You might not have thought about it in this way, but your brand has a voice. By voice I mean the tone and essence of your brand – its style and personality – the way it is communicated through words and even images. A brand’s voice is what motivates and engages audiences, creates loyalists and ambassadors that will help grow your business and differentiate it in the marketplace, and most importantly it is what defines how your brand is perceived.
At Avocet, we weave brand voice throughout all of our communications strategies; the content we write, the images we choose, the creative we develop, the way we pitch a story to the media, and our digital engagement.
It’s all about attitude. Should your brand’s voice be funny and a bit irreverent or corporate and straightforward? Youthful or more adult? Inspirational or practical? Contemporary and hip, or traditional? The answers, of course, depend on one all-important consideration: your audiences. By listening to your customers – and by understanding their buying journeys, their pain points, and the solutions they are seeking – you will be better able to “get” to your brand’s voice and tone.
And, it’s no small thing to add that once you have set the tone, you still have to consider all the different marketing strategies you might pursue and the channels your brand voice will be communicated on. How does your voice get translated to Facebook, to your website, to your sales team’s collaterals, to your trade show booth?
Here’s what Jason Fried, founder of Basecamp says: “When you write like everyone else, you’re saying, ‘Our products are like everyone else’s.’ Would you go to a dinner party and repeat what the person to the right of you is saying all night long? Would that be interesting to anybody? Why are so many businesses saying the same things at the biggest party on the planet — the marketplace?”
The end game is to SPEAK to your audiences, to build affinity and to appeal to your customers on a personal, authentic level. People buy from brands they relate to, and run away from those that ring false. A brand’s voice should be…
- Real
- Different from the competition.
- Engaging
- Conversational
- Relatable
- Speak directly to your customers in their language.
- Elicit emotion.
Chris Algea, founder of Keen One Foods, and I discussed this very subject on the Integrate & Ignite podcast not too long ago. Listen in to hear how this amazing entrepreneur authentically articulated his brand’s voice across all channels with great success!
