“Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

In their book “Meaningful Marketing”, Doug Hall and Jeffrey Stamp lay out the differences between what they call ‘meaningful marketing’ and mindless marketing.

Meaningful marketing is a data-driven, analytical and methodical approach to getting the most from your marketing efforts while minimizing cost, effort and waste and maximizing sales, efficiency and long-term repeatable effectiveness.

Mindless marketing is that which causes you drop your prices at the whim of your customer, spend countless and unaccounted for dollars on promotions while hoping that customers respond differently to the same tired, repetitious messaging scheme.

How do determine if you’re doing “Meaningful Marketing”

• Your marketing is actually useful in helping your customers make the best decision for their particular set of needs
• Your marketing materials are 100% honest with no puffery
• Your marketing is transparent and authentic and speaks with earned authority
• Your marketing has FOCUS (target markets, message, what you sell and what you don’t sell)
• All marketing is focused on customer acquisition and business growth (retention is a great goal too, but I simply call that ‘re-acquisition’)
• Your marketing actually seeks to engage in a dialogue with customers rather than just ‘talk at them’ (think: blogging)
• Your marketing seeks to fill a valid and well defined need rather than simply persuade a gullible customer into a one-time purchase

Watch out for these signs of “Mindless Marketing

• You use sales & marketing gimmicks or tricks to capture interest
• You don’t rely on the actual merits of your product/service to sell themselves and stand on their own
• Your marketing is faddish or trendy and not part of an overall strategic plan
• You have succumbed to ‘bright shiny object syndrome’ and are using the latest social media vehicles or other marketing tools without an understanding of how/why/what to expect them to do for you
• Your marketing is focused on the transaction and not the relationship

At the end of the day, there’s no sense in marketing for the sake of marketing. It’s common sense really. As I was looking for some resources for a project recently, I found this quote from the government in one of the SBA marketing guides.

ALL company policies and activities should be aimed at satisfying customer needs, and PROFITABLE sales volume is a better company goal than maximum sales volume.

I would add that “ALL MARKETING activity should be focused on delivering a meaningful message and adding value during the prospect’s decision making process”.

By using LinkedIn effectively, it is possible to open doors that otherwise would not be available and to build relationships that can lead to bigger profits. Read on to find little known tips and techniques.

By using LinkedIn effectively, an online marketer can generate many leads for the products that they sell. In this article we look at how you can use LinkedIn to build relationships and bring traffic to your website.

There are various levels of membership sign ups on LinkedIn. Each offer a number of credit for directly emailing to people that you don’t know or are not connected to. Another point of difference is that you can also elect to receive a higher level of search results.

By starting with the free membership, it is possible to build a powerful profile with a keyworded link back to your site and to network and create groups. Once you have spent time working with LinkedIn, then it might be worth your while to upgrade to benefit from the extra credits.

Profile

Complete your profile with as much information as you can. There are sections for education, previous roles as well as what you are hoping to gain from being on LinkedIn. By providing as much information as you can, you will allow people to know your history and your skill set. This will help them feel more comfortable with you as they will know your full background. Upload a professional looking photo of yourself in a head and shoulders style, as people prefer to do business with people that they have seen, even if it is only online. Use a photo that says ‘approachable and friendly’ for the best results.

Connect

The more people that you can connect with on LinkedIn – the better. If you are in position to, spend time giving recommendations and asking for recommendations from your contacts. These personal testimonials will support your credibility and sales efforts. Adding more connections, means that more people will see you.

Optimise Your Profile

By optimising your profile for the search engines, you can get onto the front page of Google for a name search. Add your profile name like this: http://uk.LinkedIn.com/in/yourname, where ‘yourname’ is in this URL should be your own name once you’ve set it up. It is changeable – so you can add your business niche instead of your name if you prefer at a later date.

Then within your profile, under the Website section – select other and add a keyword for your website. Then add the http:// url address to your website, so that it will work as another link for SEO purpose to your site. The result is a nice PR8+ backlink to your site from LinkedIn affirming the keyword for your site. You might want to add your social networking pages to the other sections.

Groups and Answers

Using the Answers and the groups sections are a great way to build your reputation on LinkedIn. You can share your knowledge, your blog posts for more traffic and generally help people out so that you can connect with more people and be seen as a valuable contributor of LinkedIn. Don’t spam and interact in a professional and positive manner for the best results. You can ask your own questions too, make these short and to the point and don’t waste time by asking for information that you can easily find with a Google search.

By using these tips and techniques, you will soon be using LinkedIn effectively to build your connection, your reputation and your profits.

Copyright (c) 2010 Andrew Holtom