One of the key objectives of branding involves crafting a distinct brand voice that sets your brand apart from competitors.
In the highly competitive landscape of today's marketing world, it's easy to become lost in the cacophony, potentially resulting in the loss of business and revenue as customers turn to other companies.
While you may recognize the significance of a brand voice in establishing comprehensive branding for your company, you might be uncertain about where to commence.
In this article, we will explore what is brand voice and, why it is so important while also exploring the steps to create a brand voice, and some of the most effective and noteworthy brand voice examples from leading companies.
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What is Brand Voice?
A brand voice forms an integral part of your brand's distinctive character, echoing through every interaction with your target audience across various channels.
Consistency plays a pivotal role in this regard. For instance, if your company adopts a friendly and informal tone in its marketing materials, it should uphold the same approach in all brand communications.
The brand voice should remain constant, irrespective of the different teams overseeing your company's social media, email, or website.
Alongside understanding your brand's voice, it is crucial to grasp the concept of brand tone.
The difference between brand voice and tone is that voice defines your company's personality, remaining unwavering and uniform while tone represents the emotional nuance applied to your voice, adapting to what is suitable for a specific piece or message.
What is the Importance of Brand Voice?
The consistency and recognizability offered by a brand voice are indispensable. In the digital realm, characterized by its overcrowded landscape, the same meticulous attention and consistency applied to other facets of your brand presence should extend to your written content and video scripts.
Relying solely on visual content, logos, or product features can only distinguish your brand to a certain extent. According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, consumers express a preference for posts that carry a well-crafted voice, turning a mere whisper in the social space into attention-grabbing proclamations.
All prevalent forms of content, ranging from testimonials to videos, hinge on the presence of a brand voice.
The significance of a robust brand voice becomes even more apparent as social media becomes increasingly saturated with content generated by artificial intelligence.
While AI can prove beneficial in various marketing endeavors, it lacks personality. As the prevalence of AI-generated content grows, human marketers must inject the brand's unique voice to cut through the noise. Marketers, being intimately familiar with the elements of their brand voice, should take the lead in refining the organization's voice. Successful brand awareness is achieved when you can recognize a brand by its content even before identifying the entity that posted it.
How to Create a Brand Voice in Five Steps?
- Step 1: Align with Your Mission Statement
- Step 2: Audit Your Content
- Step 3: Understand Your Audience
- Step 4: Start with a 'We're This, Not That' Exercise
- Step 5: Create a Brand Voice Chart
Here are five straightforward steps to establish a robust brand voice:
Step 1: Align with Your Mission Statement
Ensure that your brand's personality and voice resonate with your core values. Your mission statement serves as a solid starting point to connect values with marketing initiatives.
Step 2: Audit Your Content
Review existing marketing assets for recurring themes and consistent messaging. Evaluate if your current voice aligns with your values and brand purpose and refine it accordingly.
Step 3: Understand Your Audience
Poll your existing audience on their perception of your brand. Analyze your top customers to determine their interests, writing style, and reading habits, ensuring your brand voice aligns naturally with your target audience. Branding agencies can help businesses with their focused services in this regard.
Step 4: Start with a 'We're This, Not That' Exercise
Define your brand by identifying what it is not. Complete the sentence, "We're _______ , but we're not _______ ," several times to capture your brand essence.
Step 5: Create a Brand Voice Chart
Select the top three to four brand traits and create a chart detailing how each trait should and shouldn't be represented in your marketing efforts. Share the template with your team to maintain a consistent brand voice across all materials.
Top Three Brand Voice Examples
Here are three brand voice examples to establish what we have been saying about brand voice:
Dove
The renowned beauty and self-care brand Dove is celebrated for its empowering and influential brand voice, urging customers to embrace their inner beauty. This distinctive brand voice is instrumental in raising awareness about body positivity, female empowerment, and self-love. Through meaningful communication with customers, Dove effectively promotes its products while reinforcing its core values.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp, a prominent email marketing platform, adopts an amusing and informal brand voice. Despite its contrast with the software-as-a-service (SaaS) nature of the platform, this approach establishes a unique connection with customers. Utilizing off-beat humor and authentic messaging, Mailchimp forges a personal bond with its audience. However, the brand also emphasizes the importance of ensuring that humor in messaging feels natural rather than forced.
Nike
Sporting goods giant Nike is predominantly recognized for its powerful tagline, "Just Do It." Consistent with this message, Nike's brand voice exudes confidence and assertiveness. The brand's communication is characterized by simplicity, effectiveness, and directness, avoiding verbose descriptions. Nike relies on its efficient messaging and brand voice to inspire audiences to pursue their goals relentlessly and never give up.
What is Brand Voice FAQs
How to find your brand voice?
Discovering or creating a brand voice involves aligning with your mission, auditing existing content for consistency, understanding your audience through polls or customer analysis, and defining your brand by identifying what it is not. Create a brand voice chart, selecting core traits, and ensure they are represented consistently across all marketing materials for a distinctive and authentic voice.
What’s the difference between brand voice and tone?
Brand voice is your company's consistent and unchanging personality, reflecting its core values. Tone, on the other hand, is the emotional inflection applied to the voice, adapting to suit specific messages or contexts. While voice remains constant, tone varies based on the nature of the communication, ensuring resonance with the audience.
