• By michelle
• In Copywriting, Marketing Strategy
• Posted Nov 03, 2011

Straddling a Fine Line: Authenticity & Professionalism in Your Marketing Materials

We’ve written before about the importance of incorporating your personality into your marketing materials—after all, your individual touch is part of what sets you apart from your competitors. But getting real with clients can go too far—if you’re too informal, you risk losing credibility and trust.

Nobody, for instance, wants a fitness coach who moans about how hard it is to get out of bed for her morning workouts. So how can you let your fabulous self shine through without crossing the line into TMI? Start with these personalized marketing copy rules of thumb.

Tell Only Relevant Stories

Narrative is a great way to pull readers into marketing copy of all kinds. But make sure that the anecdotes you relate to have a specific point. Your business blog isn’t your diary and your readers aren’t your therapists.

An effective personal story should . . .

• Have a lesson. If that trainer wants to write about the trials of pre-dawn track sessions, she better do it by offering her solution for overcoming the a.m. blues.
• Entertain. Don’t make stories up completely, but feel free to cut out the boring parts. If you drag your narrative too much, readers will quickly lose interest.
• Have a goal. If you’re recounting an incident just to get it off your chest, marketing copy really isn’t the right medium. Make sure you know what you want clients to get out of the stories you tell.
• Be relevant to your products or services. If there isn’t a clear tie-in to what you’re selling, clients will be confused about your intent. Of course, if you can forge a meaningful connection between your products and an unrelated incident, go ahead and share—just be sure to be explicit about the link.

Show Your Best Self

Before committing a story to type, consider whether you’d want a potential client (or employer) to know what it tells about you. This isn’t to say that you should only share times when you saved the day, but make sure that your positive character traits or skills show through by the end.

For example, that lie-abed fitness trainer could use the story of her own struggles with superearly sweat sessions to lead into how she overcame her loathing of the alarm and how she can help her clients do the same.

Ideally, personal stories in marketing copy help build your brand as someone clients can respect and trust—keep those goals in mind as you write.

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