Connect With Customers By Showing Your Brand Personality

Have you thought about what your brand personality is?

What are you trying to communicate to your customers to create an emotional connection?

Over the long run your brand personality will decide how well received your small business is with potential customers. It can mean you either successfully find a place in customers hearts or are forgotten.

Before we get into the depths of brand personality, let’s first understand what it is.

Brand Personality Definition

You brand relies on what people think and how they connect with your small business. That means you can help guide the story but you can’t control it.

Your small business brand personality is what guides your story and how it’s told.

That leads us to what brand personality is:

In other words, it creates the connection people have with your brand. People don’t connect with companies, they connect with people. Your brand personality is meant to humanize your small business as much as possible.

Your small business communications, slogan, value proposition, etc. all communicate emotion to your customers. Customers will see your brand in a specific way depending on the brand personality you communicate.

You get to choose how your small business is seen by customers through everything they see and hear.

If your small business is just you or a few employees also, you get to decide what your brand personality is. You get to decide how you communicate to your customers. That gives you a benefit because you can be more personal with your customers.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of major brand and how they communicate their brand personality.

Examples

The following are three major brands who communicate a distinct message to their customers.

Nike

Nike is all about inspiration and innovation for athletes. From their slogan, just do it, to their logo Nike’s personality is active, sporty, innovative, and inspiring to their customers.

Nike’s mission says it all and it drives every communication from marketing to their products.

Their mission is:

Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.

Even the Nike logo communicates their brand personality. Their logo says “just do it” but in an succinct and simple image. An innovative and extreme personality is what Nike is all about.

Apple

Apple is all about being innovators in their field and thinking different. They may not always live up to the innovator tag but they definitely do things different.

While the Apple logo has stayed generally the same throughout the years, it has evolved. Brand personality evolves also and you can see that in Apple products, marketing materials, and the logo.

Apple also communicates their brand personality as simple. Simple has possibly even overtaken thinking different and innovation. Every new product is advertised and communicated as simple.

Have you ever met a simple person? Sometimes it’s refreshing and that’s how Apple wants to be seen by customers.

Facebook

Facebook’s brand personality is all about being personal and friendly. Their marketing and communications are all about being part of your family and friends by helping you connect with your family and friends.

Facebook communicates their brand personality in the products they release. Every product makes it easy to stay in touch and you’ll notice the small amount of text written by them is usually pretty friendly sounding.

Connect With Customers

As a small business you have a benefit over the three big examples above. Your brand personality can be all about you because you’re a small business.

Decide what you’re trying to communicate to your customer early on in your small business. Are you trying to be friendly, innovative, funny, loving, etc.

You don’t have to stick with one emotion for your brand, though. You do have to stay consistent with your choice, though. Your brand personality will help you stay consistent in communication to your customers.

If you are trying to communicate friendly it doesn’t mean you can’t also throw a bit of funny in there.

The beauty of being a small business is that you can decide your brand personality and it can be all about you.

On Social

When you’re writing each post for social media make sure your brand personality shines through. That means let you shine through.

Social media is all about being social so you want your personality to be the most prevalent. The last thing you want to do is sounds stiff and corporate and then try to sell something.

Social media is all about making connections and people don’t connect with a company, they will connect with you. Even informational posts there’s room to let your brand personality shine through.

Marketing Materials

Stiff marketing copy isn’t going to build trust or bring people your way. That’s why you don’t want to sound like you have a big marketing department. You’re best off making it personal by talking to your audience one on one.

Your website should be informative, helpful, but never full of marketing speak. Every place you have a brand presence is an opportunity to showcase yourself and how personal your business can be.

Don’t Sell

No matter where you’re building your brand online, your brand personality will let you make personal connections with your customers. That means you want to help people but never sell. By helping or figuring out where you can help, you’ll make sales.

Selling never sounds good and it’s hard to show your personality when there’s an agenda. Instead of selling, make sure you’re helpful and useful.

Everyone is trying to sell on the Internet. If you’re trying to do it too then you’ll blend right int. Blending in is the worst thing that could happen to your brand.

Make sure you’re making your brand personality different by using it to make friends, not sales.

Of course you want to get the sale eventually but you don’t want to chase customers off.

Get on Track

If you haven’t been consciously writing to your brand personality or haven’t given it much thought, now’s the time.

When I look at brand personality for a small business, there are two things I pay close attention to:

• Consistency
• Personality

You want to appear consistently to your customer no matter where they see you. That’s especially true online because customers won’t see your brand in only one place. They may see you initially on social media then meander over to your website.

A great website can make all the difference for your business brand online. The central hub of how you get new customers still centers on your website.