Trying to develop the right brand message, to deliver in the right way? It’s an impossible task.
Why?
Because when it comes to branding, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It depends on who you’re talking to.
Businesses should be focusing less on trying to build the right brand, and more on building a brand that connects and communicates in the most powerful way with the people that matter: customers.
The power of connection
Imagine you’re a busy parent who barely has time to cook dinner. There’s a new brand offering healthy, oven-ready meals, and they’re available at your local supermarket. You simply need to heat and eat. Consider what sort of message is going to make you sit up and listen. Is it a message about how the food is made, or where the ingredients come from? Unlikely. Is it a message about how the product can make mealtimes easier and more enjoyable for on-the-go families? Absolutely.
Shaping your communications to appeal to those most likely to want your product or service is key. This means it’s important to know who your customers are.
The audience challenge
The challenge of defining your target audience is that you can’t be too vague, or too specific. For example, saying you want to connect with ‘remote workers’ could mean anything from a 50-year-old female business owner to a school leaver of 18 who’s just landed an entry-level job. At the same time, trying to connect with a highly niche audience can alienate a lot of potential buyers.
The solution is to develop personas.
Developing personas
A persona is essentially an overview of your ideal customer. It brings together a range of individual characteristics to create a single, simple picture of who your brand should be communicating with.
At its most basic, a persona will define the core or inherent characteristics of the ideal customer. This might include aspects such as age, location, gender, income, job role, family, and interests.
However, a persona is something that businesses can continue to build upon. You may decide to add in things like motivators, fears, challenges, goals, and preferred brands. The more you understand about who you’re trying to talk to, the better you get at communicating your message.
How to use personas
The persona or personas that you create should inform practically every part of your business operations, from building your brand to developing your website, writing your content, and more. After all, a business is nothing without its customers. Everything you do has to be for them.
When you know who you’re speaking to, it becomes easier to get inside the minds of your buyers and provide them with what they need. They may need a brand that’s friendly and approachable. They may need a brand that’s professional and experienced. Whatever it is, when you understand this, you can start building your brand – not in the ‘right’ way, but in the most powerful way.
In branding, there is no ‘right’. There’s only ‘right for the customer’.
