.

The moment you open your mouth — or open a new document — to describe what you do and why it matters, you are participating in “marketing.”

The question, then, is never really whether or not to market. It’s how.

Here is a reframe that I like: marketing is the bridge between your gift and the people who need it. It really can be that simple.

Author Seth Godin defines marketing as the generous act of helping someone solve a problem — their problem — and a means to create positive change.

Marketing is not about using consumers to solve a company’s problem through hype and tricks. Rather, marketing is about meeting the needs of others through your expertise. So the marketing I gravitate toward focuses on my clients’ needs, builds trust, and serves to facilitate the transformation my clients are seeking.

Godin emphasizes that “good marketing helps customers” and that marketers should aim to “make things better by making better things.” That is the goal of NVC-aligned marketing!

My personal story

My personal experience involved growing up on the receiving end of fear-based and manipulative marketing — the kind that would have me “buy things I don’t even need, using money I don’t even have, in order to impress people I don’t even like!”

When I decided in 2005 that I wanted to be self-employed rather than have a traditional job, I sadly realized that I had no idea about business and marketing.

As I learned more I became aware that I had developed a real disdain for what I thought marketing was — precisely because of having grown up on the receiving end of so many dishonest marketing practices.

As I pressed on, both with genuine curiosity as well as a sense of desperation to put food on the table for my family, something remarkable happened!

I discovered that marketing is NOT one thing. I discovered two very different kinds of marketing that reflected two very distinct approaches to life and relationships with which I was already familiar.

On the one hand, there was the life-disconnected, life-alienated type of marketing — manipulative and fear-based.

And on the other hand, there was marketing based on empathy, connection, and being of service.

I decided to cultivate and hone my skills in this second kind. That was nearly 20 years ago — and in this article I try to describe my learnings on that journey.

Two Kinds of Marketing — Which One Are You Doing?

As I mentioned above, not all marketing is the same.

There is actually a spectrum, and where you operate on it makes a difference — ethically, relationally, and practically.

On one end sits what we might call manipulative marketing or fear-based marketing.

This is the kind that manufactures urgency, exploits insecurity, and treats the human being on the other end of the message as someone gullible and uninformed, someone to be manipulated, or objectified as a target to be converted.

I’m sure you’re familiar with this kind! It sounds like: “This deal goes away in one day! Get it now!” It counts down timers that reset every time you reload the page: a form of manufactured scarcity. Sometimes this kind of marketing involves a person practically shouting that this item (which you found out existed 10 seconds ago) is the key to solve all your problems. This kind of marketing tells you that you’ll miss out if you don’t act now. It aims to get you to act through fear and scarcity.

That’s one end of the spectrum.

Even if your message is NVC-aligned, the tactics may be alienating. A great example of this is interruption marketing. Examples of interruption marketing include ads in the middle of your podcast or video, and pop-up windows on a website that urge you to do something, essentially interrupting your reading or scrolling.

On the other end of the spectrum sits NVC-aligned marketing, which could also be called empathy-based or service-based marketing.

This kind of marketing speaks to real needs, respects the intelligence and autonomy of the receiver of the message, and contributes to the person on the other end feeling seen and understood.

Marshall Rosenberg described two fundamentally different orientations to power: “power-over” — which seeks compliance — and “power-with” — which seeks connection and mutually beneficial outcomes. (These also map onto the two games I described above: “who’s-right-and-who’s-wrong” and “how do I make life more wonderful?”)

Manipulative marketing comes from the same paradigm as power-over, except in a marketing costume.

NVC-aligned marketing comes from the same paradigm as power-with — yet expressed in the context of letting people know how their needs could be met when they interact with what you have to offer.

If you offer NVC-related services, it makes sense that you would want them to be financially sustainable. Otherwise you can’t sustain the message or the service!

And how you talk about and let people know about these services will reflect on the degree to which NVC is integrated into how you do your marketing.

A hypothetical example: Imagine two email subject lines promoting the same NVC introductory workshop.

• Manipulative: Stop destroying your relationships before it’s too late!
• NVC-aligned: What if your hardest conversations could feel different?

These could be two options for the very same workshop that offers the same genuine value — and yet they exhibit a completely different relationship with the reader.

The first speaks to fear, urgency, and potential loss.

The second speaks to the hope of a new, healthier relationship pattern. Both emails may get high open rates — but one points in the direction of loss of trust, while the other one would keep trust intact.

