What Is a Brand’s Voice? Here’s How You Derive One

Brand voice! Is it just another agency jargon that makes us scratch our head as we try to decipher its meaning? Perhaps not, because we are here to set the record straight for what a brand voice really is and why it matters. Your brand voice helps you talk with your loyal customers, potential consumers, and casual browsers. Similar to the human voice that allows you to communicate through words, sounds, and tone, your brand’s voice is a means of expression. As we use our voice to interact with friends, family, and strangers, a brand voice allows it to interact with customers. So whether you have a successful brand empire or you are a Johnny-come-lately, your brand voice helps you to make your message known to the masses. Aiding communication, evoking feelings, and providing clarity, a brand voice does many things:

• Brand voice conveys your brand’s personality

Whether it’s your family or friend, you can’t help but relate their voice with their personality. You relate your mom’s voice with a caring and loving nature, and your friend’s voice with their friendly and outgoing personality. 

In the same way, your customers have the same relationship with your brand. When they come across your brand on different platforms, what they see, hear, and experience gets clubbed in their mind as your brand’s personality. Your brand voice thus conveys your personality with your written word and shapes gives more meaning to your identity as a brand.

• Brand voice relays your message to the masses

Since times immemorial, human beings have used their voice as the primary mode of communication. Even without the presence of a language, we’ve used our voice to make ourselves heard and leave our mark. Likewise, your brand voice allows you to communicate with the masses and leave a lasting impression. It voices your message by making it coherent and convincing, incorporating words and styles that will make the most impact. 

Your brand voice serves a two-fold purpose. It not only conveys your personality to your customers but also evokes a visceral response from them, making them form an image of your brand. For instance, Coke’s brand voice communicates the message of happiness and friendship with its tagline, advertising slogans, and social media copy, evoking a response of trust and adulation. All this solidifies its personality as the perfect blend of excitement and sincerity.

 

• Brand voice adds to your uniqueness

Brands everywhere employ several tactics to interact with their customers – one of them is textual content. From your blogs to infographics, website copy to social media copy, every digital piece of your brand content is susceptible to public scrutiny. Your brand voice ensures that your message is communicated coherently, and also has a bespoke consistency to it. As your customers come across your message on different platforms, they can get confused if there is a cacophony of voices. But with your brand voice, you can establish a uniform and unique personality that effortlessly gives away your brand to your customers when they come across it.

How to Have a Strong Brand Voice

Just like the human voice is produced with the help of several agents working together like the air, your larynx, and vocal cords, a strong brand voice results from employing various tactics. Here are the best ones:

• Research provides results

As mentioned earlier, your brand voice serves a two-fold purpose of communicating your brand message through which they get to know your goals and personality. As your brand voice is directed towards your customers, it shouldn’t just be informative but also amicable. To attract them, you can appeal to their rationale and emotions by studying their demographics. With proper research, you can cater to specific needs and expect 100% results. 

• A uniform echo

Your brand voice lays down the guidelines for every other content you create. As it’s responsible for conveying your personality to your customers, your voice needs to be crystal-clear, convincing, and consistent. So watch your words when it comes to voicing out a message. Displaying uniformity in words and intent, your brand voice should uniformly echo your personality on every platform. You can then craft experiences through your brand voice that is unique to you alone. For instance, Nike’s inspirational voice echoes in its content, both visually and textually.

 

• Putting words to deed

Since brands have a voice, they talk. But it shouldn’t be just that – talk. Conveying your personality, purpose, and value, your brand voice should weave a web of words to catch your customers’ attention, and very importantly, to guide these words to action. While there are plenty of brands in the sea, you can stand out by staying true to your vision and purpose by doing what you say. Actions speak louder than words, so be sure to walk the talk. Otherwise, you’ll be just another speck in the sand. When your customers see you putting your words to work, they will not only hear you but also feel compelled by your call to action.

• Voicing through the right channels

With so many brands voicing out their message, how can you make your message stand out? Implementing the above pointers, you can have a uniform, unique, and authentic voice. But that won’t bear any fruits if you don’t voice your voice on the proper channels. Keeping in mind the customer-touch points, assess what channels you can make the most of for maximum impact. Is it your website? Your blog posts? Your social media? Your web app? Taco Bell’s youthful, playful, and humorous voice is music to the ears for its young customers on Instagram and Twitter.

• Being current and consistent

You cannot stop the tide of change, but you can surely surf it by staying current yet constant. Just like our evergreen brands have lasted through time and tide, you can convince your customers of your reliability by continuously evolving your voice with the modern day. Without compromising on the message, your brand voice can even alternate between different tones to suit the context. For instance, it’s inspiring to see brands varying in voice from quirky to passionate to formal all voicing out heartfelt messages for the Coronavirus crisis to resonate with a broader audience.

Just as copywriter Erin Butler Woolf exclaims, a brand without a voice is like macaroni without cheese – bland, forgettable, and incomplete. Similarly, your brand voice is an essential ingredient in shaping a fantastic customer experience. Build a defined and distinct voice and you’ll resonate with your customers in ways that echo its presence for a long time to come.