Small businesses today have a lot of advantages when it comes to marketing. Through social media platforms like Instagram, we have the ability to reach tens of thousands of people with our content every day for free!
But since 2020, there’s a growing expectation to be visible through video marketing. And for those of us who are more introverted than extroverted, getting in front of the camera doesn’t always feel right or come naturally to us.
With more businesses competing for views and attention spans getting shorter by the day, marketing on social media has become both a gift and a curse.
I don’t believe you have to do anything in your business that feels unnatural to you. And that includes being in front of the camera. So if you’d rather skip the video marketing for something that feels more authentic to you, just make sure you have a distinct brand personality converting on the front lines.
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BRAND PERSONALITY IS ABOUT EARNING TRUST
Your brand is your business personified. Why do we personify businesses? Because it’s far easier to trust a fully realized brand persona than the service you’re buying into.
You don’t just trust that a content writer will do the job you need them to. You explore their website and their social channels to get to know the brand before even deciding to reach out.
Everything from their visuals and colour choices to the tone of their words. Their brand personality exists all over their brand experience and its designed to attract aligned clients and earn their trust.
Let’s say you’re looking to hire a business coach. As a potential client, you’re looking for emotional evidence from their brand that aligns with who you are and how you see yourself.
In other words, you’re probably looking for a brand personality that feels familiar because it means you are safe to be yourself in that container.
Every industry will want to approach their brand personality differently. But it always starts with understanding who your ideal client is and what they want. This will inform your brand personality and brand identity to a) mirror back parts of themselves or b) offer a glimpse of what they desire for themselves.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BRAND PERSONALITY, BRAND IDENTITY, AND PERSONAL BRAND
Brands are multidimensional. Just like people. They have nuance and they’re complex. So before we dive into the rest, let’s get clear on the difference between a brand personality, brand identity, and personal brand.
Brand Personality
The set of human traits or characteristics attributed to a brand, shaping how their audience perceives it (e.g., friendly, reliable, adventurous).
Brand Identity
The visual, verbal, and emotional elements that represent a brand (e.g., logo, colours, tagline, tone of voice), that creates a distinct image in the minds of its audience.
Personal Brand
The unique combination of skills, experiences, and personality that an individual presents to the world, shaping how others perceive and connect with them professionally and personally.
Naturally, these three terms have a lot of overlap. But it’s worth pointing out that before you can develop your brand identity or shape your personal brand, you should always establish what your brand personality will be and why.
WHY BRAND PERSONALITY IS IMPORTANT FOR INTROVERTS IN BUSINESS
To quote Rebecca Johnson on this episode of the Concept Bureau podcast: “We live in an era now where the baseline measure for trust is relatability.”
This is especially true if you’re a service provider or anyone working one-to-one with a client. Why? Because a prospective client wants to feel a connection to the person they’re thinking of hiring. It’s about having awareness of your brand personality and the avenues of relatability that will bring in aligned clients. Such as:
your story
your core values
your voice
your sense of humour
And yes, you’ll probably expedite your trust factor faster when your audience can get to know you by seeing you on camera. But, it’s not the only way.
All of those avenues for relatability above can be communicated through your brand personality, giving you the opportunity to connect with aligned clients without needing to be on camera.
Brand Personality Examples for Two Different Brand Identities
For The Main Stage’s brand identity, we amplified a bold and feminine brand personality with a retro twist to distinguish the business. The strong brand personality uses bold colours and illustrative elements to capture the attention of those who value a unique approach to business.
For Moderno’s brand identity, we wanted the brand personality to feel confident, trustworthy, and safe. The reasoning behind this was to present a brand that felt like it had been around for years, even though it was a brand new business. From the brand messaging to the photography, it all reflects these brand personality traits.
Both of these brand personality examples showcase how important the preliminary brand discovery work is to nailing the end result in a way that will make a difference for the goals of the business.
FOLLOW THIS BRAND PERSONALITY FRAMEWORK
Your brand personality is your single greatest asset for market distinction. Even if you’re a personal brand, you greatly benefit from working through this framework to clearly define your brand personality. This ensures you're able to foster trust through a consistent brand personality and brand experience.
1. Start with Brand Discovery Questions
This is always the first step I take with my own branding clients. It’s time to reflect on your business, your target audience, the competition and how you want to shape your brand reputation.
