How to Create Your Brand Voice

Many companies get caught up with their brand’s visual identities and overlook the brand voice. For example, Oberlo noted that a signature color can increase brand recognition by 80%. If your brand lost its colors or logo, how would your customer base identify you? Does someone viewing your content across different channels know it came from you?

Before you launch your next marketing campaign, identify your brand voice and apply it consistently across your advertising channels. Join us below as we take a deep dive into the different ways to cultivate a distinctive brand voice.

What Is a Brand Voice?

When you pick up the phone to converse with family members or a best friend, you can already anticipate their tone, inflection, and common phrases. Similarly, certain people stand out at a dinner party due to their unique personalities and distinctive storytelling.

If you chat with others at the party, you get a sense of their personality, whether shy, adventurous, quirky, entertaining, or cautious. Now think about the words your customers would use to describe your brand. Would they use similar words, or is your brand’s personality all over the place?

Essentially, your brand’s voice is the personality you infuse in all your communications. It is the unique way you engage with your target audience. Your brand’s voice can be inspiring, poetic, witty, casual, emotional, bold, funny, etc.

Consider the phrases, language, or flow of words you use in blog posts, web pages, newsletters, or Twitter feeds? Do they leave a memorable impression on potential customers?

Brand Voice and Tone

In essence, a brand voice is the unchanging communication style that you stamp on all marketing efforts. In comparison, you can adjust the brand’s tone to suit the context and marketing channel. For example, a fun slew of posts can capture the excitement of a product launch on social media, while formal language is suitable to communicate company changes in the newsletter.

Why Is the Brand Voice Important?

According to Gartner, trust is a mandatory prerequisite to making a purchase for 83% of customers. Furthermore, a transparent and consistent voice can increase trust by up to 33% and loyalty by up to 19%. A consistent brand voice should be a big part of your marketing strategy. First, the prevalent use of social media means that businesses have to work harder to stand out. In addition to memorable content, you need a unique company’s personality to reach your target market.

Second, today’s customers are increasingly drawn to brands that share similar values. A distinctive brand voice is an excellent way to communicate brand values and inspire your audience. Finally, a strong brand voice leaves a lasting impression on current and potential clients.

How to Create a Brand Voice

Typically, brand guidelines exist in tone guidelines. However, there are differences between the two aspects as the brand’s voice should remain unchanged while the company’s tone varies to match different situations. Some best practices to create effective voice guidelines include:

1. Review Your Brand’s Overall Vision

The first thing to do is to review your company mission or value statement. Why did you launch your business? What goals are you working towards? What are the core messages at the heart of everything you do? Such questions are a great way to help you identify the key characteristics of a strong voice.

The next step is to review your brand promise. What sets you apart from competitors? Is it high-quality products? Outstanding customer service? Cutting-edge technology?

2. Audit Your Current Voice

Another critical step is to review your marketing copy, including print collateral, website pages, in-store signage, TV and radio ads, and social media ad copy. Identify any common themes and discrepancies in the language. Are some posts fun and witty while others remain serious and unfriendly? Often, the brand voice is inconsistent if there are many writers creating sales materials.

Another good idea is to pick out the highest-performing posts and review any phrases, lines, traits, or language they share. This exercise is a helpful way to discover the elements your audience relates with the most.

3. Understand Your Audience

A powerful research approach on your audience is an important part of defining your brand tone of voice. Many small businesses struggle to appeal to their target customer because their brand language is unrelatable. For instance, a serious communication style will alienate a young customer base, who respond well to fun phrases and cool social acronyms.

Defining your buyer persona is a good starting point toward identifying common vocabulary that your target audience uses. Specifically, identify demographic information like age, interests, education, gender, and job title. Then, hold a poll on social media or include one in an email list with the following questions:

• Describe our brand’s style in three words
• What attracts you the most about our brand?
• If our business were a real person, what would be their personality traits?
• Do you think that our current brand’s tone fits with our brand message?

The above series of questions will determine if the audience’s perception of your brand marries how you describe yourself. If there are significant discrepancies, you need to redefine your brand voice.

4. Define Your Brand Voice in Three Words

What is your brand story? Additionally, what do you want your brand’s personality to represent? What adjectives best fit your core values? Is your brand voice confident, adventurous, and inspiring? Or is it funny, cool, and witty?

Illustrate your brand personality in a chart of Dos and Don’ts. Afterward, describe the specific ways you will use to express the three adjectives you have chosen. A great example is to communicate your brand’s fun personality with memes and hilarious GIFs. Don’ts can include staying clear of controversies and not making fun of customers.

5. Enforce Brand Voice Guidelines

A brand voice document functions as a reference for your company’s content creators. Also, make the guidelines accessible to everyone in the organization. Further, include many examples of the acceptable brand phrases to eliminate confusion. By clearly outlining your unique voice, you ensure consistency across all important communications.

6. Display Your Brand Voice

A defined voice is an integral part of your brand. Thus, incorporate your unique brand voice into all your marketing channels. For example, the personality of your social media posts should be consistent with the tone of your blog posts. In addition to social media accounts, match your company’s voice with digital signage content to encourage customer loyalty.

Brand Voice for Marketing

Your brand’s voice plays an important role in your overall brand identity and helps you connect more genuinely with your audience. Remember that consistency is key. Thus, use a consistent tone in marketing copy, social media feeds, and digital signage content.

Want to learn more about digital signage? Click here to read more articles on our Digital Signage Insights page!