The term ‘persona’ comes from the Latin word for mask. And when you talk about wearing a mask or acting out a persona, you might equate that with pretending to be something you’re not. It sounds like something contrived or disingenuous. But the fact is, we all have a number of different personas, and different masks we wear whether we’re engaging with coworkers, with friends, with our parents, or with a romantic partner. For the same reason, a brand also needs to have a persona.

Just as you have different roles to play in life, and must behave accordingly, businesses also need a Brand Persona to guide them in how they speak and act in their particular role. It defines what they look like and sound like. This valuable and effective tool helps customers and potential clients recognize what sort of company they’re dealing with and what they can expect when they interact with that company. In today’s business environment, the customer relationship is key. Consumers shop with their emotions and they need to feel a connection before they make a transaction. And the Brand Persona makes it easier for everyone to perceive that connection.

Adapting to the modern market place

Sixty or eighty years ago, our grandparents could just walk into JC Penney and find the best vacuum cleaner or reclining chair to meet their needs. Nothing more than the best product was needed or expected. Towards the end of the century, however, as technology advanced, goods and services grew more intertwined. A good product was no longer enough, and you needed some friendly presentation and skilled installation to go along with it.

As the standards of service increased, commerce became more and more customer-centric, requiring companies to anticipate and address the needs, thoughts, and emotions of their clients and customers before they even surfaced.

Today, the internet revolution and the era of smartphones have us more connected than ever. But at the same time, we’ve never felt so disconnected. With the universe in the palm of our hands, the need for human interaction is virtually obsolete.

The two-pronged effect is that consumers have more knowledge and access to information than ever before. And when it comes to doing business, that gives them power. But they also have a deep need for human connection, as our species always has, and new ways of finding it, at the tips of their fingers.

Essentially, these shoppers want to know exactly where their money is going, and they are perfectly capable of figuring it out.

Connecting with a Brand Persona

So before a savvy 21st-century consumer does business with your company, it’s extremely likely that they’re going to learn who you are. And whatever they find out, you don’t want to leave it to chance.

Now again, this doesn’t mean pretending to be something you’re NOT. It simply requires you to be crystal clear about who you ARE.

With any luck, you do what you do because you feel genuinely passionate about it. You have a product you believe in, and you want to share it with the world. Or you’ve developed a skill that you excel at because you know you can use it to make a difference in people’s lives.

But in order to get your product or service out there, you need to find the right people who need it and will appreciate it the most. And more importantly, they need to find you.

But in today’s fast-paced and overcrowded marketplace, finding each other just isn’t enough anymore. You need to connect, and you need to do so instantly. That doesn’t mean you need to close a sale within the first 15 seconds. No, the pushy sales pitch is probably not your best approach.

Finding familiarity

Instead, you need to use those first split seconds—before they scroll by and relegate you to the digital darkness—to make some kind of real connection. You need to present yourself in a way that lets your audience recognize you, relate to you, and trust you.

In the same way, you might bump into someone by the water cooler or at a cocktail party, and in the first 60 seconds, you feel some kind of connection. You might feel like you’ve met them before. Maybe it’s the way they dress, or the way they talk, or something else. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’re going to get along.

That’s what a company needs to do with its potential customers. And it’s an effective Brand Persona that can do exactly that, imbuing your brand with human characteristics that your target audience will recognize and resonate with.

And this happens all the time, not only when you click with someone. You meet anyone, and you size them up quickly, you put them into some category. Oh, he’s one of those outdoor types who loves to hunt deer and camp out in the back country. Or, she’s clearly a seeker, and she probably knows all about goddess rituals and transcendental meditation. As we get to know people, we can iron out the details. But initially, our minds like to take shortcuts and rely on basic archetypes. So your audience needs to know right away what category you belong in.

Adopting the appropriate Brand Persona

Understanding your company’s role in the lives of your customers will be the first step in determining your Brand Persona. The temptation, for many businesses, is to try and reach and connect with as many consumers as possible.

But an authentic persona can’t be all things to all people. So the trick is to be just the right thing to just the right people. And as we’ve said before, this requires a subtle blend of art and science. You need to begin with some granular research on who your target demographic is, what they desire, and what you can do for them. Then it takes a bit of intuition to identify the emotional touchpoints that will elicit a meaningful response and a sense of connection.

