We all know branding combines various elements, but have you heard of brand voice? Join us as we deep dive into brand voice, its characteristics, and best practices to help your business stand out in your niche and strengthen your brand identity.
Let’s dive into the three categories that our blog is divided into:
What is Brand Voice?
How we communicate with each other is in various forms. Everything boils down to how the listener hears your message, from the tone of your voice to the slang and accent.
That applies to both the corporate and personal settings. For you as a business, it’s essential to determine how to say your message and make sure it connects with your audience.
A great example would be using hashtags like TGIF or TBT and directing your post to millennials and gen z. But if you’re targeting an older age group, those hashtags will fall on the wrong audience and have a miscommunication.
We want to avoid that, so establish your brand voice. As a business, you must sound professional but relatable and have authority on the subject you want to tell your target market.
Your one-of-a-kind brand voice does precisely that. With industries and niches getting saturated by emerging businesses daily, you need to protect your brand and establish that you are what your customers want and need.
How you communicate matters, so to create the best brand voice for your business, let’s learn about the elements and tips.
Elements that Create Brand Voice
Communication is multifaceted. You need to know which parts to work on to make it effective. Let’s use the example above again.
The generational differences of your audience. You need to identify your audience to shape your brand voice.
For Gen Z, the tone they love is when you sound personal like you’re talking to them one-on-one. You’re having a conversation with a friend.
Your tone must be straight to the point with no BS for Millennials. But you must also sound clever and know what you’re saying, or they’ll eat you alive.
Do you see how brand voice will affect your overall branding? And like any part of your marketing scheme, your agent has features.
Get to know them right here. While scouring the internet, we found four you need to set for an influential brand voice.
Character
The feeling of your brand voice answers who you are to your market. It’s the unique mascot or spokesperson your audience may identify with, much like Ronald McDonald or Wendy herself.
It’s the personality you tell your market about; are you going for a cute vibe? Or maybe you want to be conversational yet come across as knowledgeable about your niche.
That’s food for thought when you’re thinking about your character.
Purpose
As the name suggests, the words you use need to have intention, a straightforward brand message paired with flowery words that your market understands.
There are usually three types of forms you can use to shift your brand voice:
- Sales
- Engagement
- Informing
Let’s say you want to encourage sales, so you’d have a CTA saying, “Grab Yours Here” or “Join/Subscribe Today and Don’t Miss Out….” These are examples to help you prompt your reader to action.
Or if you want engagement with your market, you’d add to your caption something like, “Comment your favorite___ below. We love to hear from you.” This type of voice tells your market that you want to talk with them and gives a personal feeling that people love.
For informing, you could tell a story or have a ‘food for thought type of tone. Make your market feel like the information you’re giving is something they need to know, “Here are ___ facts about (your product or niche).”
That type of voice allows you to appear knowledgeable and believable, and you hook the interest of your audience because they’re entertained and learn from you.
Syntax
Second last, we have syntax, a.k.a. the language you use to communicate with your audience. This portion refers to the words you use to talk to your market.
From formal to informal speech patterns to jargon and slang that only you, your customers, and your fellow business people can understand. An example could be what we mentioned about TBT or #TGIF.
Throw Back Thursday and Thank God It’s Friday aren’t terms everyone knows about. So be careful to use words and phrases that your market would understand.
Tone
Lastly, we have how you sound to your market. It’s different from character since your brand voice changes depending on the situation.
Let’s say you’re accepting an order. You could use terms like “Hi, bestie, here’s the invoice for your order. Please double check…” You sound close and happy to how your customer that their order is noted, and you want them to confirm if it’s right.
But when addressing your customer’s concerns, and they’re a Karen, your tone would go for a more authoritative yet empathetic style like “Hi bestie, we’re sorry you feel that way about your order. But we checked with our data, and what you’ve said about the delay does not add up….”
