We recently wrote about finding the balance between creative and practical marketing communication, and here we tackle why it’s so important to be authentic in your business marketing.
Authenticity is directly aligned with empathy.
It’s about expressing your true character or that of your business by explaining what you do, who you do it for and how you’re different. More directly, how you can make the difference your prospective clients need and want.
You’ll achieve this by allowing yourself to communicate more genuinely, and more regularly.
Start each communication – whether it’s an article, blog or social media post – by expressing your understanding of your clients’ needs. Then explain your expertise and how you can help, in a manner that will resonate with them.
This usually involves dialling down the technical terms in favour of describing the positive outcomes they want, and you can help them to deliver.
Using phrases such as “I understand” provides a segue for describing problems commonly experienced by prospective clients.
You’ll demonstrate empathy, as well as your professional credibility, when you use turns of phrase such as “in my experience”. It’s this authentic approach to your marketing communication that creates a genuine connection that will have your clients nodding their heads in agreement.
Finding your authentic marketing voice often comes down to imagining yourself sitting across the desk from an ideal client. You’ve been asked a question, and when you think about it, it’s a concern shared by many people, including prospective clients.
Your answer will be offered in a tone of reassurance, professional confidence (never arrogance) and often accompanied by a description of the steps necessary for overcoming the problem or making the most of an opportunity. Capturing this ‘voice’ in your written content is the key to authentic marketing communication that your audience will find most engaging.
Using the empathy technique mentioned earlier… in our experience, business owners and professionals will have no shortage of things to write and post about. Once you consider the real needs and feelings of your clients, and prepare content based on current and topical matters that affect them, you’ll start to achieve much higher client engagement as a result.
If we can help you to prepare and deliver creative, practical and authentic marketing communication that helps your business to grow and be successful, please call us on 07 5477 0197 or email marketing@boldcorp.com.au we’d love to help.
Creative & Practical:
If you missed our earlier Creative & Practical Marketing article, you can read it here.
At Bold! our motto is ‘creative, practical and authentic’ and we specialise in helping professionals and business owners to use marketing to grow and be successful.
Over the past 25 years we have fine-tuned what we call our ‘Do-able Marketing’ model. It is underpinned by a 7-Step Do-It-For-Me (DIFM) Marketing framework that overcomes the THREE key issues that professionals and business owners have told us prevent them from marketing their businesses: Time, Affordability and Accountability.
