One of the things I ask clients to describe during our copywriting brief is the personality of their brand and the tone needed for the copywriting piece. Your brand personality gives people something to relate to. 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?

Your brand is a living entity and you need to think of it as such. When you take the time to assign personality traits to your brand, you create a profile that lets you cross check your communications to make sure they are unified, consistent and “on brand”.

Turn Your Business Into Someone Real

The tone of 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 is to assign three human values that represent how you want your business to be seen. Copywrite Matters is knowledgeable, creative, and edgy. I use these values to guide how I write about my business and how I communicate with my customers 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 impresses it?
• Which blogs does your brand like to read and why?
• What kind of car, food and hobbies would your brand like?

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. 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 you, your brand might have different voices for different audiences, but 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 customer 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’re selecting broad-brush values that don’t really differentiate your business. Professional. Reliable. Cost-effective. This is especially the case for B2B brands. You can differentiate your business through the integrity of your brand’s 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!