When we think of a company’s personality, we inevitably jump to the brand voice they use. What is a brand voice? It’s the tone and voice you write in as your company or brand when you create content.
A brand voice helps readers and audiences identify your brand no matter what, across all of your platforms. The tone of voice you use on your company website, social media and your content should be consistent and reflect your brand.
You can think of your brand voice as a representation of your company. If you sat down and had a conversation with your brand, what would they sound like? Would they be cracking jokes and making quips, or would they be more formal and official-sounding?
Creating a brand voice can seem like a confusing process without much of a reward. In this blog, we’re giving you a crash course on the top three reasons a brand voice matters for your growth.
Why Is a Brand Voice So Important?
1. It Shapes Your Business’ Persona
The importance of a brand voice starts and ends with how you want to be seen by potential customers. You only get a stunning 10 seconds to leave an impression before a potential customer will leave for another website. So those seconds count. They really, really count.
Your brand’s voice reflects your unique value proposition—whether that’s your technology, price or customer service—without selling too hard. It also reflects your core values to shape a persona that stands in for your brand across your digital presence. This persona can be fun or authoritative; casual or formal. It needs to be authentic—just don’t try too hard or you’ll look out of touch.
Trust us—you want to avoid that.
If you craft a brand voice that effectively communicates what your company stands for and “who” it is, you’ll have a much easier time converting web visitors into loyal customers.
2. Your Brand Voice Speaks the Language of Your Audience
Your brand voice bridges the gap between you and your audience. Research shows that people connect with brands on an emotional level—59 percent of shoppers want to buy from a brand they trust. So if you want to connect with your audience, you need to speak their language first.
A trusted brand voice creates a loyal customer base. That should be backed up by a strategy for how you engage with potential and existing customers.
Time, place and intent narrow down what your brand voice should sound like to have a greater impact. If you want to primarily educate your customers, then it’s best to create content with a voice that exudes expertise and authority on the topic. If you want to connect with your customers on an emotional level, a warm and inviting voice would be more appropriate.
Need to find your voice? You’ll need to know:
- Your intent
- Your brand voice’s tone
At the end of the day, the voice you craft for your brand should reflect your company and what you can offer potential customers.
3. It Creates Consistency Across Your Online Presence
A consistent voice across your brand’s channels and content creates a polished and professional image. Audiences will engage and understand your brand from their first encounter, and they can get to know your brand from the content they enjoy. If someone enjoys your content and engages with it, then they might just become a customer in the future.
A memorable brand voice doesn’t have to absolutely roast people like Wendy’s Twitter account. It just needs to get your point across to audiences, showing them that your brand is worth engaging with. You really don’t need to go viral with a tweet to do that. You just need to provide insightful information your audience will enjoy and consume. Quality goes a long way for branding. Use your voice for thoughtful and impactful content.
3 Examples of Brand Voices Done Right
Target
Target is an example of a brand that tapped into what its consumers want. Not only have they been able to maintain a modern voice for their brand, but they also leveraged their fans’ love of shopping to engage them with the #TargetRun hashtag.
Ben & Jerry’s
Who doesn’t love ice cream? With such a fun product, Ben & Jerry’s brand voice reflects the excitement we all feel when digging into a bowl of ice cream.
Monday.com
Monday.com excels in making boring things like project management fun with bright colors and engaging content. At the same time, their brand voice is smart and to the point by offering solutions—fitting for a B2B software company.
TL;DR: Your Brand Voice Is Your Brand
Your brand voice stands in for your company across your digital presence. It can be a highly effective way of communicating with your audience, but it needs to be consistent and authentic. People will engage with content that speaks to them or solves a problem. Your task is to create that content and get it out there.
The key to creating that authentic voice is knowing your brand at its core. If you don’t know that already, dig deep into your company’s “why” and what you stand for. Why are you in business? What’s absolutely essential to your brand? If you have old notes from when you were first getting your company off the ground, dust them off and pull ‘em out. They’ll tell you a lot.
Answer those questions and your job is halfway done. The rest is a matter of time and consistency. The more you flesh out your brand voice, the more effective your marketing strategy will be to meet your business goals.
