How do you grow a relationship with your audience? How do you make your readers excited to interact with your brand, and eager to return to your content?
Your unique brand voice governs the way that your brand communicates with your readers. That means all your blog posts, email newsletters, and website homepages. It sets the tone for every interaction and determines your audience’s impression of you.
Ensuring your company’s brand voice is well-developed, and accurately represents your values, is essential. But why does a strong brand voice matter?
Your brand voice is the touchstone for all new interactions with your audience, so it’s important you utilize it to build credibility and ensure you are easily recognized.
As you know, trust is everything.
It forms the backbone for your relationship with your audience. Without it, readers won’t feel comfortable interacting with your brand, and your painstakingly-crafted content becomes irrelevant.
You can do as much as you want to promote your content: spend loads on ads, post on social media, write guest posts, etc… But if your audience doesn’t trust you, none of that will matter.
Having a clear, consistent brand voice is critical for building trust with your audience. If your brand consistently holds the same tone, personality, and style throughout all your communication, your character becomes credible and recognizable.
Standing out from the crowd.
The internet is so full of businesses vying for attention, and with so much information available to readers, you must offer something unique if you want any chance of securing their interest.
By infusing your copy with a little character, and a distinct personality, you can cement yourself and your brand as memorable, easily-recognisable, and relevant in the eyes of your readers.
Don’t be afraid to share your opinions and personal perspectives – that’s what sets you apart from everyone else. Use your unique brand voice to present your unique disposition!
Many companies focus on making their visual branding elements (logo, colors, fonts) as attractive as possible, but forget to make their brand voice interesting.
Most of the time, your own brand voice will form naturally as you interact with your growing audience.
However, it’s important to ensure your brand voice has good bones that will accurately and consistently represent your brand and your values, and serve as a foundation for all your copy.
You can define your brand voice by breaking it into five parts. You check back with them later on and make sure your copy aligns with these core components.
Identity
Personality
Tones
Audience
Technical Components
Let’s break down each part:
Start by defining your company’s core mission, vision, and values—this is your brand identity.
Ask yourself:
Why did I create this company?
What impact do I aim to have on my audience/ what is my company’s mission statement?
What do I value as a business owner/entrepreneur?
What kind of approach do I have to work, and my business?
Brand identity is more than just a “why” though; it’s how you express those distinctive values through your practices. Identify what makes your brand different—whether it’s your unique approach to products, services, customer experience, technology, or pricing.
At Indie Brand Builder, we have several traits that define our values, but we can boil it down to these four basic qualities:
Collaboration
Independence
Clarity
Creativity
Authenticity
Every decision we make, from the content we create to how we structure our business, aligns with these core values.
For example, leaving space for creativity means a lot to us, so we always ensure our copy is clear, concise, and accessible to everyone so our customers can spend their time on what matters.
Your brand personality and tone go hand in hand.
Your personality is the component of your voice that presents your brand identity. You can think of it as a set of traits your brand has developed in response to your core values.
For all intents and purposes, your brand’s personality is your brand voice. Your brand identity and personality never change and remain a constant throughout all of your copy.
Your tone is the way you voice your brand’s personality traits, and can shift and change based on the situation. Your tone may differ from article to article, and be completely different on other channels or platforms (e.g. social media posts), just like how someone’s tone varies with their emotions in real life, but their voice remains the same.
If one of your core values is accessibility, your brand’s personality may prioritize traits like being considerate, and your tone may be gentle, clear, and easy to understand.
Consider what traits best represent your brand identity, and clarify how those traits directly affect what actions you take.
Identifying the right tone to align your desired message with your presentation can be challenging and often requires a good bit of intuition, paired with inside-and-out knowledge of your audience. Use tools like emotion and tone wheels for inspiration if you get stuck!
Your brand’s voice should be developed with solely your target audience in mind. Whether you are speaking to loyal, already-established customers, or new visitors, your message should resonate with a clearly defined reader.
Consider the intent of the audience for each of your posts, and adjust your voice to match their needs accordingly.
Creating a compelling brand voice involves defining specific grammar and style choices—much like the mannerisms that make a good impression believable. Your technical choices, alongside your brand tone, is where your brand voice becomes tangible and practical.
Key Elements to Define
Grammar and Style: Determine your preferences for punctuation, non-standard grammar, numerals, bulleted list formatting, and word choice. Consider how your brand voice sounds in your reader’s heads, and what impression the components of your writing give.
Common Phrases and Jargon: Define frequently used phrases, explain industry jargon, confirm spellings of copyrighted terms and slogans, and decide on the use of slang or swearing.
For many aspects, you don’t have to worry about anything other than the standard English grammar (unless you want to be extra specific.)
Analyze any existing content you have to establish these rules, or, if you feel your old content doesn’t align with your brand voice, restructure it and develop guidelines you can use going forward.
In today’s world, bland, soulless marketing campaigns are ubiquitous, making it crucial for brands to be consistent, unique, and recognizable.
Achieving that requires more than just a pretty logo, catchy slogan, or streamlined website (although those are important too.) Ensuring your unique, attractive brand voice remains consistent is pivotal if you really want to set yourself apart.
