Marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing.

Activate your Authenticity.

We’ve all been bombarded with annoying advertisements and therefore we ourselves know what we will not tolerate when it comes to buying into someone else’s hype on the internet. Yet when it comes to doing our own marketing, we often find ourselves committing the same bad behaviors that we resent in others.

“Everyone is talking, but no one is listening.”

This is the way that my clients use to describe their experience in social media and networking platforms. They felt bombarded and overwhelmed by the LOUD and confrontational messages they saw from other businesses and organizations, which often resulted in them feeling invisible. The thunderous and overbearing business agendas on these crowded platforms were downright deafening.

It was about ten years ago and my consulting business was exploding. I was known as an online marketing genius and I had an actual wait-list of clients waiting to learn what I knew about driving traffic. I never really intended to be a social media coach, but one day I just happened to crack a code on the Twitter platform trying to get more people to listen to my digital radio show that had not yet been called a “podcast”. Through purposeful engagement on a brand new social media platform, lots of trial and error and several late nights, I discovered the antidote.

This simple equation allowed me to drive traffic with just a quick click of a button. Before I knew it, I had completely reinvented myself and I had a wait-list of clients who were willing to pay me top dollar to share my secret with them.

I took my cute little audience of 80, and turned them into 2,000 in just one night. That 2,000 became 65,000 by the end of the week, 400,000 by the end of the month and 6 million by the end of the year. Word got out that I was a master at driving traffic and suddenly everyone wanted to know my secret.

The secret is that there really WAS NO SECRET online or offline that marketers wouldn’t be able to acquire in a matter of time. We were just figuring out the perimeters of social media so advertising online was an escapade that had no boundaries, rules, or any proven techniques to speak of. The formula that I came up with was simple. I used what I knew about people, how they navigated their way through the digital space, and I used that to generate powerful messages that would compel them to take an action. In my case? A play button.

Everyone wants to be seen, heard and valued.

The simplicity of what I discovered was no different than good old fashioned solutions sales  through authentic engagement and personal connection. Everything you need to know about increasing the bottom line through online marketing is about one thing: Visibility.

Play Button = Web link
Ad placement = Hashtags
Message = Visibility

There it was. I needed to make sure that every message that was placed strategically in front of my audience made them feel important. Every marketing team wants to know, How do I get my messages seen? But often what they are not asking is Does my demographic feel seen when they come upon my message to them?

Stop seeing them as numbers and start seeing them as people.

There is something that feels very artificial about easily driving traffic through interpersonal connections, and yet contrary to how it must sound, every message I had been broadcasting was generated from my genuine passion to connect with others. NOTHING was sly or fraudulent about how I had increased my following or how I taught others how to increase theirs.

Solid marketing efforts is about giving much needed recognition to an audience in a way that makes them feel truly appreciated.

As a solo entrepreneur I did not have the funds to advertise, but even so there was no way I could compete with companies offering the same services with million dollar budgets. I had to come up with pivotal messaging that were not manufactured tech messages strategically placed as an annoying pop-up ad. I knew people were annoyed with the way advertisers were imposing on their web time. My messages came from real conversations that grew from real relationships based on an equal give and take.

It was a delicate balance of being able to connect digitally, but still be able to separate myself from creating marketing hype that would misrepresent my authenticity as artificial. I had to be careful that the tactics I used to get people to know that my product was in existence didn’t counteract my brand that said I was personable.

Advertising on social media no longer feels unnatural.

Online users continue to evolve, but so does their bullshit meters. High impact and aggressive marketing tactics have become even more of a turn off. The advertisements that get the most clickable attention are the ones that are transparent and genuine. Authenticity feels right. Artificiality doesn’t.

A good business cannot survive on passion and enthusiasm alone. Marketing MUST BE part of the equation, but online advertising does not need to be mass produced and manufactured. Even automated processes should be authentic, organic and compelling. Marketing does its best work when it doesn’t feel like marketing at all.