20 Ways to Market Mindfully and with Purpose

Marketing mindfully is kind of my jam. It’s what I’ve built my business on.

To me, marketing mindfully is:

Approaching marketing from a service-based mindset, where the experience of the customer is prioritized over profit.

Because here’s the thing – when you prioritize experience, profit naturally follows.

If you’re more of a profit-driven company, that often means you’ll sacrifice things like: quality, customer experience, customer service, security, etc to meet profit demands.

In the short term, you may make money. But in the long term? You’re sacrificing the equity in your brand and the ability to build loyalty in the name of revenue.

And that’s a huge – avoidable – bummer.

Here are 20 ways you can marketing more mindfully in 2020 if you want to increase customer experience and, by proxy, increase profits too:

Audit your website for ease of use – Specifically focus on mobile optimization and accessibility.

We all know mobile optimization is really important. But have you ever considered the accessibility of your website? Around 15% of the world’s population possesses some form of disability.

These individuals deserve a positive experience online as much as a non-disabled person does. There’s a great checklist to see how accessible your website is right here – Web Accessibility Initiative Easy Checks. Some highlights include:

• Alt text on all images
• Mobile responsiveness
• Pages designed to properly format text if an individual uses their browser to resize it (make it larger)
• Proper heading tags
• Pages designed properly for contrast adjustments done via browser (for individuals who need higher or lower contrast)

Examine your website content for fear-based approaches

This means not relying on fear tactics to promote your products or services. An example of using a fear tactic would be capitalizing on a pain point in a negative way designed to illicit anxiety from the reader.

For example, if you’re a weight loss company, a fear-based headline would be:

Prioritize your weight now so you can take care of your family later.

This headline is calling out the individual’s fear of their longterm health by implying they might pass away if they don’t make a change immediately. This is ethically wrong and is not the way to market your service or product.

A mindful headline would be –

When you prioritize your health, you gain more than just a smaller clothing size.

The reader still gets the idea, but instead of inciting them to action out of fear, they take action based on hope.

Avoid a false sense of urgency in your creative

How many times have you found a product or service, seen a discount on it that was “limited time” but that discount seemed to never.go.away… months later it was still being offered?

This is a really common tactic marketers and business owners use when sending ads to a cold (aka, unfamiliar with your brand) audience.

Urgency is a classic marketing tactic. And it has its uses for sure – but only when it’s authentic.

Using a false sense of urgency forces a lead or prospect to make a decision before they may be ready. It’s also no way to build a relationship with a customer.

No click bait

We’ve all seen click bait. We know what it is. And it’s honestly some of the worst content out there on the internet.

Just don’t participate in it. You can have a compelling headline without being “click-baity”.

Not to mention, many social platforms’ algorithms are beginning to down-rank content that is considered click bait. Stay above the noise.

Clearly articulate accurate benefits your service or product provides

In other words, state them plainly in easy-to-understand verbiage. Think of this one through the eyes of your ideal client or customer.

How would they have an understanding of your product or service? What words would they use to describe what they need?

This one is closely related to the next point –

Create content for all stages of the journey

Here’s what I mean: as you’re thinking about the understanding and specific words your ideal client or customer may use… the fact is, their understanding and word choice will evolve as they move through your customer journey.

In the beginning, when they’re in the “awareness” phase, their search terms will be more vague.

But as they learn more and more (ideally from you), those search terms will become more specific. And as they get closer to making a purchasing decision, they may even use jargon or brand-specific words in their search queries.

This means having diversified content is a great way to be mindful of the entire experience your ideal client or customer is having – instead of focusing only on the part of the experience that’s transactional.

Filter content through the lens of your ideal client

While you’re thinking about having content for every touchpoint along the journey, you can be mindful with the words you choose.

What values and beliefs does your ideal client or customer hold? How do they view the world?

Do your best to infuse these unique characteristics in the actual content you produce. This helps your content have even more relevance and affinity – which will translate to trust and, eventually, profit.

Be sensitive to what your ideal client or customer is experiencing

This is somewhat related to the previous point.

This means having a firm understanding of the problems or pain points your ideal customer or client is experiencing – both as it relates to your product, but also as it relates to their life at large.

A great example of this is a worldwide event like, oh I don’t know, a global pandemic. Millions of people are unemployed. Your ideal client or customer may be one of them. How can you be sensitive to what this means for their life? How can you position your product or offer in a way that demonstrates helpfulness?

Curate content that’s relevant and useful

This means being aware of the level of usefulness any content you’re reposting or sharing on your own channels – as it relates to your ideal client or customer.

You may find 100 cat videos interesting. Will your ideal client or customer? I mean, I hope so. But only you can answer that question.

