As a marketing pro, you know the importance of creating a unique and memorable brand identity for your clients or your business. But are you creating a brand persona that communicates the brand's essence to your audience?
As a marketing pro, you know the importance of creating a unique and memorable brand identity for your clients or your business.
But are you creating a brand persona that communicates the brand's essence to your audience?
A brand persona depicts a brand as a person, giving a face to the abstract characteristics, values, and voices that businesses cultivate. It involves constructing an imaginary person with a fictitious name, hobbies, likes and dislikes—much like how a writer might create a character profile.
A brand persona can help you achieve consistency and clarity in your branding efforts. Internally, it gives you and your team a reference point for how the brand should come across, making it easier to represent accurately. Externally (assuming it's a public persona like a mascot), it gives your customers a face to latch onto, giving a more memorable impression of your brand than a logo or a writing style might.
But how do you create a brand persona that resonates with your target market and reflects your brand identity?
Here are some top pointers and tips to help you create a winning brand persona for your business or clients.
Before creating a brand persona, you need a deep understanding of your brand identity and personality. Your brand identity is the collection of visual elements representing your brand, such as your logo, website, typography style, and colour scheme.
Your brand personality is the general vibe your brand conveys through communication and customer interactions.
To define your brand identity and personality, you need to answer some critical questions about your brand, such as
• What is your mission statement?
• What are your core values?
• What are your unique selling propositions?
• Who is your target audience?
• What are their needs, wants, and pain points?
• How do you want them to feel when interacting with your brand?
• What are some words that describe your brand's voice and tone?
Tools like mood boards, mind maps, or surveys can help you brainstorm and visualise your brand identity and personality. You can look at examples of successful brands in your industry or niche and analyse how their visual and verbal elements communicate their identity and personality.
A customer persona is a detailed profile of your ideal customer based on accurate data and research. It helps you understand whom you are trying to reach with your branding efforts and what motivates them to buy from you. A customer persona typically includes demographic, psychographic, and behavioural information.
To create a customer persona, you must conduct market research using surveys, interviews, focus groups, or online analytics. You can use tools like HubSpot's Make My Persona or Xtensio's User Persona Creator to help you organise and present your data in an attractive format.
A customer persona helps you create a brand persona that aligns with your target audience's needs and expectations. By knowing whom you are talking to, you can tailor your brand persona's attributes and communication style to appeal to them, which builds trust and rapport.
A human archetype is a universal pattern of behaviour or personality representing a shared human experience or aspiration. For example, some common human archetypes are the hero, the rebel, the lover, the explorer, the sage, the jester, etc.
To choose a human archetype for your brand persona, you must consider how your customers perceive your brand and what role you want it to play in their lives.
Do you want people to perceive your brand as:
A leader, an innovator, or an authority?
You might choose the hero archetype for your brand persona.
A challenger, a disruptor, or an agent of change?
You might choose the rebel archetype for your brand persona.
A friend, a partner, or a supporter?
You might choose the lover archetype for your brand persona.
Tools like Archetypes.com or 16Personalities.com help you discover and explore different human archetypes and their characteristics.
Once you have chosen your brand persona's archetype, give it a personality and a set of traits that align with your brand values and messaging.
Now that you have created a persona representing your brand identity that appeals to your target audience integrate it into your messaging and visuals. You must consistently use your brand persona's tone, voice, and personality across all your marketing channels, including your website, social media, email, ads, and packaging.
For example, your brand persona is the hero archetype, and your personality is confident, inspiring, and heroic. In that case, you might use powerful visuals, bold headlines, and motivational messaging in your marketing materials.
If your brand persona is the sage archetype and your brand personality is wise, knowledgeable, and contemplative, consider subtle colours, elegant typography, and thought-provoking content in your marketing materials.
It's important to remember that your brand persona is not a gimmick but a strategic tool that helps you communicate your brand's values and benefits to your target audience. When you create a winning brand persona, you separate your brand from your competitors, build customer trust and loyalty, and build long-term success in your industry or niche.
Creating a winning brand persona is not just about creating a fictional character for your business. Instead, it's about understanding your target audience and aligning your brand's identity and personality with their needs and expectations.
Define your brand's message, values, promise, voice, tone, and style and create detailed customer personas and human archetypes.
Integrate your brand persona into your messaging and visuals consistently across all your marketing channels to build a unique and memorable brand identity that sets you apart and connects with your customers on an emotional level.
Don't let your brand remain faceless—contact HiveMinded today and let us breathe life into your brand with a captivating persona.
Your brand's success starts with a persona that truly connects.
