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Tone of Voice – 10 steps to create a brand voice
Just because you haven't yet formulated your personal Tone of Voice doesn't mean you don't have one. Your company is already interacting with the audience, and they have their own impression of your brand. However, you can make your brand's voice more appealing to customers so that they are happy to communicate with you. To do this, you should stop and analyze what you have to understand whether you are moving in the right direction. Take the time to control your reputation, including the tone of your communication with customers. Tone of Voice is the way a company interacts with its consumers by choosing a certain tone of communication. These are internal rules that serve as a single instruction for all channels of interaction with customers, such as websites, newsletters, social networks, and phone calls. The brand voice determines the relationship between the company and the target audience and whether consumers will want to associate themselves with your brand. A well-developed brand voice becomes an integral part of the corporate culture that your employees agree with. It is important that the brand voice is consistent with your company's values and identity to positively influence consumers and strengthen your brand. Here are 10 steps to help you with this
1. Create a portrait of the target audience
The style of brand communication depends on the target audience. For example, if your goal is to attract young people aged 18 to 25, your tone of voice will be different from the one you use for retirees. You have to speak a language that your users understand. Your product may be of interest to different people, so segmenting your target audience will help you unite the most similar customers according to certain criteria. To communicate your message more effectively, you need to carefully study your audience and determine how to tailor your content to their needs.
Pay special attention to the language used by your target audience. Experts emphasize that imitating slang expressions and words used by certain groups of people helps them feel part of a community. Using language that is relevant to your audience makes your content more appealing and brings it closer to them, contributing to successful branding.
It is recommended to make a list of slang words and expressions used by your potential customers on social media. However, updates and language changes should be taken into account, as your list may become outdated over time. The key focus should be to adapt your Tone of Voice to the language of your audience. The target audience should be your guide, and communication with them should be based on empathy, which is the basis for successful customer interaction.
2. Competitor analysis
Each competitor has its own brand that seeks to be heard by its target audience. To understand which direction to take, it's worth comparing how and what competitors talk to their audience and how readers react to it. By collecting information, you will be able to identify your advantages and uniqueness. The main thing is to preserve your identity, standing out and being head and shoulders above the rest.
You need to focus on developing a better tone of communication than your competitors. However, you shouldn't limit yourself to competitor analysis, as you can also look at how brands in other industries communicate with their audience. By studying their approaches, you can find new ideas and principles that can be implemented in your own communications. Focus on improving the tone of your communication with your audience, making it more engaging and interesting. But don't forget that the most important thing is to preserve your own uniqueness and identity, which will allow you to stand out from the competition.
3. Analysis of brand values and unique selling proposition (USP)
Interview a representative of your company.
Who am I? I am your brand ambassador, created to ensure better communication with our audience.
What do I do? My main goal is to implement the brand's communication strategy to effectively communicate with customers and convey the value of our product.
Who do I work for? I work for our valued audience - our potential and regular customers who appreciate the quality and uniqueness of our brand.
What value do we bring? We strive to bring our customers not only a quality product, but also special emotions and pleasure from communicating with our brand.
How do we differ from our competitors? Our uniqueness lies in our individual approach to each client, attention to detail, and constant striving to improve.
Why was the company founded? We were born with a mission to change the way people perceive and communicate with brands, giving them a new level of connection and emotion.
What are our brand values? Openness, innovation, quality and a deep understanding of our clients' needs.
How to tell the audience about them? We will share our values through storytelling, visual tools and creative communications that will leave a lasting impact on our customers' hearts.
Values that are closest to customers? The quality of the product, individual approach, reliability and emotional experience we offer.
The mission of our brand? We strive to become a reliable partner and friend for each of our clients, giving them joy and pleasure from communicating with us.
Our strengths? A creative approach, a team of professionals, innovative solutions and a deep understanding of our clients' needs. Our brand is not just a product or service, but a story that we create together with our audience. We believe that our communication strategy will help bring us closer to our customers, create affinity and increase their loyalty to our brand.
Brand values are the cornerstone of our market presence. We believe in transparency and openness in communicating with our audience. Our main idea is to be honest and open with our customers, because we know that 94% of consumers prefer a brand that demonstrates honesty. Our brand's mission is to create products that take care of our customers. We want to provide them with high-quality and innovative solutions that evoke positive emotions and satisfaction. Our mission is to build cooperation and trust with each of our clients. Our unique selling proposition (USP) is that we offer not just a product or service, but an emotional experience.
4. Analysis of the existing brand
Before creating our brand's Tone of Voice, we conducted a content and communications audit to understand how our brand sounds now. We commented on texts on the website, emails, social media posts, and dialogues to find a consistent style across all our communications. After the analysis, we identified some patterns and characteristics that should be inherent in our Tone of Voice.
