How to be more appealing

By Angela Bensemann, Director Halo Communications

As a business or organisation, it’s sometimes difficult to connect with our community, customers or clients.

It’s hard to come across as a caring, approachable, compassionate and authentic entity when every piece of communication is vetted by 10 people and toned down to lose any semblance of personality in order not to offend. We can be so risk averse that we come across as a faceless corporation that doesn’t care.

It really shouldn’t be that hard.

It comes back to the vision and values of your company and the type of image you want to portray.

Imagery and branding is key.

Do the photos on your website and social media portray who you are? Do you use real photos of real people or do you wheel out stock images of impossibly dressed and styled models from countries with nothing in common to yours?

Does your brand support you in your endeavours to position yourself at the forefront of your industry and does your logo resonate with the people you’re wanting to relate to?

Times change and the dull corporate logo that cut it in the early 2000s looks dated now and has little relevance to the sophisticated individuals we deal with today.

Similarly, the language you use can turn your audience on or right off. Formal third person prose has pretty much had its day as we move into an era where we want to connect personally to those we deal with.

Plain English is a must and most of the time colloquial (but still professional) is the way to go. Give it the ‘grandmother’ filter. Providing you’re not writing for a technical audience, if your granny doesn’t understand what you’re on about, chances are most others won’t either.

Keep it simple, mix it with engaging images and always keep your customers, clients and community at the heart of everything you do. Do this and you really can’t go wrong.