How to let your personality SHINE in your branding
WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR BRANDING, THERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU NEED TO CONSIDER FIRST. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT, IS YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY.
What is Brand Personality?
Brand personality is essentially the personification of a brand. The personality of a brand directs its voice, tone and style when communicating with its target audience. It’s brand personality that often leads one brand to build a community of raving fans (and another similar brand to fall a bit flat).
While brand personality types often develop naturally in the process of building and marketing a business, determining how to define brand personality can - and should! - also be a much more intentional process.
So, what is your brand personality? Let’s dive into what you should be considering when answering this question.
How to Define Your Brand Personality
The first question to ask yourself when exploring your brand personality is pretty simple: Who is your brand?
I want you to think about your brand as a person. Whether YOU are your brand and you provide a service or your brand is product based, come up with a fictional person to represent the personality of your brand, or think about your own personality and how that represents your brand.
Are “they” adventurous, conservative, rebellious, kind, quiet, loud?
What music do they listen to? What books do they read?
Who do they follow on Instagram?
First, Write it all down!
Get personal with it! This is WHO your BRAND is…. not who your target audience is. Giving your brand human characteristics may seem strange as f*ck, but your brand has a life and a personality; decide up front what that brand personality looks like.
Second, who is your dreamy client?
Now that we know “who” your brand is, it is time to define your ideal customer! Why is your target customer searching for your brand? Why do they connect? What do they have in common? How can your brand help them?
Take some time to dive in and really picture the relationship that your customer has with your brand. How do you plan to nurture this relationship? The answers to these questions will play an important role in determining your brand personality.
third, Find your voice.
Think about your brand personality. How would it speak? In funny one liners? Is it mysterious or straightforward? You have already humanized your brand…now you need to decide how it will deliver its message??
Now, Let’s set the mood.
Next, it is time to take these musings out of our heads and into the visual world! We know our brand, and we know our customer. Let’s create a mood board that visually represents their personalities and how they connect!
A mood board is a visual representation of your brand that can act as a creative compass for your overall branding. It will help you hone in on the style, direction, and attitude of your message. You can use it to explore brand colors, typography and other graphic elements. Think of it as the portrait of your brand personality.
Remember: the message your dreamy clients receive from your brand visuals needs to be the same message they receive from your brand voice! Voice and visuals must align.
We are in the brand personality home stretch here!
You have done a lot of thinking, and analyzing at this point. You should be able to SEE your brand personality in your minds-eye.
Hopefully, you’re ready for some kickass branding at this point that really aligns to who your brand is, who your dreamy client is, and what your core message is. You need to LOVE your branding and feel a real connection with it.
At the end of the day, the BIG GOAL is to remain consistent and keep delivering a message that accurately represents your brand.
That’s how we build brand recognition and brand loyalty. THAT’S how we keep getting dreamy clients! So, what’s the easiest way to stay consistent? You must use and adhere to your brand personality and your brand’s Style Guide.
If that is a new one for you… check out this blog where I discuss the importance of having a Style Guide. But the quick and dirty of it is this: your style guide is a set of visual rules that you will follow to remain consistent in your branding message.
Putting Your Brand Personality To Work
Phew, I think that’s it! Once you’ve imagined your Brand, conjured up your dreamy client, determined voice, nailed your visuals... you will have a thriving brand personality that you can use to stay consistent in your message.
Over time, as you leverage your brand personality in marketing your business, your dreamy clients will recognize your brand, feel connected to it, and ideally remain loyal to how you show up and what you bring to the world!
Feel like you need some help showing personality in business? That’s what we’re here for! Our full service branding packages are designed to help you define brand personality and create a visual identity that can share it with the world.
Ready to get started on building your dreamy brand? Contact us to get started.
