I don\u2019t know about you, but I am so tired of being sold to. Like I’m a free client or lead to every brand that exists.<\/p>\n
I can feel it coming at me from all angles. I\u2019m like Forrest Gump in the rain<\/a> \u2013 I\u2019ve been through every kind of sales strategy there is. Little itty bitty magazine ads, big ol\u2019 fat billboard ads, ads that flew in while I was reading an article online, and sometimes ads that came straight up from underneath the show I was watching. Shoot, there are even ads in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t listen to the radio, watch TV, drive down the street, flip through a magazine, play a game on my phone, or scroll through my social media feed without someone trying to sell me something.<\/p>\n None of this inspires brand loyalty<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m truly inundated with salespeople trying to convince me that their product is the best one I\u2019ll ever try and despite all their efforts to be convincing it instead feels contrived. It all feels fake. The actors, the emotion, the \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafters.\u201d (I don\u2019t know about you but I\u2019ve fallen for those mascara ads before, and your eyelashes never look like that.), the inspirational quotes \u2013 all of it. I can\u2019t tell who is telling me the truth, who is giving an unbiased testament, and who \u201cisn\u2019t a doctor, but plays one on TV.\u201d For that fact, I mostly ignore the advertisements and the testimonies of companies and businesses unless I notice one thing \u2013 authenticity.<\/p>\n Keeping your brand authentic<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, that\u2019s a marketing commandment \u2013 \u201cbe authentic\u201d \u2013 and one that\u2019s probably been drilled into you at every team meeting and industry conference. But I\u2019m not talking about pretend, fabricated authenticity, but instead real-life, practical, relatable authenticity. One of the best examples of advertising authenticity I\u2019ve encountered comes from SpinWeb,<\/a> an inbound marketing company that clearly knows what it’s doing.<\/p>\n Emails are signed from their CEO, their social media posts are engaging, funny, and real, and the content they share is useful to me as a client.<\/p>\n An example is like a funny meme<\/a> from a movie, a list of favorite Mac keyboard shortcuts, and an article about repurposing old content.<\/p>\n It’s not about tricking people into buying<\/strong><\/p>\n Not one traditional advertisement as I scroll their Twitter feed. Unlike many emails I receive, I actually open and read<\/em> what they share with me because it\u2019s not simply an advertisement for their services; it\u2019s content that applies to me.<\/p>\n This is why what they\u2019re doing works. It\u2019s not the same tired game. I know they are selling something, but it feels<\/em> like they care more about helping me than they do about my wallet.<\/p>\n I may not be in the market to purchase inbound marketing services at this moment, but when I am, I can tell you the first company I\u2019m going to \u2013 the one I\u2019ve been following and engaging with for the past year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n You never know what you’re gonna get<\/strong><\/p>\n Good marketing doesn\u2019t feel like a sales pitch to a client. It\u2019s identifying your audience and engaging with them in ways that they will remember. More of the 5-3-2 rule<\/a>, less self-promotion, and more authenticity is your \u201cbox of chocolates<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (EDITORIAL) The truth is, agents can win client loyalty without spending any more than what is already budgeted for marketing expenses. Here’s one take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337616,"featured_media":16262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[705,704,703,1234],"class_list":["post-5964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","tag-advertisement","tag-authenticity","tag-brand","tag-real-estate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/07\/digital-marketing-1725340_1280-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337616"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5964"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18565,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions\/18565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}