April 5, 2023
Generating Resonance: 4 Tips to Define Your Brand Voice & Message
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There is no other way to put it: it is branding that creates sustainable and successful businesses. The most popular and impactful companies are often those that grasp this concept.
However, when it comes to branding, most people focus on the visual aspects of a brand and try to nail everything from color schemes to font types and web design down. What is generally neglected, at least in the beginning, is the voice, tone, and messaging strategy of the brand.
A brand voice is essential for communicating a brand's personality to customers in a way that makes them feel connected to it and encourages them to engage with it. It is a brand’s voice that can communicate the brand’s culture and values to its target audience, ultimately influencing their perception of the brand.
The question is, how do you define a brand voice that will help your business rise above the murky media waters?
In this article, we’ll go over some of the best, most effective practices for building and optimizing a brand voice that resonates with your audience and review several exceptional brand voice examples from top companies to get your gears moving.
Let’s begin with the fundamentals.
Your brand voice represents your brand's personality through all its communication channels and marketing efforts. To sum it up, when it comes to saying the “right” thing in the “right” way, your voice serves as a guide.
There are many avenues through which you can express your brand voice, including, for instance, newsletter, website content, publications, logos, ads, and social media channels.
The voice of your brand speaks directly to your target audience and does not need to follow a particular style but should be consistent with your brand personality and principles - whether it's confident, witty, sophisticated, mysterious, caring, or playful.
Essentially, this is what makes your communications tick. Rather than just words or slogans, your brand voice is a way of expressing your values and connecting with your audience. Accordingly, a brand voice serves as a conduit for the brand's unique traits, all of which contribute to the development of a humane identity for the brand.
If a business owner wants their brand to be easily identifiable, then having a distinctive brand voice is essential.
In most cases, brand voice samples consist of multiple descriptive phrases combined to form a unique brand identity. For example, depending on the brand, the voice may be “strong and inspiring”, “businesslike and instructional ”, or “casual and humble”.
The first thing to do when creating your brand voice is to establish your core brand personality by defining your brand's vision, goals, and principles, and emphasizing how your brand stands out from the competition.
To be effective, the brand voice also needs to be memorable and easily identifiable in the following ways:
After that, when the company is ready to increase its engagement with customers, its executives can assess what type of audience they are engaging with. By doing so, the business will be able to deliver more useful content, choose the right communication style, and provide customers with what they need.
Reviewing your current communications is a good place to start evaluating and optimizing your voice. It is important to gather examples from all forms of communication in order to gain a good understanding of how the voice is currently expressed. There may be inconsistencies in your voice caused by different writers or the use of particular words more often than others.
Note: It’s a good idea to designate someone or an agency who maintains guidelines for the long term and evaluates soon-to-be-published content for voice consistency. It is also possible for the same agency to determine if legacy content (old blogs, web pages, etc.) is aligned with the company's voice.
There is a close connection between the two, but they’re definitely not the same. There are many successful businesses that devote a special part of their brand guidelines to the tone in order to ensure consistent communication. But while the tone can change in different contexts, a brand's voice remains fairly static.
Simply put, brand voice is what your company says, and brand tone is how it expresses it. Tones may also differ depending on the audience, which makes it a good idea to document when specific tones should be used.
Say, for instance, your company has news to deliver about the recent passing of a chairman or CEO. Surely, it wouldn't be appropriate to sound cheerful, would it? Or, if you’re announcing a new update or feature for your app, it may not be a good idea to sound too formal or grave.
Remember that the examples we made above are rather extreme and that your tone won't always differ so drastically from your signature voice. However, as a general rule, it will be easier for people to remember and recognize your approved tone of voice if it is as close as possible to your overall brand voice.
After clarifying the differences between the two terms, it's time to learn more about the significance of having a brand voice and message that resonates with your audience.
Consumers are always looking for unique brand experiences and products they can relate to. There are many ways brands can set themselves apart from their competitors, from what they stand for to their manufacturing process or the way they engage their audiences.
However, the best way to differentiate your brand is through your brand voice.
A survey of consumers conducted by Sprout Social found that some brands stood out more than others for a variety of reasons. According to the survey, 40% mentioned memorable content, 33% cited uniqueness, and 32% mentioned captivating storytelling. Newsflash: the brand voice plays an important role in all three of these areas.
Additionally, did you know that Crowdspring reports indicate that 90% of consumers expect the same brand experience on every platform?
It's easy to end up with a mishmash of tones and voices across your entire marketing environment if you aren't careful. If that happens, neither the content nor the language used will present a consistent image of your brand.
Without voice guidelines, user experiences can be confusing and alienating, particularly as products and companies continue to grow. Furthermore, brands without voice policies are likely to have trouble connecting with their customers.
Moreover, voice and, more specifically, its emotional resonance is highly influential and important. In fact, it can determine whether a customer chooses your company or your competitor's.
Having established the importance of brand voice, it’s time to review some tips for optimizing it.
