How to Personalize Your Brand So Your Audience Actually Likes You
You must have trust. If your audience does not trust you, they will not buy from you. It's very simple. You could have the best marketing in the world but if you are not able to convey trust then all of your traffic and your clicks won't amount to much monetarily. To build trust you need to be able to personalize your brand. In this episode, we go in depth on how to do that.
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1 - Good Visuals
So much of what we consume these days is visual. Photography, animations, video - all of it should be taken seriously as a visual element of marketing. Good photography will definitely convey your message. As human beings, we are attracted to faces. It's the reason why babies know to look people in the eyes. Putting your face or the face of your employees is always a good idea and it is one of the best ways to convey immediate trust. Your users and potential customers will see who you are and they will get to know you because of it. Workspace visuals and destination shots are also important. Just the other week I was going to book a hotel room, but I didn't because they didn't do a good enough job showing me what the room looked like in the pictures. So I didn't book it. Candid shots are also great because they show your audience that you are down to earth.
2 - Tell A Story
Storytelling is probably the most effective way to use content to personalize your brand. Everything we do is telling stories. You can see this everywhere.
TV commercials
YouTube videos
Blogs
Casual conversations
As Seth Godin so eloquently puts it, "Marketers Are Liars Tell Stories." As human beings, we are enamored by stories. Every religion, dogma, country, hero and villain and based on a story. Speaking of heroes, that is the perfect segway into a great story telling tactic. I give you the hero's journey. If you don't fancy yourself a great story teller, an extremely helpful guideline or process to follow is using the hero's journey. This is a model that almost every movie you have ever seen is based upon. Think Star Wars! See the image below
Simply put, you can bring your reader through their own hero's journey. They start off in their boring, regular life. They get a call for adventure, and you come around giving them the answer they need to get started. So because of you (or your product or service), they start their journey. Also, in part because of your mentorship (or product or service), they succeed and now they have conquered their past. Now they can sit back in their living room and reflect on the journey and the success they have had. I implore you to study the hero's journey more in depth. It is a great tool to use in getting people emotionally connected to your brand. Brian Clark from CopyBlogger does a great ob explaining how to use this in more detail. Here is the link to get you started. Again, I highly recommend you learn this strategy and you implement in right away.
3 - Be Conversational
Your message should always be conversational. Regardless of whether you are writing, or creating a video, or making a podcast, your message will always be better received if you speak to your audience in a conversational tone. People will be able to relate to your message much better if they feel as though you are talking to them, as opposed to talking at them. Speak about your personal experience on a topic. Use the lessons you have learned and give your audience some value so they don't make the same mistakes you made. The more down to earth you can be, the better. Also, having conversations is a great way to be conversational. Interviews in podcasts, videos or even interviews that are translated into written word are effective. The main lesson to take from this is that although you are a company, people will always do business with other people. More specifically, they do business with people they like. Buying and business is an emotional process. People are not logical so in order to effectively sell yourself or your product, you need to be able to appeal to people on an emotional level.
In Closing
There are so many different ways to create content these days. This lesson plan is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure anyone reading this can take a few minutes and write on a piece of paper other ways that they can be more personal within their brand. Yes, even corporations can be personal. Just take one look at the marketing material from Red Bull, and you will quickly grasp the power of storytelling and personalizing your brand. What other ideas do you have? Don't forget to leave a comment.