Creating a brand persona is a core component of a robust digital marketing strategy. The right persona influences how people connect with you and whether they are willing to spend their hard-earned dollars on what you have to offer.
Beyond putting a face on your brand, this foundational piece of marketing determines how people relate to you.
You may not be ready to hire a marketing agency until you have this new brand persona figured out because it can aid in setting realistic goals for investing your marketing dollars.
Start sketching out some of these steps today so that you can be better prepared when your marketing budget is flush.
Identify Your Buyer Persona First
Long before you can dive into creating the right brand persona, you need to know who exactly you want to target with your marketing. Crafting the perfect buyer persona is just as important in the grand scheme of things.
According to International Brand Equity, companies utilizing a buyer persona have 14 percent higher customer retention and 19 percent higher revenue growth. Couldn’t your brand benefit from this tremendous source of growth?
To get started, think about all the data you have already cultivated in your business. Drill down the specifics about who buys your product or service. Don’t be afraid to give them a name, making them into a real-life person you could connect with.
Source:Get specific when creating your buyer persona until you know the perfect person who wants to invest in your products or services. Consider a women’s clothing company that wants to market to middle-aged women who desire being perceived as trendy and stylish.
You might target Deborah, a forty-something woman who wants clothes to flatter her fuller figure without the stuffiness of traditional business attire. You can refine Deborah’s traits until she aligns with your ideal customer avatar.
Define Your Brand and How You Connect
With this connection to your customer in mind, it’s time to turn your attention to how you will connect with Deborah (or your buyer persona). A brand persona puts a face on your business and will require you to have a real personality to back it up. How should your persona relate to the world?
One of the easiest ways to start identifying traits when creating a brand persona is to think about the categories that all real people fall into. A personality test might be a great starting point.
In particular, the Big 5 OCEAN model has been adapted by Dr. Jennifer Aaker for brands. Her main five traits for brand personas include:
- Sincerity: How down-to-earth is your brand and how do you connect?
- Excitement: Are there daring and novel outcomes for your buyers?
- Competence: Can people rely on your brand for successful outcomes?
- Sophistication: Is your brand more upper class or are you smooth and charming?
- **Ruggedness: Are you outdoorsy or tough?
Source: This breakdown of the five aspects of brand personality will help you select traits that align with your brand (and help you define your new brand persona). With some of these traits sketched out in your buyer persona, you will create an avatar that truly resonates with your intended audience.
This is one of the best ways to prepare your business to expand digital marketing.
Create Visual Elements of Your Brand Persona
It isn’t enough to simply know who you are to your clients. You also need to be aware of how that brand persona is going to be presented to the world. This means you need to come up with a very cohesive theme for your brand starting with colors, fonts, and even the images associated with your new persona.
You may want to consider the field of color psychology as you start to think through these ideas. For example, the women’s clothing boutique we considered earlier wants to be known as fashion-forward for middle-aged women.
They might choose red to signify their passion for fashion or black because their clothes are truly timeless. It’s easy to see how a simple color switch impacts the messaging of their brand! Even consider big-name brands at this juncture: Starbucks is known for their dark-green logo.
In color psychology, this could stand for health or even prestige, both of which are core traits for this sophisticated coffee shop.
Source:This color wheel gives you a great idea of what each color signifies when selecting themes for your branding. Match up the traits you want to be known for with the colors on the infographic.
Give Your Brand Persona a Name
You don’t have to have a celebrity spokesperson to come up with a brand persona. Instead, you should start thinking about who you are and how you want to be perceived.
This means you need to nail down the finer points of your brand persona: your persona’s appearance, age, and all of the other facets that make them relatable to your audience.
Here are just a few of the other key traits you should consider when creating a brand persona:
- Hobbies or interests:** Do they prefer a walk on the beach at sunset or a rigorous game of tennis? Are they the type of person to sit at home and read or do they want to get out and play a game with friends?
- Likes and dislikes: What gets under their skin? What lights them up?
- Catchphrase: What is something they say often that relates to how they feel about your brand and why it matters to them?
Our women’s clothing store has decided that their brand persona is named Alexia. Alexia is very career-focused and likes to put her best foot forward in the office. She enjoys a great game of tennis in comfortable, fashionable clothes on the weekend.
On Sundays, she goes to brunch with her girlfriends who are all high-powered corporate executives, just like her. This is how you can start to piece together the snapshots you have of your brand persona into one cohesive image that resonates with your target audience and buyer personas.
Creating a Timeless Brand Persona with Pacific54: Expert Guidance for Targeted Growth
Our team at Pacific54 can help you to lay the foundation for creating a brand persona that will stand the test of time.
With expert guidance, you can find the right target audience and create messaging that will resonate with each prospective client. If you feel ready to take the next step, reach out to us today to learn how we can help you fuel company growth!
Related reading: social media optimisation.
