Aaroe Writing Humanize Your Tech Brand
The System For Giving Your Brand A VIVID Personality That Your Audience Wants to Know More About (and buy from!)
Today I’ll introduce you to how I help tech brands humanize their marketing and sound like humans so they can sell to humans. I use a framework called the VIVID system for finding your brand personality. This approach helps brands achieve a friendly and professional forward facing image, but in a way that is truly unique to your company and relatable to your audience.
The Problem With Most Voice Guides
Most brands have what they call a “voice guide” which suffices (so they think) to describe how their brand comes across to the outside world. The problem with most voice guides is they all sound about the same from company to company. Every tech brand wants to appear “friendly” but “professional,” only using “industry jargon when necessary” and of course they want to be “unique” and “provide value.”
What are all these $100, not so helpful, words lacking? Personality. The VIVID system helps your brand figure out who you are as a company specifically, as if your brand is a person. Even if you’re in b2b, you are still selling your solution to people – and people want to buy from other people. This process facilitates the relationship between brand and buyer utilizing our natural human affinity for other humans.
Introduction to the VIVID System
VIVID stands for Voice, Identity, Values, Individuality, and Dreams. This process uncovers what makes your brand unique. Voice is how your brand talks (or writes), Identity defines the descriptive qualities of your brand, Values are the unshakable beliefs your brand uses to make decisions, Individuality are the quirks and idiosyncrasies that make your brand less than perfect, and Dreams are the ideas and visions your company has for the future.
When companies figure out their brand personality according to these five categories, they have an incredibly useful and valuable asset for not only their marketing department, but also to use in sales outreach, onboarding new customers and employees, and even when looking to woo investors and secure funding.
How This Works: A Brief Example
You can go through the VIVID system in an afternoon and gain some quick insights, or hire an expert to help you revolutionize and upgrade your brand forever.
A SaaS brand I worked with recently had these initial answers:
Voice = Casual and informative, like an instagram post.
Identity = Cute, multicultural, trendy, young and fresh faced.
Values = Fast growing startup. Industry leader. We foster authentic relationships.
Individuality = We highlight experts who know more than we do. We’re nerdy about problem solving. We feature customers whenever possible.
Dreams = To lead a shift from transactional to relationship based agreements in our industry. We aim to follow industry trends to the very top as a go-to resource.
Conclusion
See how you relate to that company in the example, even though I didn’t tell you their name, or even what industry they are in? The VIVID system gives you a much clearer idea of who your brand is, inside and out. When your marketing and outreach flows from that understanding, your brand will have a human feel that is cohesive and relatable for your audience.
To find out more about humanizing tech, building a brand personality and the VIVID system, reach out to me at aaroewriting.com/contact/
Hi! I’m Annie Aaroe, a b2b marketing strategist. To find out more about story-driven, conversion copy and strategy that’s tailored for tech and SaaS brands, visit my website, aaroewriting.com, or shoot me an email at annie@aaroewriting.com.