Connecting with your audience is as simple as reflecting back a voice that's familiar and eminently clear to hear. You can learn a lot about what your consumers find “familiar” by noting what they say and how they interact with you.
You could also examine existing content to determine if there is a voice already present. Are there any voice traits that your top-performing blogs and emails have in common? If you could do anything differently going forward, what would it be?
It can be intimidating to conduct an audit, especially if you have a large quantity of copy and content. However, it's crucial if you wish to maintain a consistent tone of voice across your brand. You can sometimes find surprisingly valuable information in tone of voice samples as well.
Analyze where communications have been most effective, and determine if they are in line with your company's values.
Once you've defined your brand voice, you'll want to make sure everyone at the company uses it in everything they produce for marketing purposes. By doing this, you can ensure that your brand standards are met and every piece of client-facing content your company produces sounds the same (despite the fact that multiple people are writing the content and copy).
Ensure that the voice guidelines are accessible to anyone who is writing content for the brand. Among these are copywriters, creatives, advertising firms, developers, customer service representatives, and anyone else responsible for publishing content for customers.
You could even organize an event to explain the brand voice, respond to questions about it, and develop a plan for implementing it.
The content is alive, its voice and tone included. So keep in mind that your guidelines can't remain static; as your brand evolves, your guidelines will need to change, too.
The process of developing a brand voice does not happen overnight. Just like any other part of a company’s marketing strategy, it should be updated periodically, particularly during major branding changes and significant marketing events.
It’s recommended that you re-evaluate your voice guidelines every quarter, and make any necessary updates. Determine who is responsible for what and establish deadlines to ensure things are handled on time.
Brand voice both represents and conveys your core values and brand identity through the language you use. In other words, a brand voice says everything about a company's essence and delivery style, influencing every interaction with customers.
Moreover, identifying your authentic brand voice is the first step to increasing brand awareness, gaining customer loyalty, and increasing business profitability. Authentic voices are the hallmark of successful brands, and although they make it seem effortless, we know better.
JM&Co bridges the gap between your product, brand, website, and marketing. In a tone-of-voice brand development project, one of the most important things we do is refine a brand's message – or where it stands in the market – and then find creative ways to communicate it.
Using research and strategy, we help you define and convey the value of your business to increase customer acquisitions and growth.
Despite knowing that a brand voice is an important tool for enhancing your company's branding, it can be difficult to know where to start. The good news is that plenty of brand voice examples are readily available and can serve as inspiration for your own brand voice development, according to your own brand voice preferences.
Here below are a few examples of how strong brands have established their voices and how their business values are clearly represented to the public.
The Instagram accounts of Fenty Beauty are playful and sarcastic, just like those of its founder. It is well known that Rihanna possesses a lot of confidence, sexual appeal, and assertiveness. She doesn’t back down when responding to skeptics and bullies, and Fenty Beauty has done the same.
It’s also worth noting how Fenty Beauty's commitment to diversity and its use of social media to advocate its brand vision stands out from the competitors.
As Uber, one of the most well-known brands in rideshare, has a brand voice that is thoughtful and confident, making clear statements while targeting its audience. Moreover, the Uber brand voice guidelines include a range of examples (a before and an after) to show you just how the voice and tone matter.
You could also give users a simple way to grasp your voice by providing brief instructions, examples, or checklists like Uber does for its brand voice.
There is more to Tiffany than just baby blue; the brand has a highly recognizable and unique personality as well. The brand voice of this luxury jewelry industry giant emphasizes a clever and elegant brand voice that emphasizes the classic brand experience people associate with it. As a matter of fact, the iconic status of a brand relies heavily on customer resonance.
Tiffany & Co. has always stayed true to its brand values: originality, joy, love, and strength; and its marketing materials and copy reflect these values.
As you can see from Oatly's style, its satirical, humorous tone speaks directly to its target audience – the younger generation, striving to live a more sustainable life, disappointed by mainstream marketing channels.
There is no better example of what the tone of voice has changed into and where it is headed than Oatly.
It is no secret that the wildly popular and notorious party game, Cards Against Humanity, makes use of clever quips, absurdity, and dark humor to leave a lasting impression on past, current, and potential players.
There is a lot of competition in the digital landscape. Businesses and individuals clamor for attention continuously, making it increasingly difficult to have your voice heard. But a distinct brand voice can help you cut through the competition and provide your audiences with a unique, enjoyable experience.
A brand's voice is the genuine tone that makes your customers feel welcomed and satisfied. Remember that being consistent is important, but being flexible is just as important. Changing times can affect your company's objectives, which is why your brand voice document will always be a dynamic document.
When you have an idea of what you want, finding another brand with a similar voice can be helpful. You may be inspired to add elements to your brand messaging and voice that didn't exist before.
We may simplify our 'tone of voice' to simplify explanations and sales in today's wordy world. However, read the examples we've highlighted again and you’ll notice that they always go the extra mile and work harder to assert their voice. We can help you achieve the same goal; let’s talk.
The art is building the right growth campaign. The science is in the results.
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