What is a brand voice and tone?
In branding work, people often think about how their brand looks visually, from fonts to colors and design styles. What is sometimes overlooked is brand voice and tone. With the inclusion of social media in marketing efforts, your brand’s voice and tone has become more important than ever as a way to stand out from the crowd of digital chatter.
Voice: This describes your company’s personality. It’s consistent and unchanging.
Tone: The emotional inflection applied to your voice. It adjusts to what’s suitable for a particular piece or message.
Brand voice is the distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications. Who is your brand online? If your brand was a person, what personality traits would they take on and what would they actively avoid? What phrases and stylistic choices does your brand use on a consistent basis?
Why does it matter?
The digital landscape is crowded. It’s filled with chatter from brands and individuals alike. You can only stand out so much on the basis of your visual content, logo or product features alone. Your written content needs that same attention and consistency you give to the other elements of your brand presence. A survey suggests that brands stand out for memorable content (40%), distinct personality (33%) and compelling storytelling (32%).
How to define your brand voice?
Audit Your Current Tone Do an audit of the current content you have on your website and on your social networks. Are there any consistent phrases, emotions or descriptions you would label your brand as? How is it portrayed both visually and in words?
Define Your Audience Through Marketing Personas Many brands immediately dive into marketing without first understanding their many buyer personas. Your brand needs to know it’s buyers. What do they look like? How are they finding you? How do they like to be spoken to? What characteristics to they have in both personality and in buying habits? Understanding these key points can help you clarify your brand’s agenda.
Describe Your Voice Take time to pencil out three words that best describe your brand’s identity. Are you passionate, playful and punny? Serious, committed and resolute. Not only is brainstorming helpful for sparking new marketing material it can help in developing your brand as a whole.
Build Guidelines If you already have your brand standards, adding a list of do’s and don’ts of handling your brand’s voice and tone is a must have addition. These guidelines help build brand consistency when creating new collateral or having a multitude of team members working on presenting your brand to new clients, especially on social media where interpretation can be left to the audience.
Revisit and Revise It’s okay to revise and revisit your brand’s tone and voice as you develop as a brand or integrate new persona’s into your buyer’s funnel. We always suggest revisiting it alongside new collateral on a yearly basis to make sure it matches up to brand standards for consistency.
Content is not just about photos or videos. It includes words and graphics. How you present yourself is important to consumers. If you’re looking to find, revisit or review your brand’s voice and tone and need help, connect with us!
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