NVC-Aligned Marketing Is an Act of Empathy

An important aspect of NVC-aligned marketing is simple: the person on the receiving end of your message has the experience, “This person really gets me!”

This is not a trick or a copywriting technique you layer on top of a message designed to pressure someone into buying. It is a fundamental orientation which starts with a genuine curiosity about the inner world of the people you’re trying to reach.

Marshall Rosenberg described empathy as the capacity to be present with another person’s experience without projecting, evaluating, or rushing to fix. In a marketing context, this means asking yourself — before you write a single word — what is my audience feeling right now? What do they need? What has brought them to this moment?

When people feel understood they relax a little bit which is a more conducive environment for cultivating trust. And trust is a necessary foundation to successful relationships in life, work, and business.

And it’s precisely a trust-based connection that leads — not only to someone saying yes to your offering, but to them staying connected with you and your world.

Hypothetical example:

Imagine two NVC trainer websites, and contrast the two.

The first opens with the trainer’s credentials, certifications, years of experience, and a list of workshops they offer.

The second opens with this:

You’ve had the same painful conversation so many times you’ve stopped believing it can go differently.

Imagine the visitor’s eyes go wide, they lean forward, and they keep reading — not because they were sold to, but because they felt recognized.

Of course, there is so much more to your message, and how to cultivate trust so that someone will say yes to attending your workshop or hiring you for something specific, such as to help with a conflict.

Either way, one of the hallmarks of NVC-aligned marketing is empathy!

Personal Example: In one of my areas of work, which I call Family Repair, people tell me all the time how exhausting and disheartening it is to have alienation and separation between family members. People yearn for trust, closeness, and ease within their family!

If I can let them know that I hear them and that I understand, they are much more open to hearing how I might help them!

Idea for you:

Before you write your next piece of outreach or marketing — whether it’s an email, a social media post, or a script for a video — try this: sit with your audience for a moment. I don’t mean their demographic profile, I mean their inner experience. What are they carrying? What do they wish were different? What do they yearn for? See if you can write about that.

NVC-Aligned Marketing Is an Act of Service

Here is something I say directly to NVC trainers, and I mean it with full respect for the work you carry:

If you have something that is like medicine for people or for the world… then I believe you have an ethical imperative to get the word out about it!

If you have something genuinely transformative to offer — tools that help people repair the relationship with their partner, reconnect with their estranged children, navigate workplace conflict in a way that feels clean, effective, and results in a more cohesive team — and you are not actively helping people discover what you have to offer that is a missed opportunity for contribution!

You may have discovered the cure for cancer — but if nobody can find out about it does it matter?

Marshall Rosenberg spoke often about giving from the heart — contributing to life not out of obligation or guilt, but from genuine care.

Your marketing, when it’s aligned with NVC consciousness, meaning that it’s honest and empathic, can — on its own — be part of that contribution. If what you are promoting or marketing serves people, then doubly so!

Perhaps it’s an email you sent that helps someone feel less alone, the website telling them help exists thereby giving them hope, or the workshop description that allows someone to feel safe to register.

For many who come into contact with you for the first time, that is the first moment of being of service to them.

Hypothetical example regarding two NVC trainers: One quietly offers workshops to their existing network — twenty people attend over the course of a year. The other learns to communicate the value of their work clearly and powerfully, and reaches two hundred people. Those two hundred people go home to their families, their workplaces, their communities — with greater NVC consciousness and skills. The ripple effect is not abstract — it is the whole point!

Real example: In thinking about my experiences, one stands out. In 2013 I launched A Path with Heart — a three-week interview series on NVC & Social Change. For this event I interviewed 25 of my colleagues who had different facets or approaches to how NVC can contribute to positive change in society. If only 20 people had attended, it would have had an impact. Instead, 1800 people registered from over 50 countries! (And even this is not a big number on the internet!)

I continue to allow myself to be known through my content and letting people know about offerings that genuinely contribute to others!

The NVC Practitioner’s Allergy to Marketing

I’d like to revisit something that I named above: many NVC practitioners have a visceral resistance to marketing.

This resistance is 100% understandable!

Having been on the receiving end of so much manipulative and fear-based marketing, many NVC practitioners see marketing itself as inherently manipulative.

So, of course, marketing their offerings feels gross.

In many cases, they see marketing as self-promotion — which is “bad”. It seems at odds with everything NVC stands for.

I have enormous empathy for that resistance. It makes complete sense to me — especially if the only marketing you’ve ever seen has been fear-based and manipulative.

But here is an invitation: apply NVC to the resistance itself.

