How to be trusted without being boring, and likeable without being useless.

There is a moment in every marketing discussion where someone says: “We need to show more personality.”

This is immediately followed by someone else saying: “Yes, but we also need to sound professional.” And just like that, the problem appears.

Because what follows is an elaborate attempt to be warm but not too casual, knowledgeable but not intimidating, and human without accidentally sounding like you’ve lost control of the brand entirely.

In other words, everything, all at once. Which is where things tend to go slightly wrong.

The Problem With Being “Professional”

Professionalism is reassuring. It suggests competence, reliability, and the comforting idea that you probably know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, when taken too far, it also becomes incredibly dull.

You’ve seen it, sentences that say a lot without meaning very much, phrases that feel familiar but oddly empty, and content that is technically correct but emotionally forgettable.

It builds credibility, but it doesn’t always give anyone a reason to care.

The Problem With Being “Relatable”

At the other end of the spectrum is relatability. This is where brands attempt to be human, friendly, approachable, occasionally humorous.

This is good. Until it isn’t.

Because without expertise, relatability quickly turns into noise. You might be engaging, even entertaining, but if people don’t believe you know what you’re doing, they’re unlikely to trust you with anything important, and trust, inconveniently, is quite important.

The Tightrope

So here we are, trying to balance two things that don’t naturally sit comfortably together: emotion and expertise.

One builds connection. The other builds trust.

Too much emotion, and you’re enjoyable but not credible. Too much expertise, and you’re credible but forgettable.

The goal is both. Which is, naturally, more difficult than either.

Why People Actually Choose You

When someone chooses a business, they are not conducting a perfectly rational comparison of features and benefits.

They are doing something far more human.

They’re asking whether they understand what you’re offering, whether they trust you, and whether they feel comfortable choosing you over someone else. This is where emotion and expertise quietly meet.

Emotion creates familiarity. Expertise creates confidence. Together, they create reassurance—and reassurance is what drives decisions.

Saying Something That Feels True

The simplest way to balance emotion and expertise is to say something that is both useful and human.

Explain what you do clearly. Show that you understand the problem. Communicate it in a way that feels natural rather than carefully constructed.

This sounds straightforward. It isn’t. Because it requires resisting the urge to sound overly impressive on one hand, and overly casual on the other. Somewhere in between is a voice that feels real, confident, and worth listening to.

That’s the one you’re aiming for.

Consistency (Again, Unfortunately)

As with most things in marketing, this only works if you do it consistently.

You can’t be human one day, robotic the next, and inspirational the day after that. Well, you can, but it creates a slightly confusing experience for everyone involved.

Consistency builds familiarity. Familiarity builds trust. Trust leads to action.

It may not be exciting. But it works.

You Are Not Writing for a Committee

One of the great dangers in marketing is slowly drifting toward sounding like a group decision.

Carefully approved. Slightly polished. Entirely safe and completely forgettable.

The best marketing sounds like a person. A person who understands what they’re talking about and communicates it clearly enough that others actually want to listen.

So when trying to balance emotion and expertise, don’t ask: “Do we sound professional enough?”

Or even: “Do we sound relatable enough?”

Ask: “Do we sound like something worth paying attention to?”

If the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.

If not…You may have created something that is both perfectly correct and entirely ignorable. Which, in marketing, is a surprisingly common achievement.

And if you’ve made it this far, carefully balancing logic, emotion, and the growing suspicion that marketing is far more complicated than it needs to be, you may as well continue the journey.

Our podcast dives even deeper into this wonderfully chaotic mix of human behaviour, strategy, and occasional overthinking. It won’t solve everything (that would be suspicious), but it will almost certainly make things make a bit more sense. Or at the very least, give you something to nod thoughtfully along to while pretending you’ve got it all figured out. Listen Now