You need to humanise your marketing messaging. Here’s how to do it.
“People Buy From People”.
Admittedly, it’s a bit of a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Who you are matters just as much as what you sell, especially if you provide a service.
But what does this mean for your marketing?
It’s simple (but not necessarily easy): Be human. Be you.
If you want to make your brand more relatable and deliver meaningful messages directly to your audience; it’s the only way to go.
Bringing your personality to and humanise your marketing is the winning edge your need to drive more leads and more conversions.
Here’s how to do it:
Relax
In marketing as in life, not everyone is going to like you or what you have to say.
Controversy creates engagement.
This shouldn’t worry you, but of course, it’s perfectly natural to feel some anxiety about putting the real you out there for the world to see. Keep in mind that any negativity that comes your way isn’t a rejection of you as a person. Instead, it’s a rejection of your product, service, or message.
The easiest way to defeat this rejection anxiety is to mentally distance yourself from what you sell. They’re not saying ‘no’ to you, they’re just not interested in what you’re selling. Do this, and you’ll find humanising your marketing a much less intimidating prospect.
Tell Stories
Before we’d invented useful things like science, stories were how we understood the world around us.Stories trigger something primal, deep within our brains, and that’s why good ones grab our attention and stick with us for days, months, or even years. It goes without saying that leveraging storytelling will make your marketing more powerful and more human.
The good news is, it’s easy to make them a pillar of your marketing strategy. Simple things work surprisingly well. For example, turning your ‘about us’ page that describes what your business does into an ‘our story’ that talks about the journey your business has travelled. Share your struggles, celebrate your wins and be honest about what that means to you, and it’ll make all the difference.
This relatability makes it easier for your audience to connect with you. Think of the best adverts you’ve seen. Almost every one will feature some sort of human (or humanised animal in the case of Christmas adverts…) because, unsurprisingly, people relate to people far more readily than they do to a product or service.
Get Personal
No matter how many hours you spent toiling away on Canva, or how much you paid that graphic designer, your business branding will never have the clout of a household name.
However, you might. If you get it right.
Personal branding is all the rage these days and with good reason. For smaller businesses, it’s one of the easiest ways to get into (and stay firmly wedged in) your prospects’ and clients’ heads. As a small business, your personal brand is your secret weapon. It’s so powerful, even some of the more forward-thinking big players are leveraging personal brands to attract and grow their audience.
Start using and other social networks to share your thoughts and tell your story. Give it 6 months, and you’ll likely be surprised by the result.
Start Conversations
One of the simplest ways to humanise your marketing is to let other people do it for you.
How?
By creating content that starts conversations.
These authentic interactions drive further engagement that both boosts your visibility and associates real people with your business. When you’re marketing in the online space, conversations build credibility, authority and, most importantly, ground your business in reality. This increases your audience’s confidence in you and, consequently, their willingness to buy; all without you having to say a word.
Pretty cool, eh?
Use Video
We’re not all skilled wordsmiths. Writing content is a specialised talent all of its own, and writing in a human, relatable way is actually quite difficult. Thankfully, there’s an option that doesn’t require you to put finger to keyboard.
Video. You need little more than a smartphone and free editing software to create an engaging, personality-packed piece of content. Video works because most people prefer face-to-face communication. Not everyone has the time to sit and read blogs or social media posts, but most are more than happy to sit through a one or two-minute video if it’s interesting.
Video is a multi-sensory experience that combines the emotional range of the human face, the storytelling of the setting, and texture of a real voice into a powerful piece of marketing media. Certainly, something you should leverage if you want to humanise your marketing.
Video works in ways you wouldn’t expect too.
Love them or loathe them, popups are effective. The thing is, almost every popup you see is text-based. So why not stand out from the crowd with video popups?
2mee.com is a platform that delivers video-based popups on websites and in apps to boost clickthroughs and conversions.
Let The Real You Shine Through – Be Authentic!
We’re not going to pretend that making your marketing human and relatable is easy.
There’s so much more to it than waxing lyrical on social media about the trials and tribulations of toilet training your office dog.
Similarly, a grainy video that gives your audience an intimate glimpse at the inside of your right nostril isn’t what we mean when we say ‘show more of yourself’.
There’s a lot to consider if you want to craft a message that both help your audience connect with you as a person and also buy from you. Because at the end of the day, that’s what really matters and the last thing you want is to get sucked into the trap of creating popular content that doesn’t convert.
That said, the power of emotionally engaging content is undeniable. It could be just what you need to reap the rewards you deserve from your marketing efforts.
Humanised messaging means higher conversions.
If, and only if, you get it right.
That’s where we come in.
Let’s talk about injecting some humanity into your marketing to take things from bland to brilliant.
We are Beyond
Bacon Marketing provides a full review, streamlining and optimisation service that will take your marketing and advertising to the next level.
Please see our range of services or complete the form to discuss your needs with us.
Straightforward Approach
We always start by finding out about your business, its unique, then we get to work on planning, building your strategy and adding sizzle to your marketing.
Our combined backgrounds are a combination of both generalist and digital marketers, largely focused on digital marketing and also how it can be blended with offline marketing. It has meant that we have had to be hands-on and strategic.