What needs are being protected?

I can imagine integrity, authenticity, and a deep commitment to not causing harm.

Those are beautiful needs, and I want them honored!

The question remains whether avoiding marketing entirely and not sharing your offerings with the world is the most skillful strategy for meeting those needs.

When we see that marketing can be done with full integrity — that it can be empathic, honest, and values-aligned — the strategy of avoiding marketing entirely (or holding your nose while you do it) starts to look less like principled restraint and more like what Marshall Rosenberg might call a “tragic expression of an unmet need.”

On the one hand someone might be trying to protect integrity, authenticity, and avoiding harm. On the other hand, there is a yearning for impact and contribution that goes unfulfilled because the path seems too uncomfortable.

My personal turning point was realizing the critical distinction between the two types of marketing I’ve already mentioned: NVC-aligned and manipulative/fear-based.

In 2005, soon after my first child was born, I was determined to figure out how to be my own boss and how to offer my gifts (including and beyond NVC) — so that I could be of service and provide for my family.

When I started, I had enough awareness to understand that I had no clue what marketing is or how it works. I yearned to understand it from the inside so that it could make sense to me, and so that I could apply it in my path of financially sustainable service.

Rather than make marketing “bad” and avoid it altogether — feeling morally superior but reaching very few people — I would love for us to embrace what it could actually look like to spread NVC farther and wider in the world. This would involve reaching people where they’re at, with messages they resonate with, that leave them feeling hungry to learn more.

The world does not have too many skilled NVC trainers who market their offerings well. It has too few.

If You See Yourself as a Marketer: How NVC can make your marketing better — even if you don’t consider yourself an NVC practitioner

You don’t need to have studied NVC in great depth to be able to apply some of its straightforward principles to your marketing.

If you’re a marketer who has never heard of Marshall Rosenberg, stay with me — this part is for you.

NVC offers a set of practical reframes that can transform how you think about your work:

Speak to your audience’s needs, not just their demographics. Demographics tell you who someone is on paper. Needs tell you what they’re longing for. “Women, 35–55, interested in wellness” is a demographic. “People who are exhausted from taking care of everyone else and have forgotten how to take care of themselves” speaks to a set of needs. The first can feel more like a pigeon-hole, while the second one more accurately describes a niche… so focus on the second one.

Observe without evaluating. NVC distinguishes between what we observe and what we interpret. In marketing terms: describe the problem your audience faces without shaming them for having it. There is a profound difference between “Struggling with communication?” and “Stop being such a bad listener.” One is a sincere and straightforward regarding unmet needs. The other is a judgment. Only one builds connection.

Make requests, not demands. Your call-to-action is either an invitation or a demand. “Click here now before this offer expires” is an invitation with a subtle threat attached. Even if you don’t think it meets the textbook definition of a demand, there is subtle manipulation involved. “If this resonates, I’d love to have you join us” is a much more heartfelt invitation. The first one pressures your audience while the second invites through connection.

Check your intention before you publish. This is perhaps the most important practice of all. Before anything goes out, ask yourself: Am I trying to connect and serve, or am I trying to convert? Am I serving this person or group, or am I serving my numbers? Your answers will shape everything.

Only use real scarcity. Fear-based marketing manufactures scarcity in ways that are dishonest. This offer expires in 24 hours! — is a way to get people to act from an invented scarcity that appears arbitrary. What is the real reason behind 24 hours? As an NVC-aligned marketer you only use scarcity when it is real. For example, venues for in-person workshops have finite capacity. Only five seats left! could be speaking to real constraints for a genuine opportunity rather than being deployed as a manipulative tactic.

Join a paradigm of collaboration over competition. Some people think that engaging in “business” or “marketing” automatically creates a sense of competition. I see it differently. Birds, for example, have developed all kinds of adaptations; some have slender beaks for getting seeds or insects hidden in small spaces, while others have big powerful beaks for breaking open seed-pods. There are countless niches birds have adapted to in order to thrive. The world of NVC is not too dissimilar! Some trainers work with families while others work with corporate boards; some focus on helping organizations become collaborative while others want to help the healthcare sector have less conflict. The fear of competition seems unfounded to me, especially when considering the following: on the internet, most competition can be easily transformed into collaboration. For example, my biggest “competitor” in online NVC education is actually my collaborator: they platform my courses, have a bigger network than I do (allowing me to reach people I could not on my own), and then we both get paid. I give them content and courses their audience loves. Win-win-win.

Business is ultimately about relationships — and NVC is a methodology for building them.

