How to Connect With Your Brand Audience as an Introvert

We live in a culture that largely values extroverted qualities over introverted ones. So, it should come as no surprise that the prevailing wisdom on successful marketing is often based on an extroverted way of doing things. 

However, different people will experience a different level of success by following different formulas. When we introverts try to emulate a ‘success’ formula created by an extrovert, it can be a painful experience. Not only that, but we’re unlikely to experience the same level of success as an extrovert. 

What’s often overlooked or misunderstood about introverts is that we often have excellent social skills. We simply shine in a very different environment or set of circumstances than extroverts. 

How to connect with your brand audience as an introvert

The key to success for introverts is to understand where our unique strengths are and use them to connect with our brand audience. 

Here are four fresh ways to connect with a brand audience as an introvert.

1. Get personal

As much as we talk about creating brand connections, people don’t connect with brands. They connect with people.

More often than not, brands are reflective of the person who is the driving force behind the brand. Brands generally cater to a very specific market segment that shares the core values on which a brand builds its business mission. 

Brands can be seen as an embodiment of the people behind the business. A target demographic can also literally be a representation of a single person. We all like to feel that we’re individual and special, but we have far more in common with each other than we might suspect.

Therefore, we can create a singular ‘person’ that represents their target audience and then work on connecting with that one person. And we already know that introverts do far better one-on-one than we do in a crowd. 

That puts us in a perfect position to get personal with our brand audience to make a real connection.

Here’s how you can create a personal connection:

• Showcase what makes your brand unique.
• Open the door for your audience to see your process.
• Share with your audience why you have started the business and what are the forces that drive you.

Your audience will recognize these values within themselves, and be more inclined to engage with your brand.

2. Guest posting and working with influencers

Influencers are often (but not always) extroverted personalities who thrive on audience engagement. Which is not something that always comes naturally to introverts. Partnering with influencers in your niche is an excellent way to reach new audiences. It can also build credibility through a more intimate source than paid ads and campaigns.

Reaching out to influencers requires little face-to-face interaction and can be done exclusively via email. You can partner with them for guest posts, Q&A posts, product reviews, etc. 

You can also reach out to businesses you’re previously worked with, and see if they would be interested in a guest post for their blog. 

Working with influencers and other sites in your niche means that they will take some work off your shoulders. They already have an established follower base and know what sort of content they respond to best. 

3. Use technology to your advantage

Extroverts generally do their best work in person or when they can interact with their audience. Introverts will often be far more comfortable addressing an audience or performing for an audience rather than interacting with them. 

We don’t need to see our audience to create a connection with them. This can make technology a far better fit for us introverts than extroverts who thrive in social events. 

When interacting with your audience on social media, any impulsive or poorly thought-out message can drastically affect how people see your brand. Since we tend to plan our words and communications carefully, we can actually end up creating a much better brand image and consistently maintain it. 

Rethink your social media strategy

Much of how we market our brand depends on interactions on social media channels. However, trying to be everywhere at once is a perfect recipe for burnout. It’s also a waste of time and resources to keep social media profiles on networks that your target audience barely ever visits.

Your audience can tell when the content you share is authentic, and when you’re just sharing mediocre content just to maintain some visibility. So spreading yourself thin doesn’t just exhaust you, it’s also irrelevant to your audience.

Focus on the right channel

You don’t need to waste your energy creating content for several networks where you don’t expect to gain any benefits for your business.

Instead, focus on a selected few (or even just one) channels where you feel the most comfortable and from where you get the most valuable reactions. Depending on your business, it can be Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn or even email.

If you’re considering expanding to a new channel where you think you might catch some quality leads, take notes from your best performing content, and consider adapting it to this new channel.

Whatever channel you choose, the worst you can do is to force connections that don’t feel natural and comfortable to you. Likely, your audience will feel the same way and just scroll by your page.

3. Create a completely new channel

So far, we have looked at redefining already established channels. However, you can also create a new environment that you have complete control over.

Creating an app for your brand is a convenient way to connect with your customers. Everyone uses apps these days, and many brands are using this fact to their advantage so they can always be within their customer’s reach – quite literally in their pockets. 

Apps enable businesses to create a deeply personalized experience for their clients and customers. They can provide simple ordering with a few clicks. They can also enable easy feedback and sharing, and update users on products and news. 

This makes it easier for your customers to do business with you and keep your brand in mind even when they are not consciously looking to buy from you.

You can benefit from the fact that an app simplifies and reduces the need for personal interactions that might become overwhelming for introverts. You can delegate a great part of customer support calls to contact forms in the app, and create a handy FAQ section or Q&A forum board for users.

As already mentioned, apps are a very personal channel that allows you to send extremely targeted messages based on information such as location or weather. You can even set reminders for when the customer is about to run out of your product or share valuable resources on trending topics. 

This takes a lot of the guessing work out of your marketing campaigns, all the while making your audience feel well-taken care of.

4. Aim for quality over quantity

There is no reason that as an introvert, you can’t achieve massive brand success. But you will have great difficulty trying to achieve that success by following extroverted formulas. 

On the whole, we tend to have a small circle of close friends and acquaintances, but we also enjoy much deeper and intimate relationships with them than most extroverts do. 

Translated to business, it means that, while extroverts may have an easier time building a larger brand following, introverts are far better at creating avid brand loyalty.

Instead of trying to cater to masses, focus all your efforts on your niche target audience. You stand a much better chance of success by pleasing customers who already love you than trying to impress masses. 

And once you create strong connections with your customer base, they will become your most prominent ambassadors. Happily recommending your tried and tested products and services to their friends and family. 

If you want to take it a step further, you can create loyalty or referral programs or send out samples of your products for your customers to share with their friends and family. 

Being an introvert is your entrepreneurial superpower

In 2018, Apple became the first publicly-traded company to achieve a $1 trillion market value. However, Apple started as a niche company and largely remains so to this day. 

While Apple controls more than 50% of the global smartphone market, they only control a very small segment of the electronics industry overall. In short, Apple has achieved the success that it has by selecting a very thin slice of the market and catering to it relentlessly. 

Another way to look at this is that Apple achieved success by approaching branding like an introvert rather than an extrovert.

There is no reason for you not to be able to achieve great success if you’re an introvert. As we’ve seen, your attention to detail, meticulously thought-out communication, and observance skills are the superpowers. Superpowers that could skyrocket your brand image and create a loyal customer base that will support you for years to come.

Featured image by DeMorris Byrd