Two things I ask clients to describe during our copywriting brief is the personality of their brand and the tone of voice for the copywriting piece. It’s important to consider (for longer than a minute or two) because the personality of a brand gives people (potential clients) something to relate to. It turns a business into a point of connection.
It also helps to govern what you say, how you say it and where you say it.
Why should you bother defining a brand personality?
A brand is a living entity and you need to think of it as such. Your brand communicates what you stand for, and makes you unique. It helps your target customers distinguish you from your competitors; and the connection is much more emotional than you might think.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is attributed to have made this statement:
Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room
It’s not necessarily something you can control.
But when you take the time to assign personality traits to your brand (or your client’s brand), you create a profile that lets you cross check your communications to make sure they are unified, consistent and “on brand”.
Discover brand personality: think human
The tone of voice in your marketing and business communication is your brand personality in action.
Your brand personality might be just like you, but it might not. To find the voice of your business you need to start by asking yourself: if your business were a person, what would it be like?
A very simple exercise to answer that question is to assign 3 human values that represent how you want your business to be experienced.
Copywrite Matters is knowledgeable, creative, and approachable. I use these values to guide how I write about my business and how I communicate with my clients and peers.
It’s also worth digging a bit deeper and thinking about:
- What’s really important to your brand?
- Who does your brand aspire to be and what is it impressed by?
- What blogs does your brand like to read and why?
Some people will tell you to also think about what kind of car, food, and hobbies would your brand like… I personally think that’s a bit of arse but whatever works to help you flesh out your brand personality!
The point of this is that the more you can flesh out about your brand personality profile, the easier it will be to speak in a consistent tone of voice.
Find the voice of your business
The next step is to translate those personality traits into a real voice, the voice of your business (or your client’s business). You need to consider vocabulary, grammar and style.
Another useful exercise is to decide where your brand personality might sit between these extremes.
Formal___________Chatty
Detached_________Warm
Professional_______Wacky
Serious___________Humorous
Relaxed___________Lively
Just like a person, your brand might have different voices for different audiences but you they should always be guided by those high level brand values. Consider how the tone might change in different circumstances such as the first time you communicate with a client versus how you talk to the most active members of your social media communities.
Differentiate your voice
You might find that when you first do these exercises you (or your client) pick broad-brush values that don’t really differentiate your business. Professional. Reliable. Cost effective. This is especially the case for B2B brands.
The next step is to find out what these words mean in real terms. How does a customer experience this personality trait? When you get that explanation happening, you can usually find some more interesting and relevant brand words.
At the end of the day, you can differentiate your business through the integrity of your voice so it’s important that you are committed to the values you assign.
Do you think of your business as having a personality? Have you taken the extra step of profiling it? Let me know what you think!
Need some help choosing personality words?
Thinking of personality words is tougher than you think. So I put together this MEGA list of SUPER personality words to help you capture the right tone of voice.
And you can have it for free.
13 Responses
Very easy to digest information on branding! Thanks Belinda
Thanks Charmaine!
Extremely useful, Belinda. I will be adding this post to my personal short-list of excellent resources. Question: given the enormous galaxy of adjectives out there, any suggestions on a go-to list that might exist? Many thanks.
Thanks June. I did find this, which might be useful.
http://ideonomy.mit.edu/essays/traits.html
I’ll pick out some good ones for branding and turn it into a brand personality worksheet. Watch this space for a lovely little downloadable!
Great article, we are looking for some content writers who can really think from the business point of view and right down the article, but its very difficult to find a good writer in the group of non-natives.
Hey, I’m enjoying exploring your site. I notice this link for the personality words isn’t working. is it possible to get this list?
Thanks and again, I really like your site.
Thanks for letting me know Sandy. I’ve just updated the link. Download away!
Fantastic article! this is everything I’ve been wanting to read, Thank you so much for the information about branding. Great job Belinda!
Th only way a brand works well is when they have a unique personality and they don’t really affiliate themselves with anyone. Anyone who’s looking for good branding should definitely opt for this article.
Hi Belinda, Excellent read. I love your list of personality words. It’s a treasure for any content creator. Thanks for the help.
So glad you can use it Mirian!
Anyone who’s looking for good branding should definitely opt for this article. it is informative artical. thanks for sharing it.
Hi, Belinda, Thank you very much! Extremely useful, This is exactly what I need to learn NOW. I’m about to develop my website!