Authentic Content is in Demand: 5 Tips to Build Brand-Led Authenticity

Authentic content is your secret weapon if you know how to use the right tools in your creative toolbox. Here are practical ways to lean into growth with authenticity.

How many businesses do you know that peel back the curtain and share the trials and tribulations that went into that journey?

When I launched my fractional marketing business in Toronto, Ontario, the greatest challenge I had to overcome—apart from landing my first few clients—was getting comfortable publicly sharing the story of my journey.

For years, I’ve worked for various small, mid-sized, and large enterprises telling their stories and marketing their accomplishments. A freelancer’s story is fundamentally different, since the brand is inherently tied to the individual.

It took a long time to step out of my comfort zone and authentically share personal and business milestones, setbacks, lessons, and successes. It took a while, but I’m glad I got there, and I encourage all business owners to do the same. Why do I say that?

Because demand for authentic content is the it-factor in 2025. Authentic, brand-led content resonates, and it helps you build a loyal audience of qualified buyers.

The ultimate marketing goal: generate demand

Let’s think about the typical marketing strategy—and this applies whether you operate a B2B or B2C business model. Your ultimate goal is to generate sustainable demand that can fuel the growth of your business.

What might that strategy include?

1. Email nurture sequences: You can build many variations of these campaigns. Segment your audience by different variables—demographics, buying power, past engagement with your brand, etc. Use emails to drop recurring reminders to contacts about why your business is the bomb.

2. Newsletters: Email nurture campaigns should be different for each segment of your target audience. However, you can deploy newsletters to everyone. Where nurtures should be very pointed, aimed at mid-to-low funnel prospects, newsletters can be fun messages about company highlights, product feature updates, and more communal themes that are blasted out to everyone.

3. Paid ad campaigns: By investing in paid search and social media ads, you amplify your brand reach and visibility. You can set various objectives for each campaign—impressions, clicks, CTRs, or leads—and adjust your budget to double down on campaigns with the most considerable amount of success.

4. Guest webinar and podcast sessions: Reach out to independent experts with a platform and a community that closely aligns with your target audience. Arrange for members of your team to appear as guests for upcoming releases so that listeners can learn about your brand and core business model.

5. SEO: Run website audits to find the strengths and weaknesses that impact the organic growth of your business. Ensure your pages are built for AI-powered search indexes, mobile responsiveness, and that they provide helpful user experiences. Focus less on keywords and more on giving people answers.

Every one of those tactics can help expand your brand reach and visibility. Demand for your products or services can only come about when people know who you are and how to find you.

However, what’s the one common element that makes each of those tactics effective? Any guesses?

The answer is content, specifically content that shows audiences:

• Who you are

• What you do

• Why you do it

• How you help them

Authentic content is the link chain connecting all your marketing tactics

I wrote in another Substack post about how content does not exist in a vacuum. Savvy marketers understand that, without engaging content, none of those previous tactics—emails, newsletters, paid ads, guest speakings, SEO—will go anywhere.

Your content is what you distribute across each of those channels. Without content, your marketing strategy doesn’t exist.

Listen to HubSpot: authentic content stands out

In January 2025, HubSpot released their annual State of Marketing Report. For those who don’t know about this report, it’s an annualized summary of strategies, tactics, and data-driven insights, guiding marketers on best practices for the year ahead.

In this year’s report, there were several themes that were predominantly featured:

• Importance of leveraging AI and automation for routine tasks

• Unified integration of AI tools with existing tech stacks

• Addressing growing concerns around data privacy

• Matching product capabilities with evolving customer expectations

• Growing demands for authentic, personalized content

The last category is what I want to focus on in this post. As AI rightly helps businesses become more efficient—delegating mundane, repetitive tasks to automation—the opposite is true for brand-led content. Audiences crave authentic, brand-led storytelling over bot-generated content.

Why is that?

Let’s use the email marketing tactic as an example. If you receive an email that presents as though it was pushed out to thousands of other people, chances are that message is going directly into the trash.

