Ah, that coveted word:

authenticity

The golden calf of marketing.

Oh to be able to create content that seems as natural as if it weren’t marketing at all.

The problem is, once the audience gets a whiff of sales, your perceived authenticity disappears instantly.

And yet, as small businesses with an intimate knowledge of our niche customer base, authenticity seems like a natural approach to communication.

But before we can apply authenticity appropriately, we have to remember what it is.

At it’s core, authenticity means transparency. It means that a thing is what it claims to be. It means not pretending or having ulterior motives.

With that in mind, here are two methods for applying authenticity:

method 1

Don’t sell.

If you don’t want your content to look like sales content, then it should be genuinely and primarily concerned with benefitting your audience (i.e. providing value) and be content to let the sales follow, or not, as they may.

method 2

Be honest about your intent to sell.

If your content is primarily about how great your product or service is, just lean into it. Even going over-the-top on honest sales builds trust better than pretending sales is something else.

~ ~ ~

Either way, the key to authenticity is making your intentions known.

There may be other ways to be sneaky or clever about marketing, but people are pretty good at picking up on true authenticity. Once you hit that uncanny valley of false authenticity, you’re in danger of making the audience feel taken advantage of, which is a good way to burn a bridge.