Learn How to Create a Brand Voice that Appeals to Your Clients

What is a brand voice? Is it the way your customer service representatives talk to clients? Or how do you format your press releases? It is this and much more. In this article, the Techtio branding team will show you how to create a brand voice and what it consists of.

Why Do You Need a Brand Voice Strategy?

First of all, let us do a small exercise. Think of your favourite brand. If it were a person, how would you describe them? You would definitely identify some characteristics that show up in all their communications:

• Email newsletters
• Social media posts
• Web pages and blog posts
• New product announcements.

We can give many brand voice examples, but we will select just one. Apple is all about professionalism, innovation, and simplicity. You can picture an IT professional, calmly and competently telling you how to set up your iPhone or Mac in simple terms that you understand.

This consistency throughout all the communication channels is the brand voice. To find this uniform voice for your brand, you need to build it strategically.

The Key Elements of a Brand Voice

Before you learn how to create it, you must know how to define your brand voice through its key elements. These are:

1. Brand personality – infusing your brand with human characteristics, such as: friendly, approachable, adventurous, formal, reliable, professional, etc.
2. Tone of voice – how your brand speaks to the audience: in a playful, neutral or professional way
3. Language and word choice: choosing between industry-specific terms or simple, everyday words to convey your message.

There is a close connection between these elements of a brand voice. For instance, you cannot adopt a brand personality that appeals to the 18-24 age group and use a highly formal tone of voice and technical jargon.

Likewise, you would not expect a professional brand, for instance, a banking institution, to adopt a playful and informal tone, using lots of memes and social media acronyms (LOL, ROFL, etc.).

With these explanations out of the way, let us show you how to create a brand voice that speaks your customers’ language.

1. Know Your Target Audience

First of all, you must know who you are speaking to. What is your ideal customer like? Are they college-educated? How do they speak? Are they influenced by the new social media speak? Or do they prefer a professional, authoritative tone of voice?

This step in creating your brand voice guide is essential. Everything else is irrelevant if your tone of voice is not relatable to your target customer.

2. Define Your Brand Personality

In Techtio team’s experience, it is easier to define a brand personality if you try to picture it as a person – the way you do with client personas. So, who is your brand?

How do they dress? What are their hobbies? How would their friends describe them? What social platforms would they be active on? What kind of music and films would they prefer?

Once you define this person, it is easier to pick the right attributes that will define your brand personality.

3. Define Your Brand Voice

At this point in the brand voice strategy, you start connecting the elements. Match your personality with your target audience’s preferred tone of voice. This will help you define the main attributes of your unique brand voice.

Here are just a few examples:

• Adventurous
• Calm
• Confident
• Fresh
• Innovative
• Inspiring
• Dependable
• Serious
• Quirky
• Sophisticated
• Playful

Please note that you do not have to pick just one characteristic for your brand voice, but they all must match and work together.

4. Create Your Brand Voice Guidelines

These guidelines are the handbook that everyone creating content for you must refer to. From customer service staff to copywriters and video editors, every kind of branded communication must follow these guidelines to the letter.

The guidelines must contain do’s and don’ts, with illustrative examples for each.

This is the only way of maintaining a consistent and uniform brand voice across all the communication channels.

5. Update and Evolve Your Brand Voice

A brand voice strategy is not a “set it and forget it” thing. Your tone of voice evolves with your brand. Your company grows, and your customers’ lifestyles and needs change over the years. You have to consider the new generations that will become your target audience.

Thus, you have to continue revisiting your brand voice guide and updating it as necessary. Otherwise, you will be left behind and out of touch with your target audience.

Techtio can help you create, maintain, and evolve your brand voice. We know what your customers expect from you, and we always deliver. Reach out to us today for an initial consultation!