How to Find your Brand Voice
When you think about a standout brand, what do you hear?
Is it the cockney accent of an insurance agency lizard?
Is it the unmistakable tenacity of a worldwide purveyor of sports apparel and accessories?
Or maybe it’s a fast food restaurant known for its sassy snapbacks.
Many of the brands we manage represent basic services that people use every day and aren’t afforded the luxury of being saucy and sassy.
Even so, having your brand voice articulated and documented provides a path for consistent communication and that is what will establish trust and set you apart from the noise of the internet.
What is Brand Voice and Why Does it Matter?
A brand voice is a company personified. It’s a brand’s opportunity to be unique and bring its brand strategy to life with words. Voice is important because it sets your organization, company or campaign apart from the clutter of the internet and gives people something to connect with.
Voice is your personality. And personality paired with your brand promise (what people can expect from you every time) is what shapes how people think about your brand.
I defer to one of the great poets and philosophers of our time, Dolly Parton, to underscore the value of personality.
“The [hair and the personality] helped build the whole Dolly deal, but it was my music that brought me out of the Smokey Mountains.”
Where to Start if You Aren’t a Gecko or Dolly
When we talk about brands, the conversation quickly turns to look and feel. It makes sense, colors and visuals are tangible place to start. Voice can be trickier to nail down if your brand personality isn’t over-the-top. Here are a few exercises to help you build your brand voice:
- Reverse engineer a brand’s voice and tone. One of my favorite warm-up exercises is to review a brand and reverse engineer its personality. This can be as extensive as you want it to be. A quick version is to review a social channel or campaign and pull out characteristics and traits that shape the voice and tone. If you have time, take a more holistic approach and review all of a brand’s touchpoints — from signage and hangtags to social media channels and website copy — and write down the common traits you hear.
- Pick a person in your organization that encapsulates your brand and describe them. Every organization has that person that is walking and talking proof of who your brand wants to be. Think about that person and write a profile for their personality. If you have brand voice and tone guidelines you can cross-reference the documented parameters with your profile to find opportunities and overlap. If you don’t have brand and voice guidelines, your profile will be an excellent starting point.
- Try on different vibes (er, voices). The Dictionary describes a vibe as “a person’s emotional state or the atmosphere of a place as communicated to and felt by others.” Part of building brand elements is architecting the feels. Look at your brand through an emotional lens to find the vibe that best describes who you are and who you want to be.
- Create three distinct options. This is a block and tackle approach to brand voice. Create options for your voice to pair with options for tone. Make a case for each of the options and give people within your organization an opportunity to react and provide feedback. Hot tip: Choose your focus group wisely.
- Build a this not that framework. Articulating what you are and what you are and what you are not is a failproof formula for voice and tone guardrails. The sweet spot for your brand’s personality lives at the intersection of this exercise. As an example, at SiteCrafting we are experts, unassuming and smart, and we are not snobby, self-deprecating or pretentious. This is how we bring through a voice that is confident, humble and approachable in all of our marketing and communications.
Creating Opportunity for Connection
Communicating with your audience in ways that engage and differentiate is an important pathway to creating meaningful engagement because it helps people understand who you are and clearly understand how your brand aligns with their personal values, beliefs and philosophies. Applying voice with consistency is a shortcut to emotion and ensures people know what to expect when they engage with your content.
Defining your brand personality is a brave and honorable endeavor. We hope this post helps you review, create or refresh your brand voice.
May the power of Dolly Parton and your favorite brands be with you.
