Your brand voice is the way you communicate with your audience through your content. It’s the tone, style, and personality that you use to express your brand’s values, message, and identity. Your brand voice is not just what you say, but how you say it.
Your brand voice is important because it can help you:
- Stand out from the crowd and differentiate yourself from your competitors
- Build trust, credibility, and authority with your audience
- Connect and resonate with your ideal customers and their needs, wants, and emotions
- Influence and persuade your audience to take action and buy from you
But how do you craft a compelling brand voice that attracts your ideal customers? How do you find the right balance between being professional and being human? How do you create a consistent and memorable brand voice across all your content channels and platforms?
In this blog post, we will share some tips and best practices on how to craft a compelling brand voice that attracts your ideal customers. We will also show you some examples of brands that have nailed their brand voice and how you can learn from them.
1. Define your brand values, mission, and vision
The first step to crafting a compelling brand voice is to define your brand values, mission, and vision. These are the core elements that shape your brand’s identity and purpose, and they should guide your brand voice as well.
Your brand values are the principles and beliefs that drive your brand and your actions. They are the qualities that you want your audience to associate with your brand, such as honesty, innovation, or sustainability.
Your brand mission is the reason why your brand exists and what you aim to achieve. It is the problem that you solve for your audience and the value that you provide to them.
Your brand vision is the long-term goal that you aspire to reach with your brand. It is the impact that you want to have on your audience, your industry, and the world.
To define your brand values, mission, and vision, you can ask yourself questions such as:
- What are the core beliefs and values that drive your brand and your actions?
- What is the problem that you solve for your audience and the value that you provide to them?
- What is the long-term goal that you aspire to reach with your brand and the impact that you want to have on your audience, your industry, and the world?
- How do you want your audience to feel when they interact with your brand and your content?
For example, Patagonia is a brand that sells outdoor clothing and gear, but their brand values, mission, and vision go beyond that. They are a brand that stands for environmental activism, social responsibility, and quality products. Their brand values are: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” Their brand mission is: “We’re in business to save our home planet.” Their brand vision is: “A world where people and nature thrive together.”
2. Identify your target audience and their pain points
The second step to crafting a compelling brand voice is to identify your target audience and their pain points. Your target audience is the specific group of people that you want to reach and serve with your brand and your content. Your pain points are the problems, challenges, or frustrations that your target audience faces and that your brand can help them solve.
To identify your target audience and their pain points, you can use tools such as:
- Market Research: Conduct surveys, interviews, or focus groups with your existing or potential customers to learn more about their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and preferences.
- Customer Personas: Create fictional profiles of your ideal customers based on your market research data, and give them names, backgrounds, goals, and challenges.
- Customer Journey Map: Create a visual representation of the steps that your customers take from becoming aware of your brand to becoming loyal advocates, and identify the pain points and opportunities along the way.
For example, Mailchimp is a brand that offers email marketing and automation tools for small businesses. Their target audience is small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to grow their online presence and sales. Their pain points are: lack of time, money, and skills to create and manage effective email campaigns.
3. Choose your brand voice attributes and tone
The third step to crafting a compelling brand voice is to choose your brand voice attributes and tone. Your brand voice attributes are the adjectives that describe your brand’s personality and style, such as friendly, professional, or humorous. Your brand voice tone is the mood or emotion that you convey with your brand voice, such as confident, optimistic, or empathetic.
To choose your brand voice attributes and tone, you can use tools such as:
- Brand Voice Chart: Create a table with four quadrants, and label them with opposite pairs of brand voice attributes, such as formal vs. casual, serious vs. playful, respectful vs. irreverent, and enthusiastic vs. matter-of-fact. Then, place your brand in the quadrant that best matches your brand voice, and list some examples of words, phrases, or sentences that illustrate your brand voice.
