How do you communicate with the audience to stand out from the competition, convey your brand’s values to it and win consumers’ trust? To do this, the company needs to have a well-established, unique, and appropriate brand voice that will provide a positive image of the company in the media. What is a brand voice, and how to create it? Let’s just analyze it in this blog.
What is a brand voice?
Most marketers refer to the English concept of “tone of voice” as the voice of the brand. If you consider it from this point of view, it can be said that the voice of the brand is a set of stylistic and intonational characteristics that you use when communicating with your audience and, in general, with the information space. Ideally, this is the language that your target audience also speaks. It helps to adapt to it, to become understandable and close to the company for its customers.
Brand voice is a very broad concept that includes many aspects. For example, it regulates what you can write about in your social networks and what you can’t, what words and phrases you can use in communications, what topics you can joke about, and in general, whether you can joke and use humor.
Another concept related to the tone of voice is the tone of communication. Some people think that it is the same with the voice of the brand; someone thinks that tonality is a part of the voice, while others single it out as a separate concept.
And here lies the difference between the two concepts. The overall style is the voice of the brand; it remains the same in all communication channels. However, the details – the tone of communication – can change at different sites.
What is included in the voice of the brand?
It is difficult to make a universal list of all components of the brand voice because this concept covers too many elements. But the main ones can be identified. Here they are:
- Stylistics in the company’s written communication: posts on social networks, articles on the website, press releases, advertising banners, email newsletters, etc.
- Topics that the brand is willing to talk about with the audience: the products themselves, culture, social issues, etc.
- The general style of personal communication with customers: how sellers talk, how to support service responses, and how SMM managers respond in social networks.
- Brand words, own slang.
- Humor: acceptable or not, how it can be, what topics can be joked about, and how.
How to create a brand voice
To create a recognizable and, most importantly, effective brand voice that will resonate with the target audience and help shape the desired image of the company, follow four recommendations of Obiyan Infotech experts:
1. Start from the overall brand concept
The voice should not contradict the values and mission of the company; it should follow them. If, for example, you have an IT project involved in innovations and technologies that will change the world for the better, it will be a mistake to use a boring official voice and use clericalism and marketing techniques from the middle of the last century.
So, if you claim to be an advanced and creative company, you must live up to this image in all your communications. Sincerity is also important for successful communication. If you write and speak in established patterns, the client will not distinguish you from dozens of other similar firms. And if you are honest with him, he will trust you.
Therefore, answer a number of questions for yourself: what values does your brand have, what is its global mission, what associations should it evoke among consumers, what is its peculiarity and uniqueness, and what are your main characteristics? And after answering these questions, start developing the brand voice.
2. Know your audience
You must be clear about who these people are, what they want, and why they buy your products or competitors’ products. How do they choose what is important to them and what they don’t pay attention to? Conduct marketing research for this purpose, and observe what your customers write about on social networks and in specialized groups/forums. You can also rely on Obiyan Infotech experts for conducting comprehensive marketing research and analysis!
What topics do they care about? Do they have professional slang? How do they communicate with each other? What media, bloggers, and opinion leaders attract their attention and inspire confidence? Knowing all this information, you will be able to develop a unique brand voice that will definitely hit the target audience.
3. Study the competition
See how your competitors communicate with customers: in what tone, on what topics, on what platforms, and in what format. Find their weaknesses: maybe somewhere they are rude in the comments, somewhere they ignore user questions, they don’t work out the negative on the network, they don’t conduct social networks at all, or they do it wrong. Learn from their mistakes and adopt effective techniques from them. But in no case do not copy or adapt them to your own image.
4. Create a guideline
Now it’s time to document your brand voice if you haven’t already done so in your company’s brand book. Prepare this document and write in detail in it:
- who are your customers;
- what is your personality;
- what associations should you evoke;
- what associations you should not cause;
- what style of writing and communication do you use on different platforms (with examples)
- general rules for creating texts for communication: taboo topics, taboo words, etc.
Give this guideline to your marketers to use in all external communications.
Brand voice is a set of stylistic characteristics that a company should adhere to when communicating with customers, competitors, and the media. Rely on Obiyan Infotech experts to create an amazing brand voice for your business that is needed to stand out from the competition, gain the trust and loyalty of the audience and build a long-term relationship with it.
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