So, you’ve selected a professional looking design and you’ve tailored your copy writing to your target audience but maybe you’re still not seeing the visitor engagement you like.
It could be that the missing element is just a little bit of personality.
A Quick Disclaimer
If you read the word “personality” and winced at the idea of being goaded into show-biz, rest assured that this author would never demand such a thing.
When I say “show your personality” I just mean “make yourself knowable and visible to your audience.”
Why Would Visitors Care About Your Personality?
Establish Trust
The truth is, no matter how polished, professional and well-written your text is, customers know that, ultimately, their experience of doing business with you depends on the people behind the brand. More specifically, it depends on the personalities of those people behind the brand.
If you’ve ever shopped around for a new dentist, you probably already know this to be true. Yes, professional credentials are important (after all, few things are as unsettling as the prospect of amateur dentistry). However, once we’ve established a few experienced candidates to choose from, the deciding factor usually comes down to this: personality.
What We Want To Know
- Is this person friendly, honest, approachable, a good listener and a good communicator?
- Can I set boundaries easily or will this person try to pressure me into buying things I don’t need?
- Will this person be patient and helpful if I run into issues or have trouble understanding?
Before entrusting our teeth to a stranger, you can bet that we’re gonna be looking through those reviews and watching any videos that dentist has made to get a sense of the person behind the profession.
Prove You’re A Human
If you’ve been on the internet in the last little while, you’ve probably noticed that you’re having to wade through more and more AI generated writing, images and videos. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find content that seems like it was created by an actual human.
People are starving for content that feels authentic, relatable and lets us connect to each other as people.
Differentiate Yourself
There’s a phenomenon that’s common in marketing wherein competing businesses start to mirror each other’s messaging and style. This often results in industry buzz words so overused they lose all meaning. It also results in company branding that functions better as camouflage than advertising. Instead of standing out, companies who follow this path just fade into the background.
Many companies struggle with identifying what differentiates them from their competition but simply making your self visible to your audience is an easy way to make a distinction. After all, there is only one you.
Content That Promotes A Sense of Connection
There are a myriad of little ways you can infuse your content with authenticity to better connect with your audience. Here are just a few suggestions to get the ideas rolling.
Authentic Imagery
Stock images can be effective for setting an ambiance but there’s no real substitute for images that allow visitors to see your team in action, your client’s being served or your community involvement.
Examples of Authentic Imagery
Your Team In Action
Northwest Youth Corps provides job and life skills training to young adults as part of its conservation efforts in the, notably scenic, Pacific Northwest. There is no shortage of stock footage depicting majestic mountains draped in fog. However, instead of reaching for stock images, they’ve filled their site with real images showing their teams in the field, being themselves and having fun.
If these images don’t make you want to dawn a hard hat and set off into the wilderness to learn life skills with a bunch of new friends, frankly, I don’t know what will.
Happy Customers
Willamette Valley Outfitters has a page with a series of images that represent different local fisheries. Where you might expect a list of fishery names and logos, they opted for something more dynamic.
Each fishery is represented by an image of happy visitors at each location, holding their latest catch. When you mouse over each image, the name of the fishery appears.
That simple decision to use real photos of happy customers makes the page much more compelling, relatable and personable.
Listings & Social Media
Your Google Business Profile and social media accounts are perfect places to feature authentic images from your business. Posting to these sites regularly will also increase your visibility, allowing you to reach a larger audience.
Consider making it a habit to regularly post images of your team, satisfied customers, before and after pictures of services provided or community volunteer events.
Informative Videos
What’s the best way to convince visitors that you have valuable expertise? Start offering some of your expertise for free.
Video Ideas
- Tutorials
- Product Demonstration
- Industry Advice
- Facility or Job Site Tours
Informative Video Example
Jackie Shaw offers accounting services and business mentorship but she doesn’t just rely on her website copy to convince you she knows her stuff. Instead, she’s been creating helpful tutorials on everything from “What is Bookkeeping?” to “How to Record In-Kind Donations for Non-Profits“
If you just can’t bring yourself to step in front of the camera, we’ve got you covered!
See our blog post on “4 Faceless Video Styles That Work”.
Behind the Scenes Content
If, like me, you’ve ever spent hours watching time lapse footage of construction crews converting a crawl space into a basement just to marvel at the transformation, you already know that this type of content is inherently fascinating to many viewers.
Behind the scenes content also creates an opportunity to illustrate what makes your business unique. If there’s a special process you use that makes all the difference, why not show it?
Behind the Scenes Video Ideas
- A Day in The Life Video
- Our Team Completing a Job
- How We Manage
- Photos with captions or short stories
Behind the Scenes Example
Klinefelter Contracting periodically updates their facebook account with short montage and time-lapse videos of their team completing construction, concrete and painting projects.
These videos are fun to watch but they also demonstrate the companies willingness to be transparent and their confidence in the quality of their process. You also get a glimpse of the personalities of individuals and group dynamics of their team.
Storytelling
Storytelling is one of the most fundamental things we do as humans to connect. If you want to show authenticity, tell a true story about your own experiences.
You don’t have to be ultra formal or polished here. Your audience will often feel more comfortable with your business knowing there’s a real person behind the brand.
Storytelling Ideas
- Challenges You’ve Learned From
- Things That Surprised You Along The Way
- How You’ve Learned to Structure Your Business
Community Content
Your audience doesn’t just want to know who you say you are. They want to know how you affect your clients and community.
Community Content Ideas
- Testimonials: Find a customer that’s happy to share the positive experience they had with your company and work with them to create some content for your website. Whether written, recorded as video or featured in a podcast, testimonials help humanize you to your audience.
- Community Events: Participate in your community or host special events.
- Volunteer: Get involved in your local community and post about those efforts online.
Examples of Community Content
The Oregon Social Learning Center stays active in the Eugene community. From blood drives, to Pride Festivals to the special training sessions for parents, the OSLC stays involved and regularly shares their efforts on social media.
Trust Earns Customers
Entrusting one’s money to a mysterious entity on the internet is a vulnerable position for any consumer to be in. The solution: Be less mysterious.
Put yourself out there! You don’t have to do anything outlandish or attention grabbing. You just have to seem verifiably human. You got this.