A strong and consistent brand voice is essential to differentiate yourself and leave a lasting impact. It helps communicate your company’s core values, mission, and personality, making it a crucial aspect of your overall brand identity. Using a tone and style of communication that resonates with your target audience sets you apart from your competitors.

Let’s dive into the seven essential steps to develop a memorable brand voice for your growing brand.

1. Define Your Brand’s Core Values

Your brand voice stems from your company’s core values. These values guide your actions and shape your brand’s personality. Start by identifying three to five core values that resonate with your target audience. For example, Patagonia, an outdoor clothing company, has built its brand around environmental responsibility, quality products, and community engagement.

For a deep dive into defining your Core Values, check out “Let’s Build Some Pillars! – A Quick Guide to Writing Your Brand Pillars“

 

2. Know Your Target Audience

To create a brand voice that resonates with your audience, you need to understand who they are and what they care about. Develop buyer personas representing your ideal customers, including their demographics, interests, pain points, and motivations. This will help you craft a brand voice that speaks directly to them. For instance, Apple’s sleek, minimalist, and innovative brand voice appeals to consumers looking for cutting-edge technology and design.

If you’re unsure about your target market, check out my article, “How to Identify Your One True Target Market.“

 

3. Analyze Your Competitors

Understanding your competitors’ brand voices can help you identify gaps in the market and opportunities to differentiate yourself. Analyze their messaging, tone, and style to identify patterns and trends.

Here’s a quick guide to help you start analyzing your competitors’ brand voice and identify potential areas of growth in your brand:

1. Identify Top Competitors: Make a list of your top 3-5 competitors in the market. These should be businesses that are directly competing with your products or services and targeting a similar audience.
2. Analyze Competitor Communication: Study how your competitors communicate with their audience across various platforms, including websites, social media, advertisements, and customer support. Pay attention to the tone, messaging, and overall style they use to convey their brand personality. Are they using humor, a serious tone, or a personalized approach to connect with their audience?
3. Identify Common Themes and Emotional Appeals: Look for patterns and trends in your competitors’ brand voice. What values and emotional appeals do they emphasize? Are there any gaps in the market that your brand can capitalize on?
4. Spot Overlooked Segments: Determine if there are any underrepresented segments within your target audience that are not receiving enough attention from your competitors. This can be a potential niche for your brand to focus on and gain a competitive edge.
5. Evaluate Unique Selling Points (USPs): Identify your brand’s USPs and understand how they differ from your competitors. Leverage these unique aspects to create a distinct brand voice that sets you apart.
6. Create an Action Plan: Based on your analysis, develop a clear action plan on how to adjust your brand voice to take advantage of the identified opportunities.

This may include:

• Emphasizing different values or emotional appeals that resonate with your target audience and fill gaps in the market
• Adopting a unique tone or style of communication that differentiates you from competitors
• Focusing on underrepresented segments within your target audience to gain a competitive advantage

4. Choose Your Tone and Style

Your tone and style should be consistent across all channels and platforms. Consider your brand’s personality and how you want to communicate with your audience. Do you want to be authoritative, friendly, or playful?

Different Brand Tones and Styles

Authoritative

An authoritative brand tone conveys expertise, trustworthiness, and professionalism. Brands that adopt this tone aim to establish themselves as industry leaders and subject matter experts. An example of a brand using an authoritative tone is IBM, which emphasizes its technical knowledge and long-standing history in the technology sector.

Friendly

A friendly brand tone seeks to create a warm, relatable, and approachable image. Brands that use this tone often prioritize customer relationships and strive to make their audience feel comfortable and at ease. Mailchimp is a great example of a brand that uses a friendly tone in its communications.

Playful

Playful brands use humor, wit, and creativity to engage their audience and create a fun, lighthearted experience. Brands often employ this tone targeting younger audiences or those in industries where entertainment and enjoyment are key factors. Old Spice is a brand known for its playful tone, using quirky and humorous ads to attract customers.

Serious

A serious brand tone is typically employed by companies in industries where trust, credibility, and reliability are paramount. These brands focus on delivering clear, concise information without embellishments or distractions. For example, financial institutions like J.P. Morgan often use a serious tone to convey stability and professionalism.

Informative

An informative brand tone prioritizes the delivery of valuable, accurate, and insightful information to its audience. Brands adopting this tone emphasize their commitment to educating and informing customers. National Geographic is an example of a brand that uses an informative tone, providing in-depth knowledge about various topics.

Humanitarian

Brands that prioritize social responsibility and compassion use a humanitarian brand tone. These brands aim to connect with their audience on an emotional level by showcasing their commitment to making a positive impact on society. Patagonia is an excellent example of a brand that employs a humanitarian tone, focusing on environmental conservation and sustainability.

 

5. Create Your Brand Voice Guidelines

A brand voice guideline is a comprehensive document that outlines the tone, style, and language usage for a company’s communications across various channels. Creating such a guideline helps maintain consistency in messaging, reinforces the brand identity, and ensures that all communication aligns with the brand’s values and personality.

