How to Develop a Brand Voice That Resonates with Your Audience
Want to have a standout business and shine like a gem in the market? Choose a unique brand voice for your company. Regardless of the size of the business, having a brand voice is a game-changing factor in improving brand identity and building a relationship with the audience. In the following paragraphs, we explain what a brand voice is, help you choose the right voice for your business, and introduce the best marketing agency for branding services in Canada.
What Is Brand Voice?
The written and verbal style of a brand is called a brand voice. In other words, it is the way a business introduces itself and communicates with its customers. A good brand voice is a unique, consistent one. When you have chosen the right voice for your brand, you should use it in all your platforms, such as websites, social media, emails, etc. Consistency is important in building a close relationship with your audience and gaining their trust.
Importance of Brand Voice in Marketing
A unique brand voice plays a significant role in maintaining the brand’s identity and relationship with its audience. Here’s why it’s so important:
1. It makes your business different from others.
A proper brand voice makes a company unique in the market. In a competitive market, where products and services are similar, a unique voice is what makes a company stand out.
2. You can express the personality of your brand.
Branding services for small businesses are important for expressing their personality and values. Moreover, they can tell their brand’s story to keen audiences.
3. It builds trust between your brand and the audience.
A consistent brand voice builds trust with your audience and changes them to your loyal customers. This may seem far-fetched, but when customers know what to expect from a brand, they tend to trust it more. Also, a distinct brand voice can create an emotional connection with the customers that doesn’t break easily.
4. You will be remembered.
If you choose your brand voice carefully, the customers can identify your brand through its tone, language, and style, even without seeing the logo or brand name. Being remembered in a high-competitive market is what drives more customers to your business.
5. It makes your brand uniform and consistent.
Use a consistent voice in your social media, website, advertisements, and even customer services to make your brand uniform. Make a mental note that a brand voice acts like a glue that connects all your communication channels together and gives shape to your brand.
6. It improves your marketing efforts.
If you run lots of marketing campaigns or use various strategies to increase your customers, a unique brand voice helps you improve your marketing efforts. A consistent and recognizable voice can attract new customers and retain the existing ones.
How to Find Brand Voice: a 6-Step Guide
6 Steps to Create a Brand Voice
So far, we found out what a brand voice is and why it is important. Now, follow these six steps to develop a brand voice that resonates with your audience.
1. Determine for whom you are writing.
The first and most important step in creating a brand voice is identifying the target audience. If you know who you are writing for, you can tailor your voice based on their interests, expectations, and needs. But how can you identify the target audience? The best two ways are 1) vast market research, and 2) receiving feedback from customers through interviews and surveys. These two methods give valuable data about what’s going on in the market, as well as the audience’s demographics, behaviors, purpose of purchase, and requirements.
2. Benchmark and study your competitors.
The next step is studying the competitors’ websites, social media, campaigns, and customer services to see what type of voice better works in your market. Reviewing and analyzing the rivals has three main advantages:
It helps find the gap in the market that your brand can cover.
You can find the keywords and phrases that are mostly used in your market.
You can get insight from other companies’ voices to create your own.
3. Define your brand’s values and personality.
A good brand voice is the one that aligns with the business’s personality, values, and goals. If they match, the customers will trust the brand and become loyal, lifelong customers. Eco-friendliness, adaptability, human-centricity, peace and pleasure, etc. are examples of brands’ values. Businesses that work on sustainable energies should choose a voice that expresses their eco-friendly views and visions.
4. Choose a voice that resonates with your audience.
Now, put all the above-mentioned data together to solve the puzzle: finding the right voice. It is suggested to write down five words that express your brand’s characteristics and goals. If you cannot find any word, think of your business as a person and ask yourself:
What is he/she wearing?
What does his hair and shoes look like?
What is her favorite food? Restaurant?
What is her favorite type of car?
What kind of movies or music does he like?
What are her friends like?
What is his favorite country to visit?
What type of trip does she like? Luxury ones or backpacking?
By answering these questions, you can identify your brand’s personality. If you have pictured it as a fun person who likes to travel with a backpack and listens to Pop music, you’d better choose a casual, humorous tone for your brand; but if you think of your business as a man with a tuxedo who drives a Rolls Royce and eats at a fancy restaurant, a formal, professional tone expresses your brand better.
5. Define a fixed structure for your brand voice.
A clear, concise guideline ensures that your brand voice is consistent on all platforms, even if several copywriters write for your brand. A good guideline helps the writer choose the right grammar and syntax, examples, and tone of voice.
6. Review and improve your brand voice regularly.
Sometimes the copywriters get far from the guidelines or forget to use the brand voice in some copies, which is totally natural. To avoid such problems, it is suggested to review your published material to make sure that they are consistent and correct. Although it seems like a lot of work, it will increase your brand reliability and will pay off in the long run.
Examples of Good Brand Voice
Apple, Innocent Drinks, Nike, MailChimp.
Here are some examples of successful companies that have chosen the right brand voice.
Nike
Nike’s brand voice is motivational and bold. It inspires people to overcome their obstacles, the exact thing an athlete does. Nike uses “Just Do It” consistently across all its platforms, from ads to social media. This has helped this company to capture the attention of both sportspeople and non-athletes .
MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing platform that helps small and large businesses run effective marketing campaigns. Its brand voice is informative, supportive, and funny. They use humor and a casual tone to explain complex concepts about email marketing in simple terms. This has made a powerful connection between them and their users.
Apple Inc.
Apple’s brand voice is minimalist and innovative. It reflects the brand’s focus on simplicity and elegance, not luxury, complex items. Apple uses this voice in its events, advertisements, website, and customer services. This has reinforced its brand identity and attracted millions of loyal customers throughout the years.
Innocent Drinks
Innocent Drinks is a UK company that produces juice and smoothies, with annual sales of more than £350m. One factor that made this brand successful is its unique, friendly, and playful brand voice. Innocent Drinks uses its voice in everything, from its product packaging to social media and website. Their labels often hold funny jokes and friendly messages, making their products feel approachable and fun.
If you want to be as successful as the above companies, click here and get a free consultation to develop your brand voice.
Conclusion
To sum up, brand voice is a powerful tool for having more loyal customers and standing out in the market. Choosing the best voice is challenging as you cannot change it every now and then; therefore, it is advised to seek help from marketing agencies who have the necessary expertise for creating a brand voice. 1st Class Agency is a full-service marketing agency in Vancouver, with extensive experience in designing a unique brand voice and identity. The marketing team at 1st Class studies your business thoroughly and decides which tone better suits your business personality. Click here to explore our branding services for a tailored brand voice strategy.
FAQs
What is more important when choosing a brand voice?
Clarity and consistency. Your brand voice should be clear, concise, and consistent; otherwise, it will harm your online reputation and reduce your credibility.
What are examples of brand voice?
Spotify has a friendly and casual brand voice that resonates with its target audience (millennials who love and value music). On the other hand, Harley Davidson has a strong, confidential, aggressive voice that shows its personality very well.
How do you get a brand voice?
The easiest and most effective way to create a brand voice is to contact a marketing agency, like 1st Class, to develop a professional one for you. The other option is to go through the 6-step process mentioned above to have a proper brand voice.
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