Trust Is Trending: How to Make It Work for Your Brand in 2025

Feeling burned out by “me-centric” marketing? You’re not alone. 

Many service providers want to grow their business without feeling like they’re constantly on display, waving jazz hands in front of an audience 24/7. 

That’s why Audience-Centric Marketing is such a game changer—it allows you to build trust and connection while centering your content on your audience, not on you.

In today’s episode, I’m diving into one powerful Audience-Centric Marketing strategy: The Phases of Awareness. 

This approach helps you create content that resonates deeply with your audience, no matter where they are in their journey…

Whether they don’t even know they've got a problem yet to those ready to take action.

Here’s what you’ll walk away with after listening to this episode of Content Creation Made Easy:

1️⃣ A practical way to stop feeling like you’re constantly selling while still growing trust with your audience.

2️⃣ Clarity on how to meet your audience where they are, so your content never falls flat.

3️⃣ An easy, repeatable method for crafting sustainable messaging that works across all levels of awareness.

Plus, I’m giving you my Backstage Brilliance Marketing Toolkit—normally $27—for $0! 

This toolkit includes 21 customizable prompts designed to help you create content that connects without putting yourself center stage.

🎁 Grab your toolkit at www.jenliddy.com/backstage and use code CCME at checkout. 

When you're on my email list, you’ll get invited to live messaging calls where I’ll personally help you refine your content.

Create feel-good, sustainable marketing that works with this episode.  

**Will you take a moment to rate/review this show so we can impact and reach many more people with its content? Thank you in advance. xo, Jen

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've heard me talk about how it's important to create strategic, thoughtful visibility with marketing that feels sustainable. 

That doesn't burn us out.

Because many service providers don’t want to be “the face” of their marketing. It can feel like a 24/7 commercial - jazz hands/spirit fingers.

They're experts who still want to be known. They want a business that's grown.

And there's a way to do marketing that doesn't require us to give too much of ourselves away or feeling exposed, full face, center stage, spotlight on you.

I call it Audience-Centric Marketing. 

It's a simple concept that was a game changer for me and my clients when I started leaning into it.

It means you simply center your audience in your content instead of yourself.

This will be a relief to some of us who aren't into the jazz hands thing.

But even yesterday I was on a call with many experienced service providers who were talking how they realized they'd been centering themselves in their content. 

For some of them, "performing" in their content was fun. 

But even they realized how tired they are of the "me-centric" content churn and how even when it's fun, that kind of marketing isn't bringing them clients now.

So I thought it would be the perfect time to unpack one very specific and awesome aspect of Audience-Centric Marketing that will help you make your messaging and content creation MUCH easier…

(It is the name of the podcast after all!)

Okay - so first up. Remember that your marketing is for your audience.

Your audience needs to see themselves in your messaging and they need to trust you.

Trust is probably the #1 "trend" I'm seeing in the online marketing space right now. Trend is such a silly word, but it's the necessity, the requirement your savvy sophisticated audience needs.

They've been burned. They've bought programs that haven't worked. They've bought into promises they didn't see come to reality.

So as much as you want to be known for your expertise, your marketing also needs to create trust in you before your audience buys from you.  

Audience-Centric Marketing does that. It works because it puts the focus on our audience's experience and journey.

Let's unpack  how to use one aspect of Audience Centric Marketing called the Phases of Awareness or the Client Journey.  

The different people in our audience are at different points in their journey when they meet us, no matter what topic, niche, or expertise we are in:

• Some don’t even know they have a problem yet (problem unaware).

 

• Me, when it came to menopause. Not sleeping. Exhausted all the time. Insomnia. I thought it was just stress. I didn't know the problem was actually a hormonal one.

• Some know they have a problem but don’t know how to solve it. OR! They might not even know that a solution exists!  (problem aware/solution unaware). 

 

• Example of Divorce Coach client. Women getting a divorce know they need a lawyer to take care of the law stuff.
  But what about the LIFE stuff that goes along with it?
  Making decisions? Managing emotions? Dealing with what to focus on & prioritize?
  Many women getting a divorce KNOW they have a problem but aren't aware that there's such a thing as a Divorce Coach!