- Brand Voice Spectrum: Create a scale with two opposite ends of brand voice attributes, such as formal vs. casual, and place your brand somewhere along the scale, depending on how much you lean towards one end or the other. Then, list some examples of words, phrases, or sentences that illustrate your brand voice.
For example, Dollar Shave Club is a brand that sells razors and grooming products for men. Their brand voice attributes are: casual, playful, irreverent, and enthusiastic. Their brand voice tone is: confident, humorous, and provocative.
4. Write and distribute your content according to your brand voice
The fourth step to crafting a compelling brand voice is to write and distribute your content according to your brand voice. Your content is the medium through which you communicate your brand voice to your audience, and it can include various types of content, such as blog posts, ebooks, videos, podcasts, social media posts, or emails.
To write and distribute your content according to your brand voice, you can use tools such as:
- Content calendar: Create a schedule and plan for your content creation and distribution, and align it with your content goals, audience needs, and brand voice.
- Content guidelines: Create a document that outlines the rules and standards for your content creation and distribution, and ensure that your content is consistent, coherent, and aligned with your brand voice.
- Content audit: Conduct a regular review and analysis of your existing content, and evaluate how well it reflects your brand voice, meets your content goals, and satisfies your audience needs.
For example, Innocent Drinks is a brand that sells smoothies and juices, and their brand voice is: friendly, playful, quirky, and innocent. Their content is written and distributed according to their brand voice, using simple and conversational language, humorous and witty tone, and colorful and cheerful visuals. Their content is also aligned with their brand values, mission, and vision, which are: to make natural and healthy drinks, to make people happy, and to make the world a better place.
5. Measure and improve your brand voice performance and impact
The fifth and final step to crafting a compelling brand voice is to measure and improve your brand voice performance and impact. Your brand voice performance and impact are the results and outcomes that your brand voice generates for your business and your audience, such as brand awareness, brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, and customer advocacy.
To measure and improve your brand voice performance and impact, you can use tools such as:
- Brand voice survey: Conduct a survey with your audience and ask them to rate and describe your brand voice, and how it makes them feel and behave.
- Brand voice feedback: Collect and analyze feedback from your audience and stakeholders, such as comments, reviews, testimonials, or ratings, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your brand voice.
- Brand voice metrics: Track and report the quantitative and qualitative metrics that indicate the performance and impact of your brand voice, such as traffic, engagement, conversion, retention, and referral.
For example, Netflix is a brand that offers streaming and entertainment services, and their brand voice is: bold, edgy, witty, and relatable. Their brand voice performance and impact are measured and improved by using tools such as:
- Brand voice survey: Netflix conducts surveys with their subscribers and asks them to rate and describe their brand voice, and how it influences their viewing habits and preferences.
- Brand voice feedback: Netflix collects and analyzes feedback from their subscribers and followers, such as comments, reviews, tweets, or memes, and identifies the aspects of their brand voice that resonate or annoy their audience.
- Brand voice metrics: Netflix tracks and reports the metrics that indicate the performance and impact of their brand voice, such as views, watch time, retention, churn, and word-of-mouth.
Conclusion
Your brand voice is the way you communicate with your audience through your content. It’s the tone, style, and personality that you use to express your brand’s values, message, and identity. Your brand voice is important because it can help you stand out from the crowd, build trust and loyalty with your audience, and influence and persuade them to buy from you.
But how do you craft a compelling brand voice that attracts your ideal customers? In this blog post, we have shared five steps and tips on how to craft a compelling brand voice that attracts your ideal customers. These steps are:
- Define your brand values, mission, and vision
- Identify your target audience and their pain points
- Choose your brand voice attributes and tone
- Write and distribute your content according to your brand voice
- Measure and improve your brand voice performance and impact
We have also shown you some examples of brands that have nailed their brand voice and how you can learn from them.
We hope this blog post has helped you understand how to craft a compelling brand voice and improve your content marketing strategy. If you need any help with your content marketing strategy and branding, please feel free to Contact Us. Thank you for reading!
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