Don’t write one more marketing message without it
Being the savvy entrepreneur you are, you know how essential a consistent voice is to your business success. Your brand voice—the personality of your business—is one of the most important pieces of the brand identity puzzle that you need to document in a brand voice guide. Ideally from day one.
A lot of business owners struggle with this. Either because it doesn’t feel that important, or because it seems like a waste of time. After all, if it’s just you, your voice is obvious, right? But are you keeping it consistent? Do you always use the same voice, the appropriate tone, and the right language across every marketing channel? I bet if you don’t have a guide; the answer is no.
Creating a brand voice guide doesn’t have to be complicated. But it needs to be done right. By establishing a tone of voice and writing it down, you have guidance for all your messages, both written and spoken in every customer interaction.
Consistency in your voice is key to creating trust and authority with your consumers and target audience. And it will save you time and money by ensuring everyone on your team, including new and outside hires (*cough* freelance writers), can be easily and quickly on-boarded.
Whether you’re a small business owner, a solopreneur, or an aspiring social media influencer with a personal brand, the same principles apply to creating a consistent brand voice.
You’ll need to identify your values, purpose, and goals to be as authentic as possible.
Lay the foundation for your brand voice
Set the stage for discovering your brand voice by asking these essential questions of your business:
- What are our business values?
- What are our long-term goals? What does success look like?
- Who is our audience? Do we have multiple audiences?
- What is our purpose? Do we educate, engage, inform, enable, sell, delight or amplify?
- How do we stand out from the competition? What makes us different?
PRO TIP: Struggling with this? Ask a friend to use these questions and “interview” you. They can give you feedback and help you brainstorm as needed.
If your brand were a person, who would they be?
Once you’ve laid the groundwork with the “interview” exercise, you can start sorting out your brand voice, or persona. Think of your business like a person and create a character.
Let’s start at a high level. Which of these 4 major categories describes your brand’s persona? And yes, you can be neutral in a couple.
Is your brand:
- Funny or serious?
- Casual or formal?
- Irreverent or respectful?
- Enthusiastic or matter-of-fact?
Stand out from the crowd
Now you’ve got the basic building blocks of your brand voice/persona. Start thinking of more unique characteristics. Which adjectives from each category best describe your brand?
For instance, if your persona is funny, decide what that looks like specifically for your business. Is your brand funny in a sarcastic, witty, or comical manner?
Brainstorm as many as you can and then try choose 3-5 that resonate most. This will be your brand voice. But don’t scrap the rest just yet. You can use them to help describe your tone later.
Examples of famous brand voices:
Dove–empowering, uplifting and supportive.
Harley Davidson–confident, bold and aggressive
Tiffany–witty, elegant and classy
Mailchimp–clear, genuine and humorous
The brand worksheet I’ve created for you includes a list of 210 adjectives to help get your creative juices flowing!
Your tone says it all
Once you’ve established your brand voice, you’re ready to develop your tone by digging into what each adjective really means to you.
Take each voice characteristic and describe what you are, and just as importantly, what you are not. For example, Mailchimp describes their brand of funny as a “dry sense of humour”, which, to them, means “straight-faced, subtle and a touch eccentric”. Then they go a step further and identify as “weird but not inappropriate, smart but not snobbish” and so on.
Once you know what your tone of voice sounds like, think about how you might change that tone in different situations. Your voice will always be consistent, but your tone is the emotional inflection that fits the purpose of a specific message, and you will need to adjust it in various situations.
Think of common scenarios, such as customer greeting, purchase confirmation, and negative consumer feedback, and consider how your tone would change in each scenario while maintaining your consistent voice.
Create the ultimate resource
Now you’re ready to get specific with the language in your brand voice guide for all of your content creation.
List out as many words as you can think of that your brand would be comfortable using in writing. Keep this as authentic as possible. If you would use the words in everyday conversations, you’re probably on the right track. You can use examples of content from other companies you admire for inspiration, but remember that the idea is to develop a voice that is unique and distinct for your brand.
Here’s an example: Dove uses affirmative language and words like confident, gorgeous, beautiful, caring, and so on.
Next, list out as many words as you can think of that your brand would NEVER use. These are words that make you cringe. Anything you can’t say out loud because you immediately want to take it back should go on this list.
Using our Dove example: Dove avoids over-the-top words like fabulous, astonishing, stupendous, etc.
Obviously, you can’t possibly list everything that you would or wouldn’t include in your marketing messages. But if you have plenty of examples, your guide will do its job and help anyone who writes for you to determine what’s on-brand, and what’s completely off-brand.
This piece solves the brand identity puzzle
Establishing your brand voice (and tone) should be one of the first things you do when you start a new business. If you’ve been operating without this in place, move it to the top of your to-do list!
Once you’ve established your voice, everything becomes easier and you can present your brand consistently from your website to advertisements to social media. Don’t market without this.
Still feel overwhelmed and wish you had a bit more guidance? Let me know; I’d love to help you!
