How to humanise your brand
Are your customers human?
Then why are we failing to talk to them like humans?
In this noisy online market place and with more and more businesses being run through the internet, we have lost the human touch. Your brand needs a human voice and personality, which is difficult to appoint to a logo. No one likes to interact with a robot and humans need to at least feel like their interacting with real human beings. Humanising your brand is no longer an option, but a necessity if you are to survive as a small business today.
Drop the corporate speak and cold advertising for the focus is shifting to onto nurturing relationships, earning your clients trust and building brand loyalty. Humanising your brand helps you do all of this and more – it’s not rocket science, it’s actually quite easy.
You could continue to blow your marketing budget on advertising but that won’t magically make buyers buy from you. And if you’re a small business owner, you might not necessarily have a marketing budget at all.
So, here are 5 ways in which you can humanise your business which is easy and affordable:
1. Personalised imagery
Just like you like your friends based on their personality, you would most likely resonate with brands that carry personality traits that appeal to you or reflect your own characteristics. Creating a personality for your brand and business will help to humanise it.
A great way to show your brands personality is to capture it through personalised photos (not using generic stock photography). By using personalised photography, you are differentiating your brand to your competitors. You may be offering something similar in terms of products or service, but your brand personality and imagery sets you apart and speaks to your target audience.
Also, by showing the faces of the people who work at your company in the photos, your customers can connect better because they know there is actually a person behind the brand.
Feel like you need to infuse some personality into your brand?
We help our clients do just that using a signature process that helps you to pinpoint your personality and translate that into high-quality images that you can use everywhere. View our client success stories.
Brand Audit
We have created a quick and easy online quiz with an instant report! Our brand audit is a tool to help you understand all of the different components that are needed to create a successful brand that will win the heards and minds of your audience. In few questions (around 3 min of your time) you can assess where you are on your brand journey and what step to take next!
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2. Use video
Do you have a unique start-up story or vision for your company? Video is a great medium in which to tell your story and communicate value to your target audience.
Videos are a great way to give insight into the process or give a sneak peek behind the scenes of your business. You can showcase the unique experience that you provide for your customers (a great differentiator against your competitors) and show them the different dimensions of your brand personality, whether that be witty, funny, professional and/or friendly. These can be used on everything from your social media channels to your website!
You’re probably biting your nails at the thought of hiring an expensive videographer, but if you do your research and go for someone local, they aren’t as expensive as you may think and are definitely a worthwhile investment. If hiring a videographer is completely out of the question, why not start off using your mobile or your camera?
3. Facebook/Instagram Live
If investing in a videographer or recording your own video isn’t for you, why not start using LIVE options or creating Stories on either Facebook or Instagram to humanise your brand? Live content has exploded this year and is a great tool to provide your target audience with unique content to your viewers. It gives them an instant, real-time source of information direct to you and your business that is authentic, unedited and unfiltered which is a great way to add personality to your business and humanise your brand.
No fancy video-editing skills are necessary. All you need is a smartphone or laptop making it a cost-effective way to reach your target audience directly. You can answer live Q&A’s about your services or your products, address any upcoming events or raise awareness about a new product launch you have coming up! You can also engage real-time with your viewers to create a deeper connection and as a result, create loyalty.
A Facebook LIVE session with The Entrepreneur's Godmother
4. Instagram/Facebook Stories
Similar to Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook have introduced Stories that last on your profile for just 24 hours. Stories are a great way to enhance your brand and can be used in many different ways to humanise your brand.
If going live on Instagram and Facebook isn’t for you (I mean – it isn’t for me personally – I am working on my stage fright), you can definitely give Stories a go. Instagram/Facebook Stories can give an informal insight into your business by using pictures and video.
You can personalise and add to videos and pictures that you take in your story by overlaying text, drawings and gifs on top to add humour and personality to your content. You can demonstrate products and services in action which might nudge a customer that’s on the fence and make them more inclined to purchase from you.
Instagram Stories are great for engaging with your target audience with features that allow you to create polls or let your viewers ask you questions which you can answer and share with everyone.
5. Engage & Interact
One of the key trends stems from the emergence of the Engagement Economy. Customers want a more meaningful experience where they feel like they are being listened to and engaged with. Engaging with your customers is so important as it tells your audience that you are present, attentive and are willing to communicate with them. It shows that there is someone there and that it’s not a faceless corporate page but instead is a key channel to communicate with you.
Both Instagram/Facebook Live and Stories enable you to engage and interact with your audiences but there are plenty of other platforms in which you need to ensure you are engaging and interacting with your audience.
By engaging with your audience through social media channels to create authentic interactions, you are helping to foster your long-term relationship with your customers. Engaging takes time, commitment and effort which are key ingredients to sustaining a long-term relationship and keeping your partner/customer happy.
There are plenty more ways in which you can humanise your brand, but these are the key tricks found to be the most effective. You don’t need to worry about doing them all – pick the ones that are right for you and your business. Always keep in mind where your customers are. It makes no sense for you to be doing Instagram Live’s if your customers are on Instagram.
Personally, at Visuable, our favourite way to humanise brands is through the use of personalised photos and brand imagery. It has worked so well for us and for our clients too.
“We’re delighted with the brand photos Visuable created for our Estate Agency. They’ve uplifted our online presence and helped our audience see us as genuine and trustworthy consultants. As a result, we’re getting more enquiries through our website and it became easier for us to close the deals. Totally recommended!”
“I feel these pictures, colours and logo represent my brand truthfully. From the first call to the final product it has been an incredible eye opening, amazing, fun as well as sometimes challenging experience. They take you step by step to arrive at a clear vision of your brand. Lidia can cut through the confusion and lead you closer toward your goal with such accuracy it’s almost scary. Lidia can magically translate ideas that might not have fully formed yet into something tangible that feels/looks exactly like you’ve envisaged it.”
If you want to find out how we can help you to humanise your brand, just click below to find out more.
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