Have you ever found yourself being inexplicably drawn to somebody? There’s something about them. They’re magnetic…but you’re not entirely sure why. Is it their hair? Their goofy laugh? Their plenty smarts? The way they make you feel noticed and valued?

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You think about them and talk about them. You want to hang out with them and get to know them, because they’re…coooool.

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Humans are naturally attracted to (or stay away from) certain people because of their personalities, and it’s much the same with the companies we do business with.

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Different personalities attract different people. If your brand talks rough, drops the F Bomb all over the place, and has Beyonce-level attitude, you’re going to lose a lot of customers. The upside is that these will be the customers that you don’t want. The ones that don’t “get” you, or value what you have to offer.

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No matter which personality defines your brand — the important thing is that it has a personality. This is what’s going to help your SaaS get noticed and remembered. In a saturated market, you need to take every opportunity you can to stand out.

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Why your SaaS needs a personality

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Defining your personality as a startup and working this into your cross channel marketing can help with generating more qualified leads, and retaining more customers.

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If your brand has likable, approachable qualities that resonate with a certain audience — it’s more likely to encourage people to engage with it.

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If your SaaS is too focused on features and sales, it can come across as flat, dry, and faceless to a potential customer. There are enough of those bland, lifeless companies out there already — so let’s look at how you can up your personality game.

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Differentiation

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Different brand personalities essentially help to sell the same products to separate audiences, creating loyal followings.

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Nike, Adidas, New Balance, and Puma all sell running shoes that have the same function — but people are naturally drawn to their “favorite” brand, and much of this comes down to how these companies position themselves in the market.

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Voice and tone

Establishing a voice and tone for your brand is essential if you’re working on your brand personality. These need to remain consistent and aligned with your marketing and audience to create a seamless voice that sounds like the same person talking throughout all your marketing.

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Building trust

Customers are more inclined to trust a brand that has a similar personality to them. Talking to your audience through interviews and surveys can pinpoint who your people are and what’s important to them. Building a personality based around your research is a solid foundation for creating a successful personality for your SaaS.

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Brand messaging

Delivering marketing messages is a lot easier when you have a personality “roadmap” to start from. Your personality gives clearer direction to your messaging, and helps you create the emotional triggers needed to connect with your ideal audience.

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How do you establish a personality for your SaaS?

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Creating a personality for your brand requires some concentrated thought. Once it’s out there in the wider world — you can’t change it.

You can go deep with Jungian archetypes or think more broadly in terms of a “person” that you want your company to be like.

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It could be a person you know, or a character from a book or movie. What defines them? What are their traits? How can you strip back those magnetic layers and apply them to your business?

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Sprout Social recently carried out a great survey on brand personality to find out which ones drove consumer purchases.

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The result? The ones that came across as authentic. If you’re trying to create a personality that’s fake or doesn’t really fit your company …customers will KNOW.

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The most important thing to remember is that you’re trying to connect with your audience in a positive, meaningful way – so when you’re personifying your brand, it’s crucial that you keep this in mind at all times.

You want your brand to be likable – not annoying.

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Using a guide like the classic Aaker framework can give you a good foundation for thinking about the structure of your SaaS personality.

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Consistency is key

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Brand consistency in your marketing can mean a 23% average increase in revenue for your business. Grab a calculator and work that out. It’s probably quite significant in dollar terms.

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While that’s exciting, if you don’t keep up that consistency, it’s likely to have the opposite effect.

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Having a brand and style guide is essential to keep your team consistent across all your sales and marketing channels. It’s important that you make sure there aren’t any slips in how your brand is presenting itself.

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Examples of brand personalities

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To give you some examples, let’s take a look at well known brand personalities to see how they’ve positioned themselves.

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Nike

Nike has created a brand that can’t be ignored. Mostly because they pour millions of dollars into their ad campaigns, but also because they’ve created a strong, memorable personality.

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Nike positions themselves as being worn by fit, determined, and for the most part — highly successful athletes. Their products are positioned as tough and high-performance, leaving consumers with the impression that if they buy and wear Nike, they can also achieve greater things.

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Wendy’s

If you’ve been anywhere near social in the past few years, you’re likely to have come across shared, re-shared, and re-re-shared Wendy’s tweets.

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Wendy’s social game is strong and their team seems to be around 24/7 with current, sharp, witty, snarky, comments that delight their users and poke fun at their big-brand takeout rivals.

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Their Twitter feed is so popular that people drop comments into their feed specifically asking to get roasted by the Wendy’s team.

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Harley Davidson

Rebellious, free, and independent. Harley Davidson has an immediately tangible brand personality and is synonymous with quality, style, and coolness — with a rock’n’roll edge.

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Apple

Apple’s personality is bigger than it’s products. Innovative, smart tech with a price tag to match – Apple is desired for its aesthetics, cool vibe, and social status as much as it is for its hardware. Every new release means millions of dollars in pre-orders and queues around the block.

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In summary

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Creating a personality for your SaaS is becoming increasingly important as a flood of new startups enter this fast-paced market.

It’s important that you don’t rush the development of your personality — instead, pay close attention to your audience and your market to get the right positioning, and ensure that your personality remains consistent once it’s been established and you begin building out your marketing strategy.

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