Here is some food for thought pairings for your tone:
- Knowledgeable but not Condescending
- Friendly but Formal
- Cute but not Cringe
- Funny but not Crass
The four elements that make up your brand voice may differ per situation, but the perception you’ve built around it stays. An excellent way to do that is through emotional design since it has visual and auditory content for your brand voice.
It also helps create the best impression for your business, that’s great for the 7 seconds your customer takes to make one of you.
Tips for Creating a Unique Brand Voice
Now let’s dive into the steps you can take to make your brand voice more recognizable to your target market. We need to make them feel that you’re different.
- Visualize Brand Persona and Audience
- Pinpoint The Purpose of Your Content
- Glossary of Unique Terms and Definitions
- Adapt to Your Audience
- Consistency Lessens Misunderstanding
1. Visualize Brand Persona and Audience
Give a face to who you are talking to; it helps to visualize who you want to become so you and your team are on the same page.
To help you plan better, here are some guidelines for you:
- Fictional Name
- Age
- Personality
- Interests
- Dislikes
If you want to give your persona a more defined personality trait, consider incorporating insights from the 16 Personalities Tests. You can also look at Carl Jung’s 12 Archetypes, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, to help you create a brand persona that fits your business. After that, you must determine your target audience: Gen Z, Millennials, or both.
You can look back at the first part of Elements that Create Brand Voice for the tone both generations like. You can also base it on specific ages, like Young Adults (20-30) to Adults (30- 45).
As long as you can pinpoint who you are and who you want your message to reach, your brand voice will start to take shape.
2. Pinpoint The Purpose of Your Content
Next, we have the WHY you want to communicate with your market. Where is your content going to appear?
Think about that to help you plan how to sound on your posts. Always look back to the elements of brand voice to assist you in this area.
But here are some keywords to remember for your posts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and others:
- Active = Sales
- Knowledgable with some Jargon = Informative
- Conversational or Friendly = Engagement
3. Glossary of Unique Terms and Definitions
Whether it’s animating your posts or blogs for your website, make sure you have terms that are yours.
Take a look at Spotify. They often use humorous words with a friendly tone to connect with users. For example, look at Spotifycore or Streambait pop. These terms describe hit playlists like Chill Hits or Alternative Beats from Spotify or other music streaming services.
You can also look at Apple as an example with their use of AirDrop or other Apple-related products. They have their own words to describe their products.
You can make yours too. Doing so allows you to create content that resonates with your market.
4. Adapt to Your Audience
This part is tricky since we don’t want you to lose your identity as a business. But some specific words and platforms resonate with your audience better.
And you have to pair your visuals with such words. Let’s say you’re doing a giveaway. You must decide if you’re going with a still image, short video, or animated post.
Then pair that we a caption that goes with your brand voice to produce sales. With that picture in mind, you can start to plan the tone and words you’ll use.
5. Consistency Lessens Misunderstanding
Lastly, we cannot emphasize being consistent enough. Whether it’s a work email to a product description on label design, you need to give specific words and tones that stay true to your brand persona.
Whether digital or print marketing, make sure both sound like your business would say it. Let’s say it’s your greeting on your Instagram post.
You could go niche centered with, “Hey ___ lover! We have a sale going on right now. Don’t miss it!” In turn, all your posts that pertain to niche-related topics and announcements could have that same vibe with a tweak on how you present them to keep them fresh. Implementing a robust brand asset management system can significantly streamline the process of maintaining brand consistency across all platforms, enhancing your brand’s voice and presence.
It also lessens misunderstandings since your market can’t accuse you of returning to your word unless you’re mentioning a rebranding.
Stand Out with Your Brand Voice Today!
There you have it, a guide to uniquely branding yourself online through a brand voice. As the famous saying goes, communication can break or break a relationship.
Create a positive impression on your market with words and media design to further your business endeavors. You can hire a freelance designer to aid you.
Or you can customize designs through templates. From business cards to invoices and Facebook ads, you can experience designing the best fit for your business.
Establish your brand voice and tell the market that you exist today.
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Written by DesignCrowd on Thursday, May 25, 2023
DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.