How the Top 1% Use Authentic Marketing to Attract More Clients

Would it surprise you to hear that 99% of businesses fail to connect with their audiences effectively through their marketing? For the 1% who use authentic marketing, they get more clients and you can too.

Authentic marketing aligns the right people with your mission. It’s what can set you apart in a crowded market. The problem is that too many people just throw marketing like a bucket of water against a wall, hoping something’s going to stick. 

To be effective, marketing must be intentional and authentic to who you are if you want to resonate with your ideal audience. 

Let’s discuss some of the common pitfalls of traditional marketing techniques and how they can alienate potential clients. 

Common Pitfalls of Traditional Marketing Techniques

• Posting on social media with no plan. All too often, people post whatever is happening at the moment without a plan. While it may feel good, it can become haphazard and chaotic.
  
• Different people create social media content, and there is no consistency or connection. There’s no connection with you, the owner, or the business brand, so the alignment is off. (Hint: this is where a brand guide can be so helpful!)  
  
• Trying to do a TikTok video just because you see somebody do it on another channel and think, I can do that. The problem is if it’s not you, if you’re not being authentic to what you stand for and believe in, that’s not going to resonate. People might chuckle, but it won’t hit home. It won’t give them that clarity. 
  
• Putting up an ad because some marketing genius told you to, even though it didn’t feel right. This common pitfall can alienate your potential client.
  
• Blasting out a quick email without thinking it through or getting feedback from others. Your newest idea may sound great, but perhaps it is not the best idea. (In fact, you might even get some people who unsubscribe or who let you know they didn’t think it was very authentic!) No judgment. It’s happened to me before. And I learned a big lesson from that. 

So, what can you do? What are more authentic forms of marketing?

Well, it connects with building relationships, providing value, creating trust, and letting people hear your sincerity in wanting to help people move forward.

3 Steps to Engage in More Authentic Marketing

#1: Take the Time to Align Your Mission, Core Values, and Your Brand with Your Ideal Audience. 

This will allow you to have clarity of what you’re trying to get to, what you want, and allow your ideal client to be attracted by what you have to say.

#2: Connect With People When Networking.

When you are connecting with people, really focus on forming genuine relationships. Provide value. Give them a free document, checklist, or item you use. It could be with mentoring a young professional, or it could be another business owner that needs a helping hand. That small assistance can go a long way to building trust. As a result of building the relationship, that person may later send you dozens and dozens of referrals. So, it’s less about the more extensive spread and more about being intentional. People will naturally gravitate to you and want to do more work with you and your Team.

#3: Build up Your Team.

Authentic marketing also comes from your team. By making sure your team is tuned in with your core values and marketing you can expand your reach. Share how we want to spread our word and share what we do. Allow them to share that you are passionate about doing what you do in your business.

For instance, I love helping business owners. I constantly give tips, tricks, checklists, spreadsheets, and all kinds of great tools to help them get ahead in life. Yes, I’ve created an entire business about it. Yes, I have an amazing team that also helps with all of that. But it doesn’t stop me from doing what, at my core, is my favorite thing, which is helping other people move forward. That one little nugget, that one little gesture, that one little piece of advice might be the critical moment they need to move forward. And that’s what makes me happy. 

So, let me share a few success stories of companies I’ve worked with who have embraced authentic marketing and won over their clients in a genuine way. 

Stage of Life: Make your journey part of the story!

For several of my clients, they recently became a parent and mom/dad life became part of who they are. The lessons they were learning from their children, the lessons they were learning about time management, the lessons about self-care, these were all vital elements as they were going through this phase. They used those lessons in their marketing because that was what they were dealing with every day. Other individuals who are also going through that stage (or who remember going through those stages) truly resonated, and it hit home. For several of our clients this form of authentic marketing resulted in a huge increase in new clients.  

For another client, they changed careers and started talking about that. At any given time, many people are changing careers. They’ve gone from one area of life to another. Once that client started making that part of his marketing, he had a huge increase of followers and clients. I too am in this category. For me, I had been a lawyer for almost 15 years and decided to sell my law firm. That was a big moment. And that transition, changing careers to building a virtual company, is part of what a lot of people come to me for. And they resonate with that desire to see how it was done.

Traveling is another topic I’ve seen my clients use and I’ve used it. If a key part of your life is to travel, to explore, to learn new ways that other societies handle things, then use it!   There are so many opportunities to see how other countries or areas do things better than we do and to bring those lessons back and use them with your teams and clients. That can be a very motivating element for many people, and it causes you to create that genuine element with your audience, where they want to be part of what you’re doing. 

So, use those threads that can show who you are, where you are in your life, to be part of that marketing message and be authentic. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. You’ll know if it’s hitting home if people start showing up wanting to work with you and they rave about your marketing. They rave about the video you did or the tools or the items that you have out there that just hit home for them.

The Benefits of Authentic Marketing

If people are aligned with you, they will stay with you and send you more and more referral business and be one of your raving fans that make you happy to show up for work every day and make your Team feel blessed to be working with nothing but A+ clients.

There are so many elements and benefits of authentic marketing, and it can lead to long-term loyalty and long-term business success.

Take some time to contemplate how you can be more authentic in your marketing and attract better and better clients.

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