June 20, 2010The Personality Test
No, I’m not going to make you take another stupid quiz.I’m about to let you in on a little secret. This is the most important question I ask my clients when I take on new work. I ask:
“If your website / company / brand was a person,
what sort of person would they be?”
Copywriters thrive on detail. Often, we’re given a brief for a site, design or company that lacks character. The client has come to us because they want our copy to provide that character. But without direction, all we can do is take a stab in the dark.
The personality question gives us direction. Instantly.
There’s a number of standard questions I run through with a client when I take on their work. I’ll ask them what their USP (unique selling point) is because it’s important to find out what sort of through line they want me to push (are they the best? the cheapest? the fastest?). I’ll ask them to show me some styles of copy that they like, or copy that they don’t like, and I’ll ask them to describe their ideal customer. But I learn more from this one single question than I do from anything else.
Getting your character across.
My site’s a great example. As I’m a freelancer, my site’s design, layout and copy is designed to reflect my personality, so you get a good idea about who I am before you hire me. Your website should be the same. Ever noticed how certain types of people drive certain types of cars? Of course you have. Or how about certain types of people preferring certain breeds of dog? Try personifying your company. Give it a face. Is it rugged or smooth? What clothes would your company wear? What car would it have parked in the drive. Most importantly of all, is your company a boy or a girl? The list goes on.
The important thing is, you learn more about yourself and how you want to project your company’s image to your customers this way.
By answering these simple questions, you can learn a lot more about what makes your company great. Not only that, you learn about your weaknesses, too. After all, some types of people just aren’t attracted to certain types. By personifying your company or website, it’s easier to see who your ideal customer is. And if your company’s personality isn’t a good match for your target market, you’ve got to change.
It isn’t easy being a copywriter. Often, we’re expected to intuitively understand a client’s personality, even when we’re working across the internet with a customer who’s hundreds or even thousands of miles away. But with this one simple question, you can cut through every single layer of corporate bullshit and sales-speak, branding and marketing guff, and get down to the bare essentials of who your client is — and what they want.
Try it some time. I guarantee it’ll be the best question you’ve ever asked.
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Blog, Me and my business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.