When networking, interviewing for a job, or pitching an idea to a supervisor or investor, it’s important to communicate the benefit you provide. A personal brand needs to be: Compelling, Clear, Creative, and Consistent. Marketing is about creating interest in what you offer, and marketing yourself has similarities to marketing for profit or non-profit organizations.
Step One: Discover a Compelling Purpose. Assess yourself, uncover hidden talents, and look for clues to purpose. Find the intersection between what you are best at, what you love do, and what the world needs most.
Step Two: Define a Clear Promise. Create a personal mission statement, or Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A value statement communicates who you are, what you do, and why. It tells how you add value, based on your values.
Step Three: Design Creative Personality. Attract and inspire trust with stories and marketing materials that express Personality and the Promise from Step Two.
Concentrate on benefits and value provided by features. For a personal brand, features are often expertise or skills, so Collect concrete examples and testimonials. Fish for the hook that will reach people.
Connect with emotions:
- Focus on benefits you provide. Always Be Communicating Value – what’s in it for them. Download a handout with examples of Features, benefits, and the value they provide. You might use a colorful metaphor that describes the benefit, process, or result of what you do.
- Aim at the heart with the Seven Beats of Brand Storytelling.
- Communicate your why. Simon Sinek, the author of “Start With Why,” says “People don’t buy what we do, they buy why we do it.” (his TED Talk) They are also most interested in our why.
- Tell your story – Learn more at The Power of Telling Stories.
Press Play for an appealing brand message. A successful brand message is: Practical, Remarkable, Emotional, Surprising, and uses Storytelling. Create a message that appeals to the motivational drivers of your target audience. To Capture attention make your message sticky with the Success Model from Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath and contagious (talks at Google 40:47) with the Stepps Model from Jonah Berger’s “Contagious: Why Things Catch on.”
Design creative marketing materials to communicate the message. Express your authentic style with your choices for colors, fonts, and images. Create graphics for logos and business cards, and a tagline to communicate your brand. Your brand should be consistent across channels: email, resumes, social media and on websites. Marketing materials can range from print materials like business cards and brochures to digital like videos and can vary greatly in cost. Get creative to achieve wow factor without spending a lot.
Step Four: Deliver a Consistent Position. Know Your Target Audience and exceed expectations to Design and Deliver a Delightful User Journey and provide a WOW customer experience. People (and businesses) that are exceptional MAKE U want to work with them (or buy what they are selling). To stand out: go above and beyond, customize offers for a personal touch, delight with beautiful packaging and pleasant surprises, and provide extreme customer service with fast response and follow-through.
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Definitions from the Marketing Fundamentals Canvas at cezary.co:
- Brand: a promise to deliver benefits that are different from the competition. Perceptions you want to create with user experience, stories, images, words, name, logo, design.
- Mission: The purpose and reason for being
- Vision: Long-term, aspirational goals. What will the world look like in the future if you succeed?
- Key message: The main idea to communicate
Pinterest Boards on personal branding, design, networking, personas, and user experience.
Additional tools in your marketing toolkit
Find more tools at the Brand and Purpose Toolkit, and at the Discover U Toolkit and Personal Branding at Wakelet.
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