By Samuel Thimothy, VP at OneIMS.com, an inbound marketing agency, and co-founder of Clickx.io, the digital marketing intelligence platform.
Even with your offer, pricing and marketing strategy in place, your business may still fail if it lacks a strong brand personality. An established brand character makes you more memorable and helps draw in customers who may not have come your way otherwise. Let’s talk about why B2B businesses often struggle with developing a brand personality and how you can build a brand personality that resonates with your target audience.
Why B2B Businesses Fail At Creating Brand Personalities
Here are the top five most common reasons I’ve seen.
They Don’t Have Any Core Idea Or Values Behind The Brand
Your brand personality is based on the core values and beliefs of your business. If those values are not clearly defined, it becomes difficult for your company to develop a consistent and authentic brand personality. Determine what your business stands for and what values form your brand’s foundation so you can express your corporate culture in your brand personality.
Their Brand Doesn’t Resonate With The Audience
If your brand personality falls short of your audience’s expectations and doesn’t connect with them emotionally, you may have trouble gaining their loyalty. Conduct market research to determine your audience demographics, needs and preferences to help create a brand personality they will find attractive.
Their Brand Voice Is Not Documented In Any Way
Your brand personality should communicate its brand voice clearly and consistently across every touchpoint. This means you need to document your brand voice in a style guide, which includes brand guidelines, tone of voice and other essential branding information. Without this, you risk sending mixed messages to your customers and stakeholders, which can lead to confusion and mistrust.
They Have Major Leadership Gaps
Brand personality flows out of a company’s culture. If leadership does not live and breathe the company culture, it will be difficult to establish a brand personality that embodies those values. Leadership needs to lead by example by promoting the brand personality, and every employee should be dedicated to it. Simply put, a company’s culture and brand personality go hand in hand.
They Misinterpret Culture As ‘Fun’
Some B2B companies perceive culture as merely being about having a fun workplace, but culture is much more than that. It’s the shared values and beliefs of everyone in the organization. This includes how staff interact with each other and the customers, what processes they follow and how they live up to the company’s mission and vision.
How To Create A Brand Personality
Step 1: Analyze Your Industry
Your industry can greatly influence your brand personality. Note the common traits associated with brands in your industry, and choose those that will positively differentiate your brand from the rest.
Ask yourself:
• What sectors of the industry satisfy my customer’s pain points?
• What are the most successful brands in my industry?
• How can I differentiate myself while still staying relevant to my target audience?
Doing so will help you gain a clear understanding of both the industry standards and how they can work for or against you.
Step 2: Study Your Audience
A brand personality that resonates should stem from the values and characteristics of your audience. This will help create a relatable brand personality which, in turn, triggers emotional resonance from the audience.
Conduct market research to identify your target audience’s key values, and understand their pain points and desires. Get insights into their demographics, and analyze the channels they use. Based on these insights, you can start to consider personality traits such as sincerity, friendliness, excitement and adventure, as well as communication styles that appeal to your audience’s preferences.
Step 3: Analyze Your Brand
Use a personality framework, like the five dimensions of brand personality (sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness) or the 12 brand archetypes (innocent, explorer, sage, hero, outlaw, magician, regular guy/girl, lover, jester, caregiver, creator and ruler), to analyze your brand’s existing identity. You can also assess whether your current brand identity reflects customer preferences and aligns with your corporate vision.
Step 4: Test Your Brand Personality
To bring your brand personality to life, test it out on your audience and gather their feedback. Consider running focus groups or conducting brand surveys to get valuable feedback on different elements of your brand identity. Your findings will help you refine and perfect your brand personality.
So if you haven’t identified your brand personality yet, use these tips to get started. But remember that your brand personality has to evolve and grow with your business. Good luck building strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers.
