I’ve been reading a lot lately about story telling, creating shareable content, and creating an engaged audience. It really resonates with me. I think we all spend too much time trying to understand the mechanics of all the tools available to us, that we forget to think about what we’re trying to say. What are you trying to help with, what are you trying to solve? The bottom line is, how can you just be a human in your marketing?

Treat Me Like a Person

It sort of got me thinking about how to do marketing and still be human. We’re all human and we all have needs (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs anyone?), and we all want to be treated like people, not like consumers, or customers, or a new lead or prospect. We all know that happens, and we all know that eventually we are consumers, but wouldn’t you rather be treated like a person with your own personality, needs and wants, than a person that just needs to be sold to at all costs?

If I’m solving a problem for you, or offering a solution to your needs, I don’t want the solution to be forced onto you. It shouldn’t have to be a fight and you shouldn’t feel like you’re just a number. You should feel like, ‘hey this company has the solution I’m looking for and I feel comfortable working with them.’

A Blog with Personality

With that human element in mind I decided to talk about a blog that I read, Young House Love. I’m amazed every time I read it. Not because the content is exceptional, although I do think it’s great and interesting to me; but because they just write about life and the DIY projects they work on. They aren’t trying to sell anything directly, but they are selling themselves through the great stories they tell. The blog is their full time job, but it seems like they’re having fun and not pushing their readers or forcing them into a sale of some kind.

They organically grew their readership because they write naturally and talked about something they were interested in and passionate about. Having that passion and interest makes writing content that much easier and it helps to grow your audience because it doesn’t feel forced.

Marketing your business or yourself doesn’t have to be an in your face marketing approach. This is a case in point of a blog that started small and grew into a full time job and income for a family simply by being who they are; people passionate about DIY projects that were looking for a way to share with others.

So when you are trying to sell or market your product or service, try not to think about how you can make that sale, but think about how you can connect with people and show you’re passionate about what you do and what you sell.

Me Me Me!

If you do nothing but talk about me, me, me, then it’s a one sided conversation that will turn off those people that might have turned into potential buyers.

Help people discover their problems and needs, wow them with your passionate content, and communicate as a human and you will eventually see the rewards pay off.