We want our brand to be heard: Serious and professional: We strive to provide high quality products and services, so our tone should be respectful and businesslike. This will help us maintain customer trust and create a positive impression of our brand. Formal but informal: We want to maintain a professional style of communication, but we don't want to be too formal. It is important for us to remain accessible to our customers and create a warm atmosphere. Passionate and energetic: We are passionate about expressing our enthusiasm for our products and vision. Our brand needs to be emotional and energetic to attract the attention of our readers and create a connection with them. Integrate some humor: We understand that laughter is a powerful tool for engaging the audience. We want to integrate some humor into our content to make it more engaging and memorable. With these characteristics, we want to create a unified style of communication with our readers that will express our values, attract attention and provide a positive experience for everyone who encounters our brand.
5. Characterizing the brand as a real person
Our brand, like a person, would be a caring friend who always stands by your side and helps you realize your dreams. He has the appearance of a modern and stylish personality, always dressed with taste. Our brand character traits include friendliness, openness and empathy. He always listens to his audience, understands their needs and strives to find the best solutions. Our brand's habits are constant development and improvement, never resting on our laurels.
We are passionate about creativity and innovation. She is interested in the latest technologies, fashion trends, and world news. Its values include honesty, openness and responsibility. Our brand's social circle includes different groups of people: from young people to adults, from students to businessmen. He talks to different people according to their needs and interests. The tone of communication changes from friendly and informal to professional and serious, depending on the situation. Our brand is special because it always goes above and beyond, is not afraid to be innovative and unique. People want to communicate with him because he always offers something interesting, useful, and relevant. He is a reliable partner and advisor in all areas of life. This is a sincere answer that reflects our essence and a hope for fruitful communication with our audience.
Invite your customers who are already familiar with you to describe your brand through the eyes of consumers. Ask them what it was - what content, events, or actions - that made such an impression on them. Try to understand what's important to them, what emotions and associations they have with your brand. Evaluate this feedback and messages to make your communication strategy even more engaging and customer-focused.
6. Define the purpose of communication
Before you start writing texts, it is important to clearly define the main purpose of your appeal. This goal should be in line with your company's core values. Continuously managing these values will help build a community around your brand that shares your values. Questions to ask yourself: "Why?", "Why am I doing this?", "What do I want to get?", "What is the expected result?" Choosing the right goal is key to further success. Mistakes in goal setting should be avoided, as the wrong choice can lead to failure.
To avoid the situation when you say, "The brand voice didn't work...", you need to know exactly where you are and where you are going to better understand what to do and how to do it, as Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, said. After defining the purpose of the message, you should build the message architecture. It is a short list of terms, phrases, or statements that summarize the brand's communication goals. It's important to convey what you want to say to the audience, not how you say it. Create a list of 50-100 adjectives that are most commonly used in your industry and divide them into three groups: "who we are," "what we would like to be," and "what we are not." This approach will help you understand how to position your brand and how to engage your audience.
The main goal of message architecture is to ensure consistency across all content created in a company. This allows everyone involved in writing texts to have a common approach and the same communication style. It is important that the message architecture is accessible to all employees who are involved with content in your company. This architecture helps to ensure consistency and integrity of messages used in different types of content. It serves as the basis for all communication efforts, ensuring consistency of tone and style of texts. When implementing a message architecture, it is important that all employees who work with content are familiar with it and follow the rules. The introduction of message architecture helps to maintain brand unity and ensure clear communication with the audience.
7. Communicating with the decision maker
Communicate with the person responsible for the final decision on the tone of the content. This person can be the head of the marketing department, the CEO, or the founder of the company. We conduct an interview to find out their opinion about the existing content: what they like and what they would like to change. This interview gives us an opportunity to better understand how the brand perceives itself and how it wants to communicate its ideas. During the conversation with this responsible representative, we actively listen to their impressions of the current content. We also find out what they liked and what they would like to change or improve. This allows us to establish effective cooperation and ensure that the tone of the content is in line with the brand's desires and goals. The results of these interviews provide us with valuable insights and help us create a consistent tone and style of content that conveys brand identity and encourages the audience to take action.
8. Choosing a brand's Tone of Voice
After the interview, we proceed to the stage of determining the Tone of Voice. At this stage, we create the first version of the brand voice with examples. However, we understand that a ready-made brand voice may require refinement in cooperation with customers, as it can be difficult to capture the mood and needs of customers at first. Each thesis is illustrated with examples from real texts. And if there is no ready-made example, we come up with one to more accurately convey the intended brand voice. Now we are considering options for characterizing the brand's voice, namely formal and informal tone. Formal language makes a brand more authoritative and official. However, you should keep in mind that using an exclusively formal tone can seem distant and even cold to readers. On the other hand, an informal appeal adds friendliness and acceptance to the brand.