Investing in a brand voice guideline is crucial for businesses as it helps create a cohesive brand experience and build a strong connection with the target audience. It also ensures that everyone on the team is on the same page when representing the brand, eliminating confusion and potential miscommunication.

 

What to Include in a Brand Voice Guideline

A comprehensive brand voice guideline may include the following information:

1. Brand Values and Personality: Clearly define your brand’s core values and personality traits. This will serve as the foundation for the tone and style of your brand communications.
2. Tone and Style: Identify the desired tone (e.g., authoritative, friendly, playful) and style (e.g., formal, casual, conversational) for your brand communications. Provide examples and explanations to demonstrate how these elements should be implemented across various channels.
3. Grammar, Vocabulary, and Punctuation: Specify preferred grammar rules, vocabulary choices, and punctuation guidelines to ensure consistency in language usage. This may include industry-specific terminology, preferred sentence structures, and any unique stylistic elements that are characteristic of your brand.
4. Frequently Asked Questions: Address common brand-related questions and provide clear, concise answers to eliminate confusion among customers and ensure a consistent brand message.
5. Channel-Specific Guidelines: Explain how the brand voice should be adapted for different communication channels, such as social media, email marketing, or customer support interactions.
6. Examples and Templates: Include real-life examples of branded content and templates for various communication types to demonstrate the application of the brand voice guidelines.

 

Simple or Complex: Tailoring Your Brand Voice Guideline

The complexity of a brand voice guideline should depend on the nature of the brand and the extent of its communication channels. For smaller businesses with a narrower focus, a simple guideline as short as a single page may suffice. However, a more detailed and comprehensive guideline is often necessary for larger organizations with multiple product lines, a larger team, or a diverse target audience.

 

Integration with Overall Brand Identity Guidelines

A brand voice guideline can be included within the overall brand identity guidelines or as a standalone document. This decision depends on the company’s preference and the level of detail required in the guidelines. If the brand voice guidelines are extensive, keeping them separate from the overall brand identity guidelines may be beneficial for easier reference and management.

6. Train Your Team

Your entire team should understand and be able to implement your brand voice consistently. Provide them with the necessary resources and training to ensure they can effectively communicate your brand’s personality, values, and message. Regularly review and update your brand voice guidelines to keep everyone aligned.

Tips to successfully implement your brand voice across your entire organization:

1. Provide Training and Workshops: Organize training sessions and workshops to walk your team through the brand voice guidelines, offering examples and addressing any questions or concerns.
2. Create Channel-Specific Adaptations: Develop specific guidance on how to adapt the brand voice for different channels, such as social media, email, website content, and customer support interactions.
3. Develop Templates and Examples: Provide templates and real-life examples of branded content across various channels to demonstrate the application of the brand voice guidelines.
4. Promote Open Communication: Encourage team members to discuss brand voice-related challenges, share insights, and learn from each other’s experiences.
5. Assign Peer Reviews: Implement a peer review system where team members evaluate each other’s work for consistency with the brand voice, providing constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement.
6. Monitor and Analyze Performance: Regularly review and analyze the performance of marketing materials across all channels, identifying areas where the brand voice may be inconsistent or less effective.
7. Offer Ongoing Training and Support: Provide continuous training, resources, and support to help your team stay up-to-date with the brand voice guidelines and improve their skills over time.

 

For more on how to train your team on your brand voice, go here!

 

7. Consistently Apply Your Brand Voice

Your brand voice should be consistent across all marketing materials, including your website, social media, and advertising. This helps create a cohesive brand identity and reinforces your brand message.

Establishing Trust

A consistent brand voice helps establish trust with your audience by demonstrating reliability and professionalism. When customers encounter the same tone and style across all communication channels, it signals that your brand is dependable and maintains high standards. This consistency reinforces credibility, making customers more likely to choose your brand over competitors.

Evoking Emotional Connections

A well-defined and consistent brand voice enables you to evoke emotional connections with your target audience. By consistently conveying your brand’s values, personality, and story, you can create a sense of familiarity and resonance among your customers. This emotional connection fosters a deeper relationship with your brand, driving customer loyalty and advocacy.

Increasing Brand Recall

Consistency in your brand voice makes your brand more memorable, leading to increased brand recall. When customers can easily recognize and associate your brand’s tone and style with your products or services, they are more likely to remember your brand when purchasing. This heightened brand recall can directly impact your market share and overall brand success.

Building Customer Loyalty

Maintaining a consistent brand voice across all marketing campaigns contributes to building customer loyalty. When customers feel connected to your brand through a familiar and relatable voice, they are likelier to remain loyal and continue choosing your products or services. This loyalty results in repeat business and generates word-of-mouth referrals, further expanding your customer base.

 

In conclusion, a strong brand voice is a powerful tool that can set your brand apart from competitors and help establish a memorable brand identity. By following these seven essential steps, you’ll be well on your way to developing a brand voice that resonates with your target audience and drives success for your business.