What is A Brand Voice?
Take a moment to think about what your company would be like if it was a human. Would that person be funny? Serious? Caring? Do they use slang, or would their conversations be strictly professional? How old are they?
In other words, “who” is your company?
A brand voice conveys the personality of your company (Sprout Social). A well-crafted brand voice gets what is most important to your business across and supports your professional image and goals. We’re here to break down how to build one.
How To Build a Brand Voice
A brand voice’s foundation is built on the Three C’s: customers, core values, and culture.
Customers
Your customers (and potential customers) are the primary audience of each message your business puts out. Your brand voice should appeal to them in language, tone, and structure.
Let’s use the social media presence of Wendy’s as an example. Wendy’s has garnered widespread attention for their antics on Twitter, using a brand voice described as sassy and funny, and taking advantage of deadpan humor (Mashed). To the dismay of their competitors, Wendy’s also likes to roast people, like when they caught McDonald’s in error in 2017:
The goal of Wendy’s is to target Millennials (Business Insider), so taking a humorous approach to social media works well with their overall strategy. They diverted from their traditional content to uniquely appeal to their customers, and that sets them apart.
Core Values
Next, it’s good to incorporate your core values when thinking about what your brand would say. You can then tailor calls to action to your values.
Assume you are a lawn care provider, and your core values were 1) dependability, 2) quality, and 3) efficiency.
To emphasize dependability, you could write a social media post saying, “At Prime Lawn Maintenance, we guarantee that our staff will be at your home within the designated window. Call today to learn about lawn care you can trust.”
You could have a video produced to highlight your top-of-the-line lawn equipment, emphasizing its quality.
You could collect customer testimonials for a blog, including quotes about your lawn care’s efficiency and making the most of customers’ time.
As you can see, there are many content mediums you can use to establish your brand’s values within its voice.
Culture
Much of the work in crafting a brand voice is directly centered around the customer and what you want them to believe about your brand. Your company culture, however, is largely dictated by the employees of your company. The atmosphere in your workforce can inform the personality of your brand.
Harness the good energy in your office and share that! Are your people highly collaborative? Motivated go-getters? Strategic masterminds? Examining the characteristics of people who are loyal to your company allows you to incorporate those characteristics into your brand voice.
Now that we’ve demystified what a brand voice is, we hope you’re excited to create yours!
The best way to test and improve your brand voice is to produce high-quality content across all marketing channels. That’s where we come in.
Sublime Media Group provides services for all your content needs and can provide you with the tools for a successful marketing foundation. Contact us today, and we’ll work together to build a killer strategy that reaches the people who matter.
