Personality counts for a lot. Big brands know that – it’s why they pay celebrities large amounts of money to endorse them or even create a brand mascot like Tony the Tiger to help create a personality for their products.

Yet when it comes to internet marketing so many people think they need to leave their personality out of it.

I did that when I first started and it’s something I see a lot of people doing. Probably because they’re worried that someone won’t like what they say – that was certainly one of the things running through my mind when I first started out.

The trouble with that approach is that bland just isn’t memorable.

And we’ve got so much going on in our lives that if something isn’t memorable, we’ll forget it in an instant, never to return.

Which means you need to give your audience something to relate to.

Over time, even though you’ve almost certainly never met each other, your site visitors should feel as though they know you.

Think about the emails you read regularly – do they have a personality or could they have been written by a robot practising for its Turing test exam?

Chances are it’s the ones where the author has a personality. Whether it’s a brief “I related to this content” or a longer story about how bad the traffic was today on the school run or anything else.

Don’t be afraid of doing this.

Sure, you’ll get some people who don’t like what you say but that’s the same in real life. You really can’t please all the people all the time – it’s impossible.

One of the things I like to do is get my site visitors to nod their head in agreement. Not because I read a sales book that said I needed to get 3 “yeses” before I asked for the sale. But because it’s fun.

So often, things hide in plain sight. Not just missing keys that turn up in the first place you looked for them (but only once you’ve been through the whole house at least once).

Lots of things are obvious but only once they’re pointed out.

Or you can just say things that have been at the back of people’s minds but they’ve never vocalised.

For instance, I run a Scout Troop and UK schools don’t allow children to have time off for holidays during term time.

That’s generally accepted – although one company recently got a lot of attention and publicity when it said it would pay any truancy fines if people booked a skiing holiday during term time.

But there’s also another exception: school trips.

In the summer term, the local school runs an activity week where the pupils go away for several days and take part in various activities such as rock climbing, canoeing, etc.

An activity holiday in other words.

So I occasionally point out the double standards – my Scouts can’t go on holiday in term time with their parents but they can go on holiday with the school in term time.

Heads nod every time.

If you can work out a way to get that happening in most of the content you create for your website, that will help your personality to shine through and will encourage loyalty from your visitors.

One other very important thing with letting yourself come through into the content you create is to press the “publish” button.

It sounds obvious.

But if you’re always tweaking something until it’s completely perfect but never actually publishing it, no-one will have a chance to find out what you’re talking about because it’s just permanently waiting on your hard drive.

If you’d like to know how to write sales copy for your website or need ideas for content to write about, check out this offer.

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