I've written marketing for national charities, community centres, professional services, a sculptor and a fair few small businesses. The posts that do best are almost never the clever ones. They're the true ones.
Here are four reasons I keep telling clients to tell the truth, and tell it well.
1 – Your customers aren't fools.
People have been sold to since they could read. They can smell a stretched claim from a mile off. When you overstate, they don't just mistrust that one post. They mistrust you.
2 – Your business is already full of good stories.
The apprentice who's stayed with you nine years. The customer who drove from Bristol because a friend told them to. The van that broke down on the day of the biggest job you'd ever had, and how you still got it done. You don't need to invent anything. You need to notice what's already there.
3 – True stories are relatable.
Nobody remembers a list of features. People remember Niki Lauda getting back in the car six weeks after his crash. They remember the struggle, the setback and the person. Your story doesn't need to be that dramatic. It just needs to be real, so someone reading it thinks "that's me" or "I'd like to meet them".
4 – Don't promise what you can't deliver.
The fastest way to lose a customer is to over-promise in your marketing and under-deliver at the counter. A true story sets the right expectations, and a customer whose expectations are met will tell their friends.
How to start this week
Write down three things that happened at work this month that made you smile or swear!
Pick the one a customer would care about.
Tell it in five sentences: what happened, what went wrong or right, and what it says about how you work.
Add a real photo. Your phone camera is fine.
Find a good true story. Tell it well. Trust people to understand.
If you'd like someone to look at your marketing as a whole, my Marketing MOT is a fixed-price review, currently just £295. Find out more.