A company’s brand voice is reflected in the tone and content of its communications, from internal memos to big advertising campaigns.
But what makes a good brand voice? And how can you develop one? In this post, we offer a few tips that your business can use to improve its branding.
1. Know Your Brand and Audience
There are two key questions to ask when creating a brand voice:
- What are your company’s values and what image do you want to project?
- What do existing and potential customers think about and expect from your brand?
The first of these requires looking at any existing marketing campaigns and corporate values. You may also want to come up with three terms that best describe your business (e.g. ‘bold’, ‘innovative’, ‘friendly’) and base your branding around them.
The second question requires looking at how people respond to your brand and how competitors market themselves. You can then adapt your brand voice to appeal directly to your target audience.
2. Make It Individual
While you should look at what your competitors are doing, that doesn’t mean you should copy them! If your brand voice is exactly the same as every other company out there, you lose any chance of standing out from the crowd. By comparison, a good brand voice is always individual.
Think about what makes your company unique and how to differentiate your brand from competitors.
3. Test Alternatives
Whether you’re running your first marketing campaign or a major rebrand, don’t put all of your branding eggs in one basket right away. To begin with, it helps to have a few strong alternatives.
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You can then seek feedback on each approach. This could be from colleagues within your company, friends and family at home, or even via a focus group if you have the time and resources.
4. Brand Voice Guidelines
Once you’ve developed a brand voice, the key is applying it consistently. Make sure that anyone involved in marketing or communications is familiar with the style they should use. Creating a set of guidelines that anyone can check when writing for the company is a great idea, too.
5. Monitor Engagement
A brand voice is never ‘finished’. It needs to be reviewed and updated to reflect changes in your business. And to do this effectively, you need to monitor audience engagement.
Social media monitoring tools, such as Hootsuite, are invaluable in this regard. You can use them to get an overview of audience engagement on various channels, as well as other times your brand is mentioned online.
Remember, too, that engagement is a two-way street. Responding quickly and helpfully to inquiries on social media will inspire more brand loyalty than almost anything else.
Another key factor is not annoying your audience! Don’t bombard them with constant marketing on social media. And make sure your voice is genuine. Jumping on the latest meme, buzzword or hashtag might seem like an easy way to stay current, but it can be off-putting if not done well.