The Fine Line of Getting Personal in Your Business

There’s a marketing trend and it’s this—people are getting personal.

Have you noticed it too?

It turns out that the best engagement online seems to happen when you start getting personal.

Why? Because consumers want to know who they’re buying from. They want to know that you are a real person.

Think about it, if you haven’t met someone before wouldn’t you want to know a little more about them before you make a significant purchase?

Now you see this all the time, business people online are pulling back the curtains of their life and letting you inside. They’re talking about their families, hobbies, religion, beliefs. They’re showing you their homes and taking pictures of their kids as well as telling you all about the big moments in their lives.

Why? Because it works. It’s called  “relationship marketing”.

But there’s a fine line between how much personal information to give out about yourself and getting into your “private stuff” and the barometer is going to need to be set by you.

My clients often ask me, “How can I reveal enough about myself without letting them know TOO much about my personal life?”

The following are a few ways to help you with “Getting Personal” when marketing your business:

Don’t reveal specifics:  Don’t share where you live. You can talk about the area you live in and take photos of your office or you while at work if you like. You can even take photos of the places in your area that you like to go. But don’t use your home address in your marketing materials or online. This is private.  Also, get a P.O. Box and use it in your marketing materials as well as the return address for your ezine. Also, remember that no one needs to know the intimacies of your life and relationships. Deciding how much to share isn’t just about your safety it’s also about protecting your loved ones.

Decide how much you want to share: I choose to talk about events, my feelings, my life as a whole but I don’t feel it’s necessary to talk about my religious and political beliefs. There’s a very well known marketer who infuses her religion and religious beliefs throughout all of her marketing. She is incredibly successful. My guess is that she has a following who relates to both her marketing and work as well as her religious beliefs. She made a decision to share this and it’s peeled back another layer of who she is. I’m not suggesting that you do the same but I’m suggesting that you may want to look at what you feel comfortable sharing about your beliefs and background as part of your relationship marketing efforts.

It goes both ways: There’s something interesting that happens when you begin to share more about yourself, people begin to do the same. When my son left for college a few weeks ago it was a life changing event for our family. Our family of four and life as we knew it changed. It was real and raw for me. I brought all of that, my emotions, my questions and the event online. Do you know what happened? My fans and followers embraced me and I could feel that. It wasn’t a ploy and it wasn’t for show, it was to let people know what was going on in my life and I have to say the support I received was beyond wonderful.

You must decide how personal you want to get when marketing your business. It’s really your call but remember, don’t reveal anything that makes you uncomfortable or jeopardizes yours or your families safety.

Your Turn: What have you noticed about relationship marketing? Have you found it’s made a difference in your business? How comfortable are you with revealing more about yourself throughout the online world?

Head over to my blog and share your thoughts and comments. I’d love to hear what you think.