The most effective tools we use today are Brand Archetypes. Check out our in-depth blog for a detailed discussion, but Brand Archetypes are like stereotypical characters that embody a handful of core traits. Rather than displaying all the multi-faceted features of a real person, which can be complicated and often self-contradictory, the Brand Archetype distills it down to a few fundamentals. Think of a motherly Caregiver, a class Clown, or a wise old Sage.

It’s not that we’re “dumbing it down”, but we’re focusing on the basic characteristics that are most important in a particular context, the specific relationship between a customer with a need and a business with a solution. The archetype filters out the peripheral noise so the audience can make an immediate connection.

It’s the same thing filmmakers and storytellers have been doing for eons. They present us with a character like Forest Gump whom we instantly know and remember as the Innocent. He’s an archetypal figure that we already understand because he’s imprinted in our consciousness like some kind of innate instinct.

We can get all mysterious and metaphysical about it, but the point is that people understand these archetypal characters on a subconscious, gut level. We recognize the character from a few basic cues, and immediately fill in all kinds of gaps will all sorts of unconscious material.

Using the Brand Persona

Initially, this might sound a bit complicated, creating a character who embodies your business. You’re not writing the next Crime and Punishment, after all, or directing next year’s Academy Award winner. But you’re starting a business, and that’s just as challenging. And ultimately, the more energy you invest in defining your Brand Persona, the less time and energy your audience will need to understand who you are.

Starting with one or two fundamental archetypes, you can create the basic framework of a Brand Persona. With a few more details, shaped by the specific nature of your customers, your company, your products, and your services, you can develop something that looks a little more like a real person. We all know a Sage when we see one, but we can also tell the difference between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Merlin the magician.

Finally, the Brand Persona is a terrifically powerful tool that guides you in all of your visual and verbal communications. The persona is what your company looks like and sounds like. A clear understanding of this will help you choose the colors for your website and printed materials, it will shape the look and feel of your logo, and define the tone of voice you use in all your emails, social posts, and other messaging. It also guides your staff and team members, so they can stay on point and exude that same personality—whether it’s motherly, fatherly, magical, or jester-like—in every customer encounter.

Managing expectations

By adopting a clear and consistent Brand Persona, your audience should be able to recognize you and your work right away. It’s about setting up certain expectations and then fulfilling those expectations with every interaction.

Whether it’s an Instagram post on their phone or a business card in their purse, they’ll look at it and think, “Hey, that looks like so-n-so!” And instead of responding to your communications like it’s just more sales junk, they’ll react like they’re listening to the familiar voice of an old friend.

That’s the difference it makes when your Brand Persona is crafted according to the specific hopes, fears, interests, and desires of your particular audience.

Brand Personas for big and small companies

As you develop your Brand Persona and work to present your business as a friendly human rather than a commercial entity, it’s essential to keep it real. Modern audiences, especially Millennials, are incredibly skeptical of marketing and starved for authenticity. So let me say it once more, shaping a persona is not about pretending to be something you’re not.

Now, small business owners might think this brand strategy stuff is just a lot of fancy paraphernalia for high rollers and powerful corporations. But in fact, this is precisely where the small business can leverage a huge advantage over the big guys.

The thing is, huge corporations are spending billions of dollars on research and marketing just to sound more like your friendly neighborhood merchant. They’re dying to make that personal connection that’s become so scarce in our world of box stores, mega marts, and overseas call centers.

For consumers hungry for something human and authentic, the locally-owned small business suddenly has this terrific advantage. But that’s not the end of the story. Making use of that advantage still requires some strategy. The Brand Persona still needs to be clear and consistent. And when it is, it should be easy for a smaller staff to stay on the same page, uphold the same values, and speak with the appropriate tone of voice.

Conclusions

The task of crafting a Brand Persona may look daunting at first. But it can prove to be one of the most precious tools at your company’s disposal. On the one hand, it helps you present your business with certain admirable qualities that reflect the kinds of goods or services you provide. And when done correctly, your audience will click with this personality right away.

But the Brand Persona also provides a certain self-awareness, guiding you through all your communications, both online and in-person. It helps you understand the very specific context of your customer relationships, letting your clients and patients know that you understand them as people, not just consumers. And ultimately this leads to stronger, more satisfying relationships that benefit everyone, emotionally and financially.

Dig deeper

To learn more about how to grow your business or practice with winning Brand Strategy, be sure to check out some of our other articles and services.

• An Introduction to Brand Archetypes
• Brand Voice
• Brand Strategy Services

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