In today’s time, a business is recognized by its brand voice. Have you ever noticed how people immediately guess when they listen to apple’s ringtone, Britannia’s ting ti ding, or any other brand’s jingle? Brand voicing is all of that and more to it.
Have you ever wondered if you don’t provide a consistent picture of your brand across all the marketing collaterals, you’ll end up creating ambiguity among your audience, which eventually leads to your abandonment? Companies that want to thrive in the long run must invest in establishing a brand voice that people can relate with. This also gives them an edge over their competitors.
Identifying a Brand’s Brand Voice
Let say a brand is a virtual person which some differentiating characteristics, and you’re unknown to him. Now how’ll you identify you’re interacting with the right person? Here the brand voice comes into the picture. It helps target audience, i.e., you to determine when it interacts with them
- Through emails
- On social media
- On a phone call
- In-person meeting
- Through a magazine
- Through other communication channels
A brand’s brand voice represents its overall personality. It sets the tone, values, and culture of the brand which the audience would perceive. This is why sports enthusiasts endorse brands like Nike and Puma. Also, why celebrities like Selena Gomez are the brand ambassadors of the beauty and haircare brand.
A brand voice makes the brand look more human and helps in portraying it as an industry expert. It also attributes to localizing the content and effectively implementing it across all marketing channels.
Hence, if you own a business and are looking to make your way to the top, you must have a brand voice.
Since you’ve gathered enough information about what brand voice and its importance, let’s see how can you create a brand voice that people resonate with?
Review Your Company’s Mission and Vision
First things first. Your personality should reflect your values, and your values should reflect in your mission statement. If you’re good at doing something, it should be a high starting point to incorporate that in all your marketing efforts throughout all the communication channels. For example, look at the mission statement of Mailchimp.
The mission statement clearly states that it empowers small businesses by providing innovating products and that it has won million hearts doing so.
This is why you visit any communication channel of the email marketing service; you’ll get a depiction of their brand voice and, i.e., warm and helpful.
Hence, you need to have a mission statement that connects your values to your brand. Jot down what values you hold? Are they reflecting in your mission statement? Are people able to gauge your brand voice from the mission statement? By pondering over such questions, you’ll be able to set the right brand voice in your mission statement.
Outline Your Brand Voice
While establishing a brand voice, it is essential to outline your variables. Big brands have a consistent brand voice, and that is why they are easily recognized and have a significant follower base. Remember the iPhone and Britannia example I gave in the beginning?
When your audience knows what information they’ll have on their feed and that it is similar across all communication channels, they’re likely to connect with you.
Research by sprout social says that 41% of people would unfollow a brand if it doesn’t share relevant information. The same report also shows that 57% of people are annoyed with too many promotions. The key takeaway here for you is to maintain a clear and precise voice right from the beginning. Or else, you’ll annoy, confuse or upset your audience which eventually will propel your abandonment.
Follow these points to have a clear brand voice, ask yourself, what does your brand portray?
Now, this is crucial. How do you want your customers to perceive you depends upon what do you put across for them to understand.
For example, Coco-Cola portrays experiences of joy and happiness. Hence, when a consumer sees a bottle of coca-cola, he/she immediately draws an analogy between coca-cola and happiness and gets tempted to purchase. So, you’re not buying a bottle of coca-cola, you’re buying an experience.
Similarly, if you look at Disney, it has outperformed its competitors by presenting a consistent brand image. Look at their social media pages or any Disney product; you’ll find a set tone, vocabulary, and value.
Incorporate Storytelling
A research conducted by GoodFirms in countries such as the US, the UK, Canada, Australia reports that social media affects all facets of their life. The same report also states that brand storytelling comprising of memes, videos, and images are the most shared form of content.
So, if you incorporate engaging and inciting stories in your brand voice, it will establish you as an authority, apparently giving you the required clicks and views. It is also an excellent method to outline a character for your brand.
Figure out what does your brand means to the audience. Does it bring a smile on their faces? Are they able to strike a chord with you? Does your brand take a stand about a natural calamity or social wrongdoing? Does your audience like it? When you have answers to all these questions, you’ll be able to outline your brand voice with more precision. And when you’ve drawn it, make sure that each content piece you write aligns with your brand voice.
For example, if you own an apparel brand that has a chic and quirky brand voice about which you want to spread the word on Facebook, you must write something which people find quirky and classy. Moreover, you need to maintain the same quirkiness across your entire communication channels.
If your Facebook posts sound quirky and Instagram posts sound serious, you’ll end up making your audience clueless, which is a big no-no.
Create a Brand Voice Chart
Once you’ve defined a brand voice, illustrate it with the help of a brand voice chart. It’ll be a crucial reference tool that ensures your content; both text and image are using the same voice consistently.
Creating a brand voice chart is simple. You need to take a few characteristics that define your brand and build a chart that portrays different attributes of your brand.
| Brand Voice Characteristics | Description | Do’s | Don’ts |
| Passionate | We’re passionate about our work | Use powerful words like ardent, zealous. Show your expertise in your niche | Use passive voice
|
| Quirky | We’re ready to take challenges and have an out of the box approach. | Be a wordsmith and use enticing statements. | Use jargons keep the audience remain clueless |
| Authentic | We’ll enumerate tried and tested actionable tools, tips and tricks that are | Be honest and direct. Hold yourself accountable for the information you’re putting out. | Give fake information Overpromise |
Please note that your brand voice chart isn’t a treasure hunt that you found and are done for life. Keep on updating as and when you bring more laurels to your name and face fiercer competition. Analyze the critical characteristics of your brand quarterly. Find out if any key components have been working better and the ones who have gone redundant and tweak your chart accordingly.
Keep a Tab on the Audience Engagement
Like I said before, each time you post an update, answer a customer’s query, show behind the scene photos, you’re pushing your brand voice. According to a report by oracle, Live Help, including Click-to-Call and Click-to-Chat, is among consumers’ top three choices for support.
This makes sense as people want their issues to get addressed as soon as possible. If you make people wait to talk to a representative on the phone call, they’ll move to your competitor.
Hence, you need to maintain the same brand voice while responding to a message or query. Listen and answer messages to engage with your audience and showcase your brand voice.
Here is a snapshot of the GoodFirms community where people share ideas and conversations about the things that matters the most to them.
Listening, answering, and monitoring your messages will help you to make a trustworthy relationship with your customers.
Are you proud of your brand?
With such a crowded market, it’s tough to stand out. Strikeout a unique brand image that personifies the values you hold up. Make sure you develop a brand image that does not only give you an edge but also is uniform throughout all the communicating platforms. Ensure that your audience perceives your brand in all the way you want to and that you are proud of it.
After all, before everybody else, you owe it to yourself! Be proud of your creation!
branding concept -DepositPhotos
