8 Ways To Give Your Brand A Personality
One way to be more authentic in business is to work toward developing your brand’s personality. It might seem weird to personify a brand, but it works. This is equally important whether the brand is you or a separate entity.
When you give your brand a personality it will make it easier for you to come up with content ideas, develop products, packaging, and more. Your brand’s personality will inform everything – from the design of your website to the design of your products, to the words you put on your blog.
Here are 8 ways to give your brand a personality.
FREE Checklist: Branding Strategy For Small Businesses
1. Know Who You Are
The first thing you must do is know who you are and who you want the world to see you as. If you want to be a bright light in the world, you’ll have to understand what that means to the world. Write down the values, principles, and morals you want to reflect to the world.
2. Understand Your Audience
Take the time to study your audience because you need to choose a personality that will attract your ideal audience. For example, if you’re a life coach and you want to coach “badass” women toward success, that might not attract people who don’t like using profanity of any kind.
3. Develop a Brand Persona
A fun exercise is to develop a brand persona. If the brand is you, it’s rather simple, but if your brand is a separate entity, it’s a little harder to wrap your mind around. If your brand were a person, what would they look like, how would they dress, and what words would they use? What would they do in their free time, and how do they engage with others?
4. Use Adjectives to Describe Your Brand
The words you use can create a picture in your audience’s mind that personifies your brand. Is your brand adorable or ambitious? Is it calm or cultured? Write down every descriptive word that you can think of that will describe your brand. Go one step farther with this and outline actions that back up these descriptive words.
5. Develop Your Brand Voice
If your brand is quirky, what type of phrases and words would they use to describe their solutions? For example, a quirky brand may do irreverent and unexpected things. An excellent example in the corporate world of a quirky brand is Wendy’s. Check out Wendy’s Twitter, and you’ll understand.
6. Craft Your Brand Messaging
Create a set of words and phrases that convey your brand’s intent, priorities, and goals. For example, Nike has the brand messaging of “Just Do It,” and it’s worked for many years. It represents their brand very well. Additionally, brand messaging is communicated through design and action.
7. Be Consistent across All Channels
Once you establish your personality, you’ll want to ensure that you demonstrate it across all channels, whether online or offline. Everything needs to match, or your audience will notice the inconsistency.
8. Listen to Feedback
One way to give your brand a personality is to listen to your audience and what they say about you. The way they see you are, in fact, is your branding. How they feel when they think of you and deal with you is more important than anything else you do.
Free Checklist: How To Give Your Brand A Personality
You can’t underestimate the importance of branding. Your brand is communicated through every single action your business takes. It’s communicated on your website, in your content, in marketing materials, in social media posts and with any interaction you have with a prospect or customer. Branding is communicated both online and offline.
Download my free Branding Strategy Checklist that provides actional tips on how to give your brand a personality and reach your target prospects, provide a positively memorable experience related to what you have to offer and improve customer retention.
