Today’s customers have high demands—they want a great product, a personalized customer experience and they want the brands they do business with to be “authentic”. Why is that authenticity more important today than ever before? It comes down to trust. We have to be able to trust the brand we do business with to mean what they say and deliver on their promises. 

And, while we’ve got a lot of reasons to be skeptical about any brand messages at the moment, many brands aren’t doing themselves any favors by creating content that’s confusing buyers.

Edelman found that out of 3,600 B2B leaders surveyed, 71% say at least half of the content they encounter fails to provide valuable insight. Our content needs provide clarity to our potential customers and give them the confidence that doing business with us is the right decision. As my colleague Nicole Bojic recently pointed out, B2B buying decisions are much more important that most consumer purchases, where the wrong decision might cost you a few dollars. In B2B, the wrong decision could cost you your job.

Here’s how brand authenticity and buyer trust go hand in hand and five ways to build authenticity into your content.

What makes a brand authentic?

According to the Journal of Consumer Psychology, brand authenticity is defined as:

“The extent to which consumers perceive a brand to be faithful toward itself, true to its consumers, motivated by caring and responsibility, and able to support consumers in being true to themselves.”

Why is brand authenticity so important?

Former Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz sums it up best, saying “If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” And that’s exactly what we all want – many customers that are committed to our businesses.

How can you convey your brand’s authentic personality?

Every brand has a personality. Content marketing is the perfect tool to share it and build your authenticity and speak to people who are invested in your mission. Here’s how:

1. Share your mission. And then share what you’re doing to support your mission–in social media posts, videos and photos, in blog posts and in e-newsletters. For example, if you want to be the go-to source of information for a particular industry, show what you are working on to compile or create cutting edge resources.
2. Be transparent. Share with your customers what you’re working on or what a day in the life of your employees is like. Help your customers feel connected to the people behind your brand. For example, you could turn your social media handles over to different people to manage for a day and share their experiences.
3. Ask for input. You don’t have to have all of the answers or make every decision in a vacuum. Use the power of your connection with your audience to establish a forum where customers can be a part of the process by sharing new product ideas, offer feedback on event logistics or suggesting causes you can back. For example, if you’re planning an event in a city and want to include a charitable element, you could poll your audience for recommendations of local charities to partner with during your event.
4. Own up to mistakes. There’s bound to be a misstep now and then. Use your content to acknowledge the mistake as well as share what you learned from it rather than try to hide it from your audience (they will find out).
5. Don’t overproduce. While it’s important to make your content look and sound professional, too glossy or stiff can be a turn off. Your content should speak in the tone of the brand and should have a look and feel that match the brand’s mission and vision.

Brand authenticity, while a trendy buzzword all marketers need to be familiar with, shouldn’t really be all that hard to accomplish. If your brand has a genuine story to tell, content marketing is the perfect vehicle in which to deliver it.