Putting It Into Practice — NVC-aligned Marketing in Action

Whether you are an NVC trainer building your practice or a marketer looking to do your work with more integrity, here are the places to start.

For NVC trainers: You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start with one piece — your homepage, your next workshop email, your bio. Write it the way you’d open a conversation: with curiosity about the person you’re writing to, honesty about what you offer, and a genuine invitation rather than a pitch.

There are volumes more to say about NVC-aligned marketing, but remember, in the end it’s about empathy, connection, and being of service.

For marketers: Do an intention audit. Am I truly seeking to serve and connect? If not, the manipulation comes through in your copy — and the more conscious the world becomes the more aware and suspicious people are of manipulative marketing.

So a key question is not only what do I want the audience to do, but also why?

Then, do a needs audit of your current copy. Read through what you’ve written and ask yourself: What feelings and needs am I speaking to and engaging with? Am I trying to engage fear of not belonging, shame about dysfunctional relationships? Am I engaging with the reader’s longing for growth or community?

There is nothing wrong with speaking to real needs — that is NVC-aligned marketing. The question is whether you’re giving your audience the data they need to make an informed decision about whether or not your offering is for them — or whether you want them to buy even if it’s not a good match.

A simple checklist before anything goes out:

• Does the thing I’m marketing genuinely contribute to people and/or the world?
• Does my message contribute to this audience feeling seen or known?
• Am I speaking to real needs, or am I manufacturing stress and anxiety?
• Is my call-to-action a genuine invitation (without artificial scarcity)?
• Would I be comfortable if my audience knew exactly what I was trying to do — and why?

If you can answer yes to all five, your marketing is more aligned with NVC than not.

Closing: The Bridge We’ve Been Missing

Manipulative marketing treats people as numbers and targets.

NVC-aligned marketing treats people as humans.

The difference is not just ethical — it is strategic. In a world saturated with noise, the message that makes someone feel genuinely seen and understood is the one that cuts through.

NVC has been transforming relationships, workplaces, families, and communities for decades.

The sad irony is that the practitioners who carry this work most deeply are often the ones least equipped to help it spread as widely as the world needs it.

We can change that!

Whether you are an NVC trainer learning to share your work more widely, or a marketer discovering that there is a more connected and congruent way to do what you do — the principles are the same. Empathy. Honesty. Service. Connection.

The bridge between your gift and the people who need it is waiting for you.

Marshall Rosenberg on NVC & Marketing

I remember Marshall Rosenberg telling a story about the early days of NVC, in the 1970s.

He was traveling across the US in his car, speaking to anyone who was ready to hear his message about this new paradigm for interpersonal relating.

Even though it started small, the reception for this work was overwhelmingly positive!

Marshall could almost taste the possibility of this work spreading far and wide.

On a long stretch of straight, flat highway a thought appeared: one day, after I am long gone, this work might even travel as far as India!

To him this possibility was exciting… and also way far into the future.

Fast-forward to the early 1990s, as Marshall Rosenberg is on a plane leaving a large city in India, after his first visit to share NVC there — and the memory of this lone thought on the highway came flooding back into his mind. The gratitude and awe were almost overwhelming.

Marshall Rosenberg was not a marketer! But he was courageous!

He had this thing that could genuinely transform human relating — and by extension political and economic systems — and he was driven to share it.

There were times he received push-back or even violent opposition. But the positive responses were much, much greater.

He had the intention to be of service. He connected with people through honesty and empathy.

And he had a process or methodology that worked really well when people knew how to apply it.

If he himself was not a marketer, then what happened? He built a network of people who loved his work — and they became his marketing team!

When your audience is spreading the word for you, you know you are delivering!

As any marketer who’s been part of something successful knows, it takes teamwork to make the dream work!

And now the NVC movement is at another stage of growing pains. The world needs NVC — the consciousness and the skills — more than ever!

NVC practitioners are on the cusp of being able to serve even more people. The question is whether or not we will rise to the occasion and embrace spreading the word in an NVC-aligned way.

PuddleDancer Press Books on NVC and Relationship-Based Business

PuddleDancer Press is the foremost proponent and publisher of books on Nonviolent Communication and spreading your message.

NVC has shown time and again that human beings are capable of creative solutions that take the greatest number of needs into account, leading to mutually beneficial outcomes.

As this article makes clear, using NVC helping the world know about your work, predictably leads to marketing that is ethical and effective. Without letting the world know about your work, the world cannot find out!

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