In branding, people generally pay attention to how the brand looks visually, from the logotype to the color, shape, and design of the brand. An issue that is usually hidden from the eyes of both customers and managers is the brand voice. With the colorful presence of social networks and its significant role in digital marketing, brand voice is a blue ocean that few businesses have used to create their own distinction.
Even if you are not familiar with this term, you have definitely seen that a company that sells sports products adopts the world view of an athlete, uses the vocabulary and tone of a relatively professional athlete, and dresses like them. And in a special way, it gets closer to its target audience.
The problem is, without a unique brand voice, you’ll be drifting away from what you deserve.
In this article, I am trying to address the important topic of brand voice and talk to you about ways to improve and promote brand voice. Hope reading this article is useful for you.
Table of Contents
What is the brand voice?
Brand voice is the distinctive personality of the brand in its communications. Imagine you are invited to a dinner party and you are chatting with others. But one person stands out, because in storytelling, tone and expression work in a distinctive and unique way, and this gave him a personality to create a memorable experience for others.
This makes you vividly remember one person from that whole party and when you are asked about that night, you immediately think of him.
Now, if you consider that party as a competitive business environment, who do you think is a special person in that industry? If your brand was a character, what would it be like? How could your brand attract the attention of others?
Actually:
Brand voice is all the elements that customers and audience remember you when they see it.
Why is brand voice important?
Why should you care about your brand voice? Why not post anything anywhere and use your own style in different spaces in different ways.
The truth that cannot be hidden is that digital marketing has a very competitive landscape. It is full of voices from different brands and people. Although you can stand out to some extent through the visual content, logo or unique features of your product, the style of your presence in the market and the content you publish are as important as the time and money you spend on designing your logo. have spent
Brand voice helps you stand out from the crowd. According to Sprout Social Index, customers who participated in the research had interesting reasons why some brands stand out more than others.
In the meantime; 40% of customers told specific content, 33% distinct personality and 32% compelling story.
In all these dimensions, the voice of the brand plays a very colorful role. The truth is that without a distinctive brand voice, you cannot have a distinctive personality.
By content, we mean not only pictures or videos. This topic includes the words that we hear from the brand on different websites and social networks.
It should be noted that the same research identified why brands refuse to follow social media. According to reports; 45% of customers mentioned irrelevant content. Content that conforms little to what we expect from the brand may occur.
Finally, brand voice is important because it can differentiate you from other competitors. Brand awareness reaches its maturity when the customer can identify you just from the style of the content or remember you when asked to name three brands in a certain industry without thinking!
Now let’s take a small test of ourselves! Name three sports shoe brands without hesitation?
5 important points for creating and developing a brand voice
1) Document everything
Just like your marketing strategy, your brand voice should be accompanied by documentation. Unless one person has the task of managing all communications and marketing at the same time!
Brand voice document is important because it makes every person who becomes a member of your collection be able to leave an impression of the brand in his style and performance. The brand voice is like a pillar, the structure of media and content activities of your business. This document should start with the core values and missions of your organization and cover with the characteristics of your organization. Other components of this document are common words, tone, slogan and most importantly your examples.
2) Assess your brand voice
At every stage you need to evaluate yourself, look at your current connections and make sure you have used all the examples well and know your strengths and weaknesses and other top brands in your field.
In this section, you may find that your brand’s voice is inconsistent with others or does not follow a thematic unity due to the use of different publishers and writers. To maintain the framework, you need to pay attention to how your target audience behaves, how they speak and how they communicate with others on different levels.
These metrics will show you where your brand voice stands and what activities it should do to reach its ideal.
3) Know the persona of your audience
Another way to build and develop a brand voice is to see who your main audience is.
The important thing that you should pay attention to in the meantime is not to stray away from the current activities of your brand. You want to convey your voice to the audience in a real way and not in an apparent way and out of the task.
4) Find your tone
Brand voice is what you say and brand tone is how you say it. Your tone may vary between audiences, so it’s a good idea to document when you use different tones in certain situations (refer to tip 1).
Your tone when introducing a new product is definitely different from your tone when praising or resolving a customer’s complaint. Identify common scenarios your business may face and document clear responses in a specific tone for yourself and other team members.
5) Review and adaptation
Building and developing a brand voice is not a one-time endeavor. Rather, you should revise your brand voice at designated times and also during important events that change your company’s marketing strategy. Without constantly reviewing your brand voice, you run the risk of becoming outdated or out of touch with current events.