You can make this first step of the framework super easy with my free Brand Discovery Questionnaire. The purpose of this exercise is to help you get the lay of the land as you start to think about your business as a brand.
The rest of the brand personality framework dives even deeper to create nuance and specificity.
2. How Do You Want Your Brand to Feel?
This is one of the questions you’ll find in my Brand Discovery Questionnaire and you’ll likely find it in any brand identity questionnaire too. Your brand is an experience and your brand personality plays a huge role in shaping that experience to feel a certain way.
Write down three to five adjectives that describe how you want your brand to feel when people encounter it. (e.g., friendly, savvy, innovative, casual, playful, edgy)
For each adjective you choose, write why you want your brand to feel that way.
Every choice you make with regards to your brand development should always have a clearly understood why supporting it.
3. Who You Are Versus Who They Need You to Be
Here’s where most personal brands trip up. When developing your brand, it’s super important to understand who you naturally are versus who they need you to be.
And I’m not saying your brand personality shouldn’t be an extension of who you truly are, but if you want to see more of your dream clients booking calls with you, you have to spend time understanding who they need you to be.
This allows you to pinpoint which parts of your brand personality are worth amplifying to appeal to their emotional state.
Reflect on these brand strategy questions, in this order, as they relate to your ideal clients:
what are they struggling with as it relates to your business?
what emotions are they experiencing because of this problem?
how do they want to feel instead?
why haven’t they been able to solve this problem before?
what personality traits are they looking for in a [your job title]?
where do they attribute value as it relates to your business? (eg., method, price, style)
Take what you now know about your ideal clients emotional state and desired state and blend that with your natural personality. This will help guide your brand identity to amplify those emotional experiences as an extension of your brand personality.
Brand Personality Tip:
Make note of the personality traits your past clients have said about why they chose to work with you. Look for themes and continue to keep a record of this as your brand evolves.
4. Adding Depth to Your Brand Personality
If your brand personality is your business personified, how might you describe your business as if it were a friend of yours?
Create a narrative as you describe your brand personality to give it more depth and nuance. Here’s an example of how you might describe a friend.
Sarah—she’s a bombshell and yet is just so tiny you just want to put her in your pocket. But truly, she is the kindest person, your biggest cheerleader, and a true optimist. Oh, and she can bake like nobody I’ve ever met. This one time, she spent an entire weekend baking bread and brought it to food banks, just because. You would get along with her right away, she has this ability to make everyone feel so welcome.
Let’s break this down:
Visual Characteristics: she’s a bombshell and yet is just so tiny you just want to put her in your pocket.
Tone of Voice: she is the kindest person, your biggest cheerleader and a true optimist.
Skillset they’re Known for: she can bake like nobody I’ve ever met.
Behaviour: This one time, she spent an entire weekend baking bread and brought it to food banks, just because.
Feeling they Embody: You would get along with her right away, she has this ability to make everyone feel so welcome.
From this description I’d say we have landed on some pretty specific brand personality traits:
Brand Voice: kind, supportive, optimistic
Values: generosity, community, benevolence, craftsmanship
Emotional Connection: welcoming, sincere, warm
Branding is all about storytelling, so go ahead and create a brand personality narrative like this that features all of those brand personality traits.
OFF-CAMERA WAYS TO EXPRESS YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY
Your brand personality must be used consistently across your brand experience. Infuse the personality traits you’ve come to define into your brand messaging and your brand identity. This gives you plenty of off-camera ways to forge a connection with your next client.
Swap generic call-to-actions with words that communicate your brand personality
Write website headers that are compelling and align with your vibe
Curate a brand image library with stock images that reflect your brand personality
Collaborate with other brands that share aligned values
Embracing storytelling and design by doing a weekly email newsletter or blog
From one introverted entrepreneur to another, when you lean into your brand personality with intention and consistency, you’ll see that marketing your business and attracting dream clients does not need to depend on face-to-camera marketing.
In fact, it shows you how to do things your own authentic way. And let's face it, people are drawn to novelty and authenticity.
Allow your brand personality to influence how you present your business to the world and how you market it. Because there are so many avenues for your future clients to feel an emotional connection with you and decide for themselves that you truly are the best person for them to hire.
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Jenny Henderson Studio develops memorable brand experiences and strategic brand foundations to improve recognition and revenue for service-based small businesses.
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