• Others are actively seeking a solution (solution aware/solution curious).

 

• This was a recent conversation I had with a potential client. She knows her messaging is super unclear and that her content never quite sounds like her. She knows what it's costing her but is unsure how exactly which solution she wants.
  Does she want to take a course on brand messaging?
  Does she want to keep using CHATGPT, which isn't cutting it for her?
  Does she want to hire someone to do with her and for her? 

• She knows she's got a problem, is aware that the solution exists, and is now shopping around to solve it. 

• A few are ready to take action (solution ready/decision ready).

 

• Buying a car. It took me years to decide which one. I dithered and researched and asked friends. Finally I rented the car I wanted for 4 days to drive it around and see if it was a good fit. When i got back, I went to the Toyota dealership our friend went with and had a great experience with and bought the damn thing in 30 minutes. 

Using the Phases of Awareness centers your Audience Where They Are on their journey and helps them consume varied content that meets them at their specific level of awareness. It's designed to resonate deeply because it's all about THEM.

Even when a story might be about you! You are still allowed to talk about yourself, your expertise, and your stories and examples in Audience Centric Marketing! Don't feel like it's faceless or nameless or you just disappear. 

You don't disappear. We just center the audience, and with the phases of awareness, we help them relate deeply. 

For example, I gave you a couple of stories to explain the awareness journey. The one about my menopause and the one about buying a car. 

I also seeded in a couple of client stories, which are not only interesting and good examples, but they seed me as an expert who helps real people with this stuff!

Audience-Centric Marketing should definitely include elements of you like stories, examples, expertise. But it's centered on your audience's experience, needs, wants, desires, challenges, etc.   

Now, there are many different aspects & facets to Audience Centric Marketing, and today I'm just using the Phases of Awareness client journey as an example of it. 

But it's a great one to practice. Because it's not that hard to do! (And I have a great tool for you at the end of the episode that will cost you zero dollars)

Remember each level:

• Problem unaware
• Problem Aware/Solution Unaware
• Solution Aware/Solution Curious
• Solution Ready

How can you take your messaging and use it to bring your audience on their journey?

Example: 

• Say someone is unaware they have a problem, you might create content that helps them recognize what’s wrong and why it matters. Name it for them. Give them the words/concepts/insight.

• (This reminds me of when my son was very little and I had to give him words. "Oh…you're frustrated right now." He didn't know why he was crying, so i gave him the words. YOu're doing that for your audience. 

• Obviously not ALL your content can be speaking to this person! You sprinkle it in strategically.

• Just like ALL your content cannot be delivered for the "solution ready" person! 

• You'd never want to make the mistake of creating content only for the “decision ready” audience with constant sales pitches. 

• That kind of constant selling alienates people who need more nurturing first.

It's totally safe to mix it up and speak to your audience at all levels throughout your messaging!

If you love the idea of Audience-Centric Marketing AND you want to know more about how to use the Phases of Awareness along with it, then you will LOVE the mini-training I have for you.

It's called the Backstage Brilliance Marketing Toolkit and it not only gives you 21 tweak & repeat prompts to help you know how to speak to your audience so they will listen…without you having to be on center stage and all jazz handsy…

It's also customized to move your content through the stages of awareness!

So you're never saying the same thing in the same way EVER!

And you're putting out messaging and content that meets your audience at their different levels of awareness, while centering THEM instead of YOU.

I normally sell it as a $27 mini course, but it's $0 for you as a podcast listener. You can grab it at www.jenliddy.com/backstage and use the code CCME to get it.

It comes with a video and audio training, transcripts, and the actual toolkit itself with the prompts.

I will be hosting live calls for anyone on my email list who owns it so we can process this stuff together and you can get my eyes on your messaging!

So, remember -  Sustainable, feel-good marketing is about knowing your audience and speaking to them where they are.

• Download the toolkit and be able to create content that connects at every stage of your audience's journey—without needing to be front and center all the time.

Go to www.jenliddy.com/backstage and use code CCME to get the entire thing for $0. Stay on my list and you'll be invited to my messaging calls! Thanks for listening all the way through, my friend!

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