Encourage engagement in email, on your website and on social media

Be interactive and ask for feedback, answers to questions and opinions. Engagement is a huge ranking factor for social algorithms.

With web content, “engagement” can look like clicks from relevant search queries – which are a signal to the search engines that your content is helpful. It can also look like open comments and the ability to share posts on social media.

Engagement in email can look like an open invite to reply, or headlines that encourage opening the email. It can also look like sharing information that’s helpful.

Enable social proof or testimonials

When a brand turns off the ability to leave reviews or submit testimonials, that should be a huge, red flag that something’s wrong.

“Social proof” is allowing your products or services to be shared and talked about on platforms you don’t control. Sometimes it’s as simple as posts on social media that get engagement. Other times it extends to forum posts, private messenger discussions you don’t know about, or even emails between your customers you couldn’t possible be aware of.

Here’s the thing: sometimes brands are afraid of not knowing the conversations people are having about them.

But the truth is these conversations are happening about your brand whether you want them to or not. Don’t suppress them.

These leads to the next point…

Participate in your own community

The best way to manage conversations happening around your brand or business is to participate in them.

You can use social listening tools (like Mention) to see conversations happening about you online. Then go participate in them (when it makes sense).

Respond to comments on social media posts and ads. Allow reviews. Request testimonials. Share content created by your community on your branded platforms.

You’re here to build a relationship, right? So go build it.

Responsibly disclose how you use visitor and customer data

This is as simple and easy as having a current, updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy linked somewhere accessible on your website. Usually this information is in the footer.

It’s your job to disclose how and why you collect data about your website visitors and customers. It’s the right of the visitor and customer to know how their data is used, analyzed and stored.

Enable unsubscribe options on your email list

You’re legally required to allow a subscriber to opt out of your emails, on every email you send. And, related, ensure the unsubscribe link to remove the subscriber from the list actually works. No questions asked or hoops to jump through.

You can still ask them why they’re unsubscribing, but don’t make the answer to that question a mandatory part of the unsubscription process.

Don’t purchase data

This includes email lists. Ultimately, this comes down to an ethical choice. There are loopholes in the law that technically allow for purchased data to be marketed to.

However, ask yourself this question: is the price of having access to people who didn’t purposefully choose to learn about you worth the potential backlash? That backlash can come in the form of spam reports on email, “I didn’t subscribe to this list” reports, or even confusing and immediate disgust from the recipient.

Not worth it, in my opinion.

Thoughtfully use targeting

Carefully consider your options and filter them through the lens of who your ideal client or customer is.

Especially when you’re using interest-based targeting or keyword targeting. Strive for service first.

Targeting is your way of providing information. When you think of marketing as an answer to a question (aka, a service you’re providing), the targeting should become very clear.

Filter ads through the lens of your ideal client

This one draws off a lot of the prior points. Keep in mind things like:

• No false sense of urgency
• No scare tactics
• Avoid click bait
• Tailor the message to who you’re trying to reach
• Keep service first

This ensures your ads remain relevant and helpful. That’s the entire point of an ad. Why waste time and money convincing someone who was never going to purchase in the first place when you can serve ads to people who are already looking to be helped?

Analyze data to improve experience (profit will follow)

Instead of buying a bunch of data, look at the data you already have.

Datapoints like:

• bounce rate on your homepage and specific landing pages
• Time on site
• Pageviews
• Open rates on email
• Click rates on email
• Engagement rates on social media channels

These all tell a story about the health of your brand, the relevancy of your content, and the connections you’re making (or aren’t making). These tell you where your efforts are working, and where you can improve.

Focusing on these metrics will naturally increase your profit, because you’ll be improving the overall experience which will inspire positivity from prospective clients and customers.

Communicate issues that may complicate a customer experience

This is about getting ahead of the storm. I’ve worked with several brands who took the opposite approach and attempted to mask issues from customers. Guess what happened? It didn’t go well.

This is especially relevant if you sell a physical product and you’re experiencing any issue in the supply chain. Be transparent and upfront, providing the necessary information your customers need to be aware of the situation.

Here’s what happens when you do this: you create a trust bridge. Brand vulnerability is incredibly rare. But by sharing what’s happening behind the scenes in an upfront way, you create a level of trust between yourself and your customer. That’s priceless.

Continuously revisit automations and pipelines to ensure relevancy and true service are being prioritized

This is about basic maintenance of your automations. It’s a great idea to revisit them on a regular basis. Check for things like:

• Do links still work?
• Is the copy still relevant?
• Are the subject lines or headlines still working?
• Are all the triggers still firing correctly?
• Do we need to adjust tags and/or segments?