Now, let’s say you receive a very personalized email that tells a heartwarming story. You can feel the passion pulsing from the sender as you consume the message. Will you click on the embedded buttons or links and take the action the sender intends for you to do?

Maybe, and perhaps not. However, the fact that there’s even a consideration means the sender has already won part of the battle for your heart and mind.

People don’t just want authentic content—they expect to receive it

Now, realistically speaking, one personalized email with no other means of engagement is unlikely to earn a conversion. But why is that?

It’s not enough to tell one heartfelt story and expect people to fully place their trust in you. Trust has to be earned by demonstrating again and again why people should place their faith in you.

An authentic content marketing strategy is an ongoing process. People must trust your sincerity. They expect that you speak their language.

According to McKinsey, 76% of your potential buyers will get frustrated and even abandon any engagement with your business without compelling, thoughtful messages that resonate. The stories you produce have the power to win over hearts and minds—or permanently drive people away.

5 must-dos to create authentic content that resonates

Authentic content should ultimately serve two objectives—it should showcase the humanity behind your brand, and it should resonate with the needs of your target audience. How do you do that?

Use these five practical strategies to craft authentic content that threads the needle connecting both the needs of your business and the desires of your consumers.

1. Profile your target market demographic

This doesn’t mean creating those generic portfolios of “helpful Sally,” or “motivated Marcus”—none of which offer real behavioural insights. Build your audience profile by asking pointed questions about the people who buy what you have to offer.

1. Who are these people—demographically, psychographically, career-wise, etc.?

2. What is the core challenge that your customers struggle with?

3. Are they even aware that they have this problem?

4. When they search for a solution, what information captures their attention?

5. How do your offers solve the core challenge, and what is the tangible value you provide to customers?

2. Revamp your core business positioning

Go back to the beginning of your business. Why did you start this venture? What was the overarching goal you were trying to achieve?

Use this opportunity to review your current branding—website copy, sales positioning sheets, logos, colours, and any identifying trademarks that promote your business. Compare the current positioning with the audience profiles you’ve created. If there’s misalignment between your brand positioning and the needs of your audience, you need to rethink your message.

3. Analyze any existing engagement data

Have you promoted your business before conducting this analysis? Great news! Why? Because you likely have engagement data you can pull insights from.

Whether you have a CRM like HubSpot, or you’re using web tracking tools like Google Analytics, analyze your existing data. Even the most basic analytics can tell a rudimentary story about how audiences interact with your brand.

Look for commonalities in the themes, the messaging, layouts, visuals, and any other factors you can quantify. Find the patterns and use those discoveries to place yourself into the mindset of those consumers.

4. Ask the questions that a potential buyer will ask

Once you identify patterns in how people find your business, put on what I call your empathy cap. Authentic content comes about by expressing very honest, introspective stories, or by empathizing with the logical and emotional needs of your audience.

Approach your business from the perspective of your would-be buyer. What are the questions that a buyer will reasonably ask when considering whether to purchase your products or subscribe to use your services? What information do they need before they can rationally trust that your business can deliver on their expectations?

Once you have that full list, create a work-back sequence that reverse engineers the buying journey.

• If a prospect is at the point of purchase, what information will get them to clear that final hurdle?

• Let’s say they’re considering you, but they’re also exploring other options. What stories can you share that will pull them deeper into your brand ecosystem?

• Suppose they’re just discovering you for the first time. How can you convince them that you’re worth a second visit?

Each stage of the journey has a different objective. You can’t force people to buy when they’re not ready to make that commitment. Instead, you need to slowly warm them up to that stage by earning their trust.

That’s why you need authentic content.

5. Create authentic, personable content that convinces people to go on that journey

One last bit of research and planning you need to do first. Combine all the sequences in your work-back schedule with your audience profiles, brand positioning, and existing engagement data to create a holistic overview of the customer journey that’s unique to your brand.

Now, you understand exactly what types of stories will guide people through all the sequences of that journey. You know exactly how to open people’s minds and make them excited to learn more about the value of your business.

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