Marketing, LinkedIn and Other Musings
I was at a networking event recently and at one point we discussed the idea of posting on LinkedIn and other sites – several people I spoke with said they tried it, didn’t get any leads from it so they haven’t put much effort into it since. At the same time they lamented that their pipeline isn’t as robust as they want it to be. This got me to thinking about marketing strategies and my own approach to marketing both in my prior life and my current business.
I think we often put too much stock in short term metrics – how many clicks/leads we get while totally ignoring brand awareness and credibility. Not every marketing activity is going to result in immediate leads. I’ve always been a big fan of exhibiting at industry specific shows. But I’ve often heard pushback saying we didn’t get any leads after 3 mos. The fallacy in that argument is the timeframe – what if the prospects we interacted with didn’t have a need for 9mos, but later they did contact us and we got the job – and they had never heard of us before (this actually happened multiple times).
Companies like Apple spend a large amount of their marketing budget on market conditioning, brand awareness – often their ads don’t even have a CTA (call to action) – heresy in today’s click centric marketing approach! Yet they’re one of the most successful companies in the world! And if I decide to buy a new Apple product, I don’t generally do any research on the company (although I will read a professionally done review from a trusted source). Contrast this with the junk emails we all get from businesses offering anything from SEO to marketing services to the latest toenail fungus cure – how many of those do you respond to? My batting average is 1000 as I never do – and that’s partially because I’ve never heard of them, have no brand awareness, and therefore no trust. For the most part, we do business with people/entities we trust.
To be clear I’m not saying to throw metrics and CTA’s out the window – but I think it’s important to have a balance between immediate lead generating activities and awareness/trust building activities.
OK, so here comes the pitch – if you agree with the above, then you’ll want to look at you/your business branding and awareness strategy and insure you’re brand is in good shape – including your headshot. Think of your headshot as your logo, your identity – if you post on LinkedIn, your LinkedIn profile image will be shown in your post – imagine you’ve written this great article that speaks to your expertise and educates the reader at the same time – and your profile picture is a selfie shot in poor light or that doesn’t look like you’re successful. At best the article and your image sends a conflicting message. If you’re going to invest time and effort into awareness and market conditioning, do it right with both the content and how you come across. The images below highlight this – which set of images would be the most impactful as a professional?
