If you've been visiting here for a while, you'll know I have a deep interest in intentional living, including mindfulness, self-care, and thoughtful time management.

I've written extensively on these topics, and I even took a year to meander through 26 different techniques for smelling the roses while handling a day job, in what I called my Serenity Project.

These themes continue to run through my work. Even though my main business can now be crisply summarized as Website Design for Authors and Coaches, my philosophy that less is more underpins every project. I encourage my clients to pare back their content and keep their websites intentional, to hone their main message, and focus on the visitor's needs, not their own. And I counsel them that a completed website is the cornerstone of their business outreach, not the end of it.

In recent months I've come to think of these beliefs as Mindful Marketing.

That's a phrase I haven't yet defined perfectly. I'm consciously working to learn more about what it should encompass, and to absorb information from others who feel the same way.

Why I think you need Mindful Marketing:

• You must protect your energy to serve your audience with work you love.

• For meaningful productivity, you need to minimize busy work, which often results when we jump on the content-creation or social media treadmill.

• You're more likely to find your own path to success (whatever "success" looks like for you), instead of feeling like a failure because someone else's proven-6-step-method didn't work for you.

• You'll be better placed to evaluate offers of help, training or coaching, so you waste less time, money and morale.

• It's much easier to make a lasting, human connection with your audience when you reach out to them in a way that feels entirely natural for you.

• Your resilience will strengthen, serving as a better safety net when times get tough.

So far, here's what I think Mindful Marketing looks like:

• Remaining true to your values in every product, service or offering you create.

• Taking pleasure in connecting with your audience and, wherever possible, getting to know them as individuals.

• If a marketing tactic feels icky, don't do it.

• Inviting your clients to work with you, or customers to buy from you, without inflating your promises or relying on Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).

• Embracing (not just accepting) the reality that for most of us, promoting our work will be a marathon, not a sprint.

• Being a slow adopter, or even avoiding the latest marketing trend, whether it's I Must Go Live on Facebook or Everyone Else is Doing Instagram Stories or Authors Are Piling Into Amazon Ads.

• Keeping messaging simple, and in particular decluttering your website so that your visitor finds key information quickly, not a brain dump of every thought you've ever had about your product or service. (I can help you with this.)

• Showing up on 1 or 2 social media channels, not all of them. Walking away from any social media platform where you wouldn't hang out for fun.

What does Mindful Marketing mean to you?

Does it matter? What attribute did I forget to mention? I'd love to know your views.