How To Develop A Brand Voice In 7 Easy Steps

Brand voice is a central aspect of marketing for companies, especially for those in the B2B space. In branding work, people often think about how a brand looks visually, from fonts to colors to design styles. What is sometimes overlooked is brand voice. With the inclusion of social media in marketing efforts, brand voice has become more important than ever as a way to stand out from the crowd of digital chatter.

Let’s go further into the details on what brand voice is, how you can develop one of your own and why it is important for small businesses in particular to have a clear tone of voice in their marketing.

What is Brand Voice

Brand voice refers to the personality and emotion infused into a company’s communications. It should be consistent, recognizable, and distinct from its competitors.

The tone of your brand voice should be appropriate for your ideal buyer persona. The language you use in your campaigns should be relatable and engaging.

Brand voice will differ from company to company because each has a different target demographic and story they are trying to tell. For example, an accounting firm might have a professional tone, while a social media platform could be casual.

A strong brand voice also gives your customers insight into how you want them to perceive your company. If you are all about transparency and honesty, you will want your brand voice to reflect that.

Why is Having a Strong Brand Voice Important?

A strong brand voice lets you tell your story in your own words, in the most authentic way possible. Not only is this a powerful way to attract customers and convert them into loyal followers, it’s also an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Your brand voice is the tone and personality of your company in written form. It’s the heart of what makes your brand stand out. You can have the best product in the world, but if you don’t have a strong brand voice that communicates why you are different, it will be hard to stand out from the crowd. A strong brand voice helps you attract and retain customers by showing that your company cares about its customers while also showcasing what makes your business unique.

Here are three reasons why having a strong brand voice is important:

1. Your Brand Voice Helps You Stand Out From the Crowd

Brand voice helps you stand out from the crowd. In the Sprout Social Index™️, the consumers surveyed had reasons why some brands stood out more than others. Forty percent said memorable content, 33% said distinct personality and 32% said compelling storytelling. In all three of these aspects, brand voice plays a significant role. You can’t have a distinct personality without a distinct brand voice.

2. Your Brand Voice Helps Build Trust With Your Audience

Whether it’s with family and friends or colleagues at work, you build trust with someone by consistently acting like yourself over time and by showing that you care about what they think. The same goes for your audience. They want to know that you are who you say you are and that you care about what they think of your company. If your brand voice changes every five minutes, it’s hard to build that kind of trust.

3. Your Brand Voice Can Help You Attract New Customers

A strong brand voice can help attract new customers because it shows them who you are and what they can expect from your business. For example, if you’re an online fashion retailer that uses a teen-like slang in all its communications, chances are parents won’t be too interested in shopping on your site. But teens may find that kind of voice appealing and might even share it with their friends.

Tips for developing your brand voice

Let’s get one thing straight: the process of developing a brand voice is not something you can complete in a day, week, or even month. It takes time, patience and constant evaluation to develop a unique brand voice that truly represents your company.

The good news? The more time you spend thinking about your brand voice, the stronger it will become. So now that the importance of brand voice has been established, how the heck do you even develop a distinctive one? Use the below five tips to get started on figuring out what your brand voice is.

1. Start with your company’s mission or value statement.

Your brand’s mission or value statement can help you determine some key characteristics of your brand voice.

For example, if your mission is to provide a high-quality service for a reasonable price, you may want to emphasize professionalism and affordability in your voice. If it’s to inspire creativity in the classroom, you’ll want to focus on fostering an imaginative and playful tone, while still maintaining authority.

2. Find your target audience

Create a Brand Persona, A persona can be described as an imaginary person or group of people that represents your target audience. By developing a persona, you can better understand who your audience is and how they like to communicate. Include things like age, location and profession when creating this document. You’ll also want to try to add in some personality traits and preferences so that you can better get into their mindset.

3. Analyse competitors

Take a look at other brands in your industry and make a note of their use of language, tone and style of voice – this is something that you can use alongside your research of customer responses to see how people react to different strategies.

This step can also give you an insight into what works for your competitors, but more importantly, it helps you to figure out what doesn’t work for them and how your brand can be different from theirs.

4. Think about what makes you unique

Stand out from the crowd by finding what makes your business different than all others in its industry. Maybe it’s a special feature that no one else offers, or maybe it’s your personal commitment to customer service. This unique quality is part of what defines your brand voice and is something that should be carried through all of your marketing materials — whether that’s on social media, in email campaigns or in content marketing pieces.

5. Listen in on social media

Brands usually have a number of social media channels that allow customers to chat with them directly. Take some time to monitor conversations happening between your company and current customers or followers on Twitter or Facebook.

You’ll get a good idea of how people are responding and interacting with your brand and see what kind of tone and voice they use, which will help you maintain consistency in the future. The more you do this, the more familiar you’ll become with the language your customers use and the lingo they’re most comfortable with.

6. Think about your tone

Once you know who you’re talking to and what makes you unique, it’s time to decide how you’re going to talk to them. Your tone is the personality of your brand voice; it determines how people will feel when they read what you write. Will they feel like they’re talking with their best friend, or with a stuffy professor? You can also use tone to convey information about your brand; if you want to seem trustworthy and professional, use language that reflects this, like “based on scientific evidence” or “a leader in the field.”

Use adjectives to determine your tone. Think about the adjectives that describe your audience (e.g., young, adventurous) and the ones that describe your company (innovative, honest). Then mix-and-match them until you have a list of adjectives that match the feel you want for your brand voice. If you need some help getting started, take a look at our list of tone words below.

7. Set guidelines

The best way to ensure that everyone in your organization is using the same tone is by creating a set of guidelines for them to follow. This ensures consistency across all forms of communication and helps avoid confusion about proper writing techniques. If each member of your team is familiar with these guidelines and follows them.

Conclusion

You’re already well on your way to creating a strong brand voice by reading this article and understanding what it is and what it isn’t. Remember not to lose sight of who your target audience is and choose words they will respond to while avoiding terms that will distract them.

Creating a unique brand voice is possible, and when done right, it can have a profound impact on your business success. We are here to help you get started on creating your own successful brand voice, so contact us at Neu Entity today to learn more.