Creating a brand tone of voice isn’t as easy as putting pen to paper. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a small business owner or a copywriter, nailing your brand’s tone of voice is imperative if you want your target audience to trust you and engage with your messaging.
If you get the tone wrong, your audience won’t believe in your brand values, they may not understand your humor or worse, be offended by it!
By following key steps, businesses can develop a tone that reflects their values, builds trust, and strengthens brand identity across all communication channels.
7 Steps to Finding Your Brand Tone of Voice
Following these steps will help you communicate with your potential customers on an even deeper level, establishing you as a trustworthy and reliable brand.
This list aims to give you a step-by-step guide to help you define a distinct tone of voice that aligns with your brand’s values and appeals to your target audience.
Define Your Brand’s Core Values and Personality
Your brand’s tone of voice should reflect its core values (innovation, trust, creativity) and its personality (playful, authoritative, empathetic).
These values form the foundation for how your brand “speaks” to your potential customers.
A consistent tone builds trust and strengthens the emotional connection with your audience by reinforcing what your brand stands for.
For example, Tesla prides itself in being innovative and forward-thinking. Apple is renowned for being slick and sophisticated whereas Mailchimp is quirky, artsy and more conversational.
So remember, you do you! Everyone else is taken.
Understand Your Target Audience
Conduct thorough research to identify your audience’s preferences, demographics, pain points, and communication style.
Knowing your audience helps you tailor you brand’s tone to resonate with them effectively.
A study found that 88% of US consumers want to engage with brands that are setting new standards and a further 56% said they feel more loyal to brands who “get me”.
If that isn’t a good enough reason to deep-dive into your customer’s soul, I don’t know what is! Think of your potential customers as the partners of your dreams – get to know everything about them and how to communicate with them.
Conduct a Competitor Analysis
Review how competitors in your industry communicate. Identify gaps or opportunities where your brand can stand out by adopting a different or more defined tone. You can use SEO tools like SemRush or MOZ.com to help you do this.
A distinctive tone differentiates your brand from others, making it more memorable and setting you apart in a crowded market. Don’t be afraid to look at what other companies do well – you may realize that you can do it better, or it can highlight gaps that your tone of voice can fill.
Define Your Communication Style
Choose a specific communication style that defines your tone of voice (e.g., formal, conversational, witty, informative).
Create a tone of voice style guide ranging from professional to casual or fun, based on what’s appropriate for your brand and the marketing channel that you’re using.
Do you want to sound like a supportive best friend, or your customer’s wise-old uncle?
A clear tone and style will help build an emotional response, such as trust or excitement and will likely keep you customers coming back for more once a trustworthy relationship has been established.
If you want to learn more about customer retention strategies, click here.
Create Tone of Voice Guidelines
Develop a comprehensive guide that outlines your brand’s tone of voice rules, with examples of how to communicate on different social media platforms and marketing channels (website, Instagram, TikTok, emails).
Include dos and don’ts, words to use and avoid, and writing style preferences.
A tone of voice guide ensures that your team maintains a unified, recognizable voice, improving the overall brand experience across all customer touchpoints. It also links to point 6!
Consistency is Key
Start by identifying your industry standards and experiment with small tone variations to see what resonates with your target audience on which platforms and communication channels.
For example, are you a law firm? If so, LinkedIn may work for your formal tone of voice over X or Instagram.
Or, if you’re an innovative tech company, platforms like X and witty emails may work better for your brand’s tone of voice. Whatever you decide, stick to it!
According to research conducted by SalesForce, 87% of consumers want a consistent tone and brand experience across channels. This includes branding, imagery, and tone of voice.
What gets measured gets improved!
Experiment with different tones in various types of content and measure audience engagement, feedback, and sentiment. Read more on social listening here.
Run A/B testing with different tones in content like emails, social media posts, or paid ads and then measure audience engagement, feedback, and sentiment. You can track and make notes on your audience’s reactions, refining your brand tone of voice accordingly.
Testing allows you to fine-tune your brand’s tone based on real-world reactions, ensuring your communication feels authentic and relatable to your audience. ‘Test and Learn’ is a drumbeat that marketers can’t avoid.
Without measuring what works and what does not work, there is no way to benchmark and improve for even greater success!
Align Your Marketing and Business Plan
Your brand’s tone of voice directly shapes how your target audience perceives your morals, values and beliefs. A consistent and well-defined tone helps establish an emotional connection with your potential customers which, when sprinkled with trust and garnished with brand loyalty, you guessed it, is a recipe for long-term success.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Brand Tone of Voice
What is a brand tone of voice, and why is it important?
A brand’s tone of voice refers to how its personality and values are communicated to its audience. It’s important because it shapes how customers perceive a brand, creates an emotional connection between a brand and its audience, and ensures brand consistency across all platforms, helping to build trust and loyalty. You can read more about increasing customer loyalty here.
How do I identify my brand’s tone of voice?
Start by defining your brand’s core values, personality, and target audience. Analyze existing content to identify engagement patterns, conduct competitor research in order to differentiate yourself within your market and test, test, test! Write in different tones and styles to see what resonates with your audience.
