Creating and Using a Brand Voice for Your Business
Good marketers begin planning their campaigns by establishing overarching goals and setting benchmarks for their marketing efforts. Businesses looking to expand their reach will often include “increase brand awareness” as one of their primary campaign goals, but to truly be able to increase brand awareness, you have to establish a brand for your business.
Establishing a business does not automatically mean you have established your brand. The business is the actual organization that provides the goods and/or services to the customers, while the brand is the identity presented to the public that controls the perception of the business. Branding includes color schemes, aesthetics, mascots, and other elements that make the brand both memorable and recognizable to its audience.
Simply put, branding gives a business personality and a voice.
What is a Brand Voice?
When it comes to making a brand stand out, 40% of users studied for the 2020 Sprout Social Index attributed success in that area to posting memorable content, while 33% said it’s all about creating a distinct personality, and luckily, both of those can be achieved through the careful creation of a brand voice. A brand voice personifies your brand by allowing you to give it its own personality while communicating your brand’s message.
When you think of a brand voice, it would help to think of it as the voice you would want your customers to hear when speaking directly to your brand. This would include common phrases, tone, inflection, and purpose. It’s how your brand communicates through any channel whether it be in person (via customer service reps) or digitally (via social media platforms). Like any other voice, a brand voice can affect how your customers feel toward your business, so while you want it to be instantly recognizable, you also want it to be supplemental to the “why” of your business.
How to Create a Brand Voice
Whether you are starting from scratch or amending your current brand voice, it all starts with the “why, how, and what.” Why do you provide the goods and services you provide? How do you serve your customers? What are you offering that no one else does? This means that your mission and value statement will be key characteristics in your brand voice. For example, if your businesses’ mission is to educate children on the environmental impact of single-use plastics, your voice would likely take on a knowledgeable and informative tone.
Next, you want to look at the “who.” Who is your target audience? Your voice should be clearly tailored toward your audience to properly communicate your message and keep them engaged. Continuing with the previous example, if your target audience is children between the ages of 12 and 17, your voice should use phrases that would resonate with preteens and teenagers. While you wouldn’t want to talk down to them, you also wouldn’t want to make references to things that their generation is unfamiliar with.
Maintaining a Brand Voice
Maintenance of your brand voice is critical to establishing consistent branding. Your brand voice should be prevalent in all of your messaging across every channel. This means that everyone at your company, from your social media manager to your customer service representatives, needs to have the same understanding of your brand voice. When you use your mission and value statement as a basis for your brand voice, it makes it easier to keep your brand voice consistent through all levels of your business. A consistent brand voice will also help you maintain a positive overall brand perception. Read more about how you can maintain your brand perception and increase brand loyalty in our Basics of Brand Perception blog post.
If done right, a brand voice can help you attract new clients, communicate effectively with your current audience, and make your brand stand out in its industry. Need help crafting or perfecting your brand voice? Reach out to North Carolina Media Group today! There is no time like the present to get started.
