No more email openers like “Hey There” or “Dear Valued Customer.” If email marketing is one of the marketing strategies you rely on, make sure everyone on your list at least has a first name, and then…address them by that first name in your email campaigns! Using built-in merge tags, this is way less technologically challenging than it sounds.

Unfortunately, you don’t get extra points for greeting your subscribers by name. This should just be the standard. But, if you’re able to populate even more information about the subscribers on your list, you can totally earn a gold star! Last name, company name, and job title can all be used to further personalize your email outreach, and using subscriber tags can help you hyper-segment your list and get laser-targeted with your email outreach.

We add tags to every subscriber on our list based on what industry they’re in, which of our services they’ve expressed interest in, and even where they are in the sales cycle. Personalization is crucial to any modern marketing strategy, not just because it humanizes your brand, but because consumers actually expect it at this point!

So, no more “catch all” email greetings, and no more “spray and pray” email marketing.

Nothing is more humanizing than a story—a real story, with human characters, and a beginning, middle, and end. So, tell your brand’s story! What inspired you to start your business? What is your vision? What are your values? What has the journey been like so far? Who has helped you along the way? Storytelling is one of the five foundational marketing skills that every small business owner should master, and it’s said that anecdotes can increase conversion rates by 30%.

We tell our story on our website, with bits and pieces of our story being broken out into social media content and short video reels. Our emails always start with a relevant anecdote that segues nicely into the main topic. And our blogs, well…you are literally-right-this-second reading an anecdote that underscores the importance of storytelling. See how we did that?

A secondary benefit to sharing anecdotes in your marketing is SEO value. Google prioritizes the E-E-A-T framework—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness—as a ranking factor and quality score indicator. AI bots can’t possibly have experience, so incorporating anecdotes into your content marketing strategy is a great way to prove your content was generated by humans, which could improve your search engine rankings.

At the end of the day, sure, we are all selling products and services—and sales are what puts food on the table—but the overly self-promotional stuff gets old (and oftentimes just falls on deaf ears). Stories sell—and, so the saying goes, you can’t sell it if you can’t tell it.  

Sorry yogi, we aren’t talking about being all namaste (although that really can improve your life). Be digitally present and available. For instance, if you get a Google review, reply to it. It doesn’t matter if that review is good, bad, or indifferent. If you get a 5-star review, thank them! If you get a 1-star review, thank them for the feedback, apologize (if appropriate), and ask them how you can do better next time. All feedback is an opportunity to learn more about your business’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.

Of course, we have all seen the occasional “nonsense review.” You know what we’re talking about. The I-gave-you-1-star because-the-Thai-dish-that-had-five-pepper-symbols-next-to-it-that-the-waitor-warned-me-about-was-too-spicy-for-my-liking review. A simple “Ummm 🙄” should do the trick there.

Likewise, on social media, make sure you react or reply to anyone who leaves a comment on your posts. This is how you build relationships and foster brand loyalty. Oh, and have fun with trolls. Some of the best social media engagement we’ve seen is brands giving it back to the meanie-heads who just didn’t get hugged enough as kids.

Turns out, AI is a total turn-off for consumers. 65% of consumers are uncomfortable with AI-generated ads, perceiving them as “annoying,” “boring,” and “confusing,” and using AI in your product descriptions actually lowers purchase intent.

That being said, if you’re still hell-bent on using AI to generate content for your business, own up to it. This can prevent the degradation of consumer trust in your brand, and protect its image and reputation. Add a label to AI-generated images and videos (we like the way Freepik does this), and include a disclaimer on blogs or long-form web content (and no, don’t bury it in fine print at the bottom of your content—again, we’re going for trust here…not deceit).