How Do You Create a Brand Voice? 

If you have a business, you should have a brand voice. People buy into brands that offer more than just their product or service. Businesses who offer an experience rather than just an item are more noticeable in today’s world. Branding your business starts with a brand voice.

Brand Voice

Having a brand voice is a necessity for any business in the world today. Your brand isn’t just where your business is located. Your brand is everywhere. It is on social media, your website, and is constantly trying to engage with your business’s audience. Without a consistent brand voice, your business will become lost in the crowd. Don’t get lost. Use your voice to stand out to your target audience.

branding decisions

What is Brand Voice?

A brand voice is the way you communicate with your audience. It should be aimed towards your target audience and written with personality and interesting characteristics. Your brand’s voice needs to stay consistent and clear. There are a few things to consider when creating your brand’s voice:

Align Your Voice With The Values of Your Company

You want your voice to be everything your company values. It is after all the personality of your brand. You want it to represent you well. If your voice doesn’t align with the values of your company, it gets confusing for your audience. When you align what your company is about with how you present yourself, it can create a deeper connection between your brand and the consumers.

Research Your Audience

Knowing your audience is one of the biggest things to consider when thinking about your voice. Your audience are the decision makers. They are the ones that will buy your product or service. If you don’t understand how to communicate with them, your brand’s voice will be weak. To research your audience, you can view your analytics on Google or social media platforms. They will lay out basic demographics and let you see who already follows your brand. Knowing about your audience will overall help your brand build great relationships with them.

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Describe Your Brand

When thinking about your audience, think about how they might describe your brand. You might even ask them directly. If your audience sees your brand differently than you want to represent, there is a problem. If they don’t align, it might be time to re-evaluate your brand. After you find out how your audience sees you, come up with a few words that encapsulate your whole brand. These words can help drive the actions of your company and voice of your brand.

Create A Persona For Your Brand

An option you have for your voice is creating a persona. A persona is creating the ideal person of who your brand would be. This is making your brand into a fictional character. You are establishing different attributes and characteristics they might have. By adding this into your voice, it can help people get a clear, visual idea of what you represent in your brand. This can be determined through asking yourself some fictional “get to know you questions.”

  • What would be my brand’s favorite music?
  • Would there be a typical outfit for my brand?
  • What actor/actress could play my brand?

Although these questions may seem silly, they can help you get to know what your brand voice is like. This can ultimately allow you to see your brand voice more clearly.

Re-evaluate Your Voice

Brand voice can change over time. When the company goes through changes your brand voice should as well. Many brands will go through the process of rebranding at some point in time. During this process, the company re-evaluates who their audience is and how to engage with them. This is a great time to look back at the steps above and see if your current brand shares your company values and ideas.

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Where to Use Your Brand’s Voice

If you don’t know where or how to use your brand’s voice, the short answer is that you should be using it everywhere. To stay consistent, anything your brand puts out, people should be able to easily recognize that it is your brand talking. Your audience won’t even need to see a logo to know it is your business. That is the ultimate goal of branding. Still unsure exactly how to use your brand’s voice? There are some simple ways to put it out there and help people see it.

Content Creation

You should use your brand’s voice in everything that represents your company. Content creation is a way to consistently allow your brand voice to be heard. It can remind your target audience that they love your brand and want to support you, whether that is for the first time or many times after. There are many forms of content creation that can showcase your brand voice.

Social Media

You can build your brand through your social media. In fact, if your business isn’t on social media you should consider joining. Your audience is there, but you just need to find them. Businesses can communicate through memes, videos, or even sharing what others have posted to help communicate your brand.

Advertisements

Advertisements are another way to use your brand voice effectively. It doesn’t matter if it is a social media advertisement, on a website, or the classic print style; the way you use your brand’s voice matters. It lets the audience make a connection with what you are selling. Remember audiences don’t only buy your product or service, but they want the experience it can give them. Use your voice to enhance that experience for your potential clients.

Your Website

Your website says a lot about who your brand is. This can be gathered from the colors, fonts, and pictures on your site. Even focusing on small details can help communicate your brand better to your audience. Using your website to share your story and enhance your brand’s voice can help your business stay consistent as well.

Website’s Blog

Establishing a blog on your website can allow for the audience to really get to know your brand. If they are interested, they will be visiting your page often to read what your company has to share. You should use your brand voice throughout the site to attract people to use your product or services. By adding a blog to your website, you can see not only brand awareness rise, but search engine optimization (SEO) rise as well. Creating and updating your content on your site should be a priority for you. If you are creating content and not seeing the benefit, consider adding in ways to optimize your websites content.

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Great Examples 

When thinking of companies that have great brand voices, companies like Apple and Nike come to mind. These companies have a well-established brand voice. When a commercial or advertisement appears, you might even be able to guess their brand before the logo is shown. They set themselves apart from the competition through their voice.

Apple

The tech company Apple has established themselves with their colors, fonts, and most importantly how they communicate with their audience. Apple is clean and sophisticated in every aspect of the brand, especially through their voice. They are well known, not only because of the technology they produce, but because they are so consistent with how they use their voice.

Nike

Nike is another brand that is consistent with how they communicate their message. Their slogan “Just Do It” has been the center of their brand. They use this voice throughout all aspects of their brand. Nike is motivational and competitive. The history of their company starts with trying to create the perfect shoe to competitively run with. Their voice helps not only share their story, but their mission as well.

These are good examples of brand voices because they are brands that have successfully represented themselves. From their voice to their colors, they are consistent. Although they might change their tone of voice depending on the message, the voice stays consistent on every platform, ad, and anything else released by the company.

Brand Tone 

Knowing your platform and who your audience is on it can help determine how you should respond. A brand voice is something that stays consistent no matter the platform. It is the personality behind your company. It creates the overall feel your audience has for your business. A brand’s tone is something that has a little more variation to it. A tone adjusts to the audience and the message that is being conveyed. This means while your voice should remain the same, your brand doesn’t have to. You don’t just have to be serious all the time. When sharing certain news, your brand can take on a different tone of voice depending on the platform and message. If you are using the same tone for everything, people could become uninterested in your message. Change the tone of your voice, but not the brand voice itself.

brand voice development

Need Help Branding? We Can Help!

If you think you have a brand voice but don’t know how consistent it is, we can help you figure it out. SEO Design Chicago is equipped with experts to help you with multiple aspects of your branding. We can create content that drives brand awareness. We want your business’s voice to stand out and be heard.

FAQs

  • How can I use a brand voice in my business?
  • What is a brand’s tone of voice?
  • How do you define brand voice?
  • What is my brand identity?
  • Examples of brand voice?

 

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