Brand Personality

What type of person is your brand? Are you the trend setter that doesn’t care what other people think? Are you the loyal friend that will always be there when needed? Are you humble, lovable and fine to fly under the radar?

I firmly believe that brands need to figure out what type of person they are before they think about any sort of output. It is incredibly important to figure out the 3-5 attributes that you want to be known for. Once you have established how you want to be seen ask your fans on Twitter and Facebook, “If you were to describe our brand with 3 attributes what would you use?”. If there is a consistent disconnect, that is on you and your business, the excuse that the customer is “not getting it” is simply pride getting in the way. You need to do a better job of getting the person you are across.

People crave authenticity and consistency. It builds trust. If you’re point of difference from the competition is how you operate your business then the way you approach marketing and any content output needs to be reflective of your brand’s personality. If you try and approach your marketing efforts the same way that the competition does and you veer away from who you are, people will take notice and trust will start to dwindle. If you feel that it won’t work unless you compromise your personality, than you have a greater problem and it might be worth reevaluating who you are as a brand.

An example of this concept came across my path this past week. I had met a very bright entrepreneur who is putting together an incredible conference for entrepreneurs excited about disruptive innovation. She confessed that they were having a hard time figuring out how to market the conference and started to list some standard marketing tactics that could work, but I asked the simple question “Would this cheapen your brand? What is the personality of this conference?”. She listed the personality as bold, disruptive and innovative. It clicked for her immediately that the methods that her team were attempting were none of three and rather ordinary. She took to this new perspective immediately and you could see the ideas flooding her mind.

Don’t apologize for how you market if that is who you are. Be comfortable that some people won’t respond to these attempts, do you expect everybody to adopt your brand? You should be much more interested in recruiting advocates that respond to your brands personality, than appealing to the masses. If your business model is to cater to the masses than your marketing and brand personality should match that. If you market in a bold, disruptive and innovative way you are going to attract people who enjoy that type of a product or oppourtunity. You will likely not engage the risk-averse, late adopter, but the real question is, do you want to?

So who is your brand? Whether you have a business or you are building your personal brand. What are the three attributes that you want to stay true to? Measure all outputs to these attributes, if they counter one or multiple I would suggest reevaluating whether or not it should be executed. Let me know the 3 attributes you are identifying for your personal brand and or business below.