What are the best tools and methods to research your target audience's preferences and expectations?

2 Identify your target audience

The next step is to understand who your target audience is, and what they want and need from your brand. Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and who share some common characteristics, such as demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and pain points. To identify your target audience, you can use tools like customer personas, customer journey maps, or customer feedback surveys. These tools help you create detailed profiles of your ideal customers, and map out their goals, challenges, motivations, and emotions at each stage of their interaction with your brand.

3 Analyze your competitors

Another important factor to consider when choosing a brand personality is how you compare to your competitors. Your competitors are the other brands that offer similar products or services to your target audience, and who may have different or similar brand personalities. To analyze your competitors, you can use tools like SWOT analysis, competitor matrix, or brand positioning map. These tools help you evaluate your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and how they position themselves in the market in terms of attributes, benefits, and values.

4 Choose your brand personality dimensions

Once you have a clear picture of your brand values and goals, your target audience, and your competitors, you can start choosing your brand personality dimensions. Brand personality dimensions are the categories of human traits and emotions that you can use to describe your brand, such as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, or ruggedness. To choose your brand personality dimensions, you can use tools like the brand personality spectrum, the brand personality quiz, or the brand personality adjectives. These tools help you select the dimensions that best fit your brand's identity, audience, and positioning, and that differentiate you from your competitors.

5 Create your brand voice and tone

The final step is to create your brand voice and tone, which are the ways you express your brand personality through your words and style. Your brand voice is the consistent and distinctive personality that you use across all your marketing channels, such as your website, social media, or email. Your brand tone is the variation of your brand voice that you use depending on the context, audience, and purpose of your communication, such as formal, casual, humorous, or emotional. To create your brand voice and tone, you can use tools like the brand voice chart, the brand voice generator, or the brand voice examples. These tools help you define and document your brand voice and tone guidelines, and how to apply them to different types of content and situations.