I smell a fake!… Consumers are great at sniffing-out inauthentic marketing and can tell the difference between brands that come across like a programmed robot and brands that have an authentic brand personality. Authentic-marketing is the most effective way for a brand to create a personal connection with it’s target audience. Here are 4 helpful ways to infuse authenticity into your marketing efforts:
Create Compelling Content, through creative storytelling. Creative storytelling is most effective when it makes people use their imagination. When there’s compelling content behind a cause, a product, or a service it innately gives off an authentic-feel. If your content doesn’t spark an emotion or provoke an action, than it’s not effective.
Be Raw. In other words be real. People want to know the story behind the story, they want the realness that only comes from a behind-the-scenes glance at your brand. Being raw is authenticity at its best. My caveat: Realness can be risky. Be highly selective on how you chose to expose your realness.
Be Engaging. There’s nothing worse than a brand that constantly puts out one-way content. Content that communicates a message, without provoking consumers to respond or comment. That’s called bland messaging. Easy ways to make your content more vibrant and engaging are by creating content in the form of a question and by creating inspirational content- whether it’s an inspirational quote or sharing an inspirational story that’s relevant to your brand.
Be Relevant. “That was so 5 minutes ago.” Consumers are receiving new updates by the second. However, don’t fall for the hype, don’t look to what’s trending on social media for ways to expose your brand, instead strategically identify relevant opportunities to promote your brand. How about during the Super Bowl? Super-relevant! Oreo’s nailed the art of authentic marketing with it’s “You can still dunk in the dark,” tweet during the Super Bowl power outage. It was timely, relevant and authentic!
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Krystal is the CEO of Krystal Glass Communications- a communications firm specializing in Marketing Workshops and one-on-one Marketing Strategy Sessions.
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