Interacting with the audience in an informal way can create closer contact with customers and an impression of personalized attention. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that some statistics show that up to 78% of customers may be dissatisfied if the answer to their requests is in informal language. This shows that it is necessary to balance the tone of communication in such a way as to meet the needs of the audience and at the same time convey the brand character. Therefore, when shaping the brand's voice, we pay attention to the optimal selection of characteristics that are consistent with the company's values and ensure effective communication with consumers. This helps to create a consistent tone of content that brings the brand closer to its audience and ensures market success.
Humor is a great way to stand out from the competition, but you need to be careful, as funny is a subjective assessment. What some readers may like, others may find inappropriate or repulsive. When approaching humor, we must take into account the interests and feelings of our audience so as not to create a negative impression of the brand. The same applies to a respectful tone - it can create a sense of friendliness and cordiality, but too respectful a style can look spontaneous and too formal, respectively, and cause disgust. It is also important to understand how our target audience responds to this tone of communication.
The next characteristic is an enthusiastic or business style. The use of an enthusiastic tone allows you to convey emotion and interest in the product, but it can become annoying if overused. The business tone helps to ensure a professional brand look, but on the other hand, it can seem distant and remote. After identifying the characteristics of brand tone, we combine them into a single diagram and provide each point with explanations and examples of how they can be applied in content. It is important to remember that it is crucial to understand the audience, its needs, and match the tone of communication to its expectations and mood. This helps to create a cohesive brand voice that will effectively communicate with consumers and build a positive brand perception in the eyes of the audience.
Practical training on what to avoid in texts will help you avoid many potential mistakes and ensure more effective communication with your audience. Avoid: Complicated terms and jargon, unless the audience has specialized knowledge in the field. Unnecessary technical details that can overload the text and confuse readers. Pathos and self-confidence, as this can create the impression of overconfidence and irresponsibility. Familiarity and pandering, as this can reduce the professionalism and credibility of the brand. Identifying the brand archetype helps to focus on the most successful communication style.
Here are some archetypes and examples of when they can be applied:
Sage: Good for educational projects, medicine, law. A brand sage uses a formal tone and conveys complex concepts in simple words.
Friend: Speaks the same language as the audience, knows their tastes and desires. He uses an informal tone but avoids familiarity.
Mom: She cares about others and helps them. It is suitable for companies that sell products for pregnant women, new mothers, and household products.
Rebel: Doesn't follow templates and uses sarcasm. It can interest the audience with its unconventionality and strong character.
It is important to find a balance between brand values and the expectations of the target audience. By enriching the brand archetype, we create a unique voice that we use in communication, which gives the brand an identity and strengthens its position in the market.
9. Implementation of Tone of Voice
To effectively implement your brand voice, make sure you have clear guidelines and rules governing its implementation. It is important to update these rules regularly, especially when changes in brand positioning and target audience segments occur. The main elements that should be included in the internal guidelines include:
Core values: Identify the core principles and values that guide your brand's activities.
Portrait of the audience: Describe your target audience, understand their needs, motivations, and how they perceive information.
Brand archetype: Choose the archetype that best suits your brand (sage, friend, mom, rebel).
Create a brand voice diagram: Identify the tone characteristics of your brand (formal, informal, respectful, bold, enthusiastic, businesslike, etc.).
Vocabulary and grammatical rules: Define the key words and phrases you will use in communicating with your audience and note the grammatical rules.
Forbidden words: Mark words and phrases that are not appropriate for your brand and should not be used in communication.
Illustrative examples: Provide examples of how your brand voice is used in different contexts.
Establish rules and appoint responsible persons in the company to monitor compliance with these recommendations. This way, your brand will have a unified and consistent voice across all channels of communication with consumers.
10. Conducting testing
After defining the Tone of Voice and creating a list of internal rules and guidelines, it is recommended that you try out several different tones of communication in practice. However, it is worth keeping an interval between experiments to get enough data to evaluate the results. Until the final decision is made, it is better to opt for a neutral tone to avoid confusing the audience and ensure consistency of communication.
In conclusion.
Having a clear understanding of where our target audience is on the Internet and what they want to read and see will make our message more relevant and successful. We strive to maintain a consistent tone in all types of communication so that our customers have a clear idea of what our brand represents, what values and goals we have at the heart of our business. This approach will allow us to build strong relationships with our audience and ensure their loyalty to our company.
