Brand voice guidelines are something that so many businesses must have to set themselves apart from the competition. But so few businesses actually understand how to use it. Your brand voice relates to the personality, emotions, and language that your company uses through all of its external communications.
Every piece of copy you write or use to communicate with your audience should illustrate your brand voice.
Your brand voice should tell a story about who your company is and what it is you do. It should attract your audience and indicate the experience that you are delivering to your customers.
Why Is Brand Voice Important?
Yes, it’s all very well to have a pretty website with nice colors. And yes, it does help if you have lots of sexy images. And, of course, fancy fonts are also a good way of making your brand stand out. But at the end of the day, it’s what people read on your site that’s going to make them engage with you.
They learn about your brand through your writing. Writing that’s talking their love language. And you need to know that language and understand how to speak it more fluently than your mother tongue.
While your logo may attract attention, or the color scheme you’re using can evoke certain emotions. But your brand voice is what your readers – that’s your clients, those very important people who keep the lights on, it’s how they identify with you. And it gives you the humanizing element your company needs.
Your brand voice also needs to reflect consistency across all of your writing. It makes you recognizable and lets your audience know precisely what is you stand for. So your brand voice, in essence, is the personality of your business.
How To Create Your Brand Voice Guidelines In 7 Steps
You need to have guidelines around your brand voice, so you can have consistency. Suppose your social media pages are reflecting a different language than your website. In that case, your target audience is going to get confused. And if they get confused, they’re not going to want to engage with you or purchase anything from you.
Here’s an excellent way to imagine it – think about someone you really care about or love. It could be a close friend. Or it could be someone in your family.
You feel that you know them. Really, really well.
You know what makes them laugh.
You know what makes them cry. And you know what makes them happy.
You even know what their favorite food is.
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In fact, you know exactly what you love about them, and you know what you hate about them!
Ultimately when you are having any kind of interaction with them, you know what to expect. Now imagine if one day that person you really care about and love, they were completely different.
All those things that you have got to love about them, that you expect from them, that you have shared with them and you know they enjoy, they dissipated. Now that throws you off balance, doesn’t it? You don’t know how to interact with them, do you? You’re confused.
Now imagine if that is what is happening to someone who is encountering your business or company. Then all those people, who want to purchase from you, they’re not going to are they?
They’re confused or upset. They feel a bit affronted. You don’t want your brand voice to be inconsistent, because it makes your customer or client feel just like you do if your friend does an about-turn on who they are with you.
So if you create brand voice guidelines, it can help stop that feeling from happening. These guidelines include:
*Tone
*Messaging examples
*Specific language
*The characteristics of your business
*The lingo that you use
*Your company’s values
You can use these guidelines with the rest of your team to make sure everyone is speaking the same, whether they are creating material for social media, the website, or direct marketing. And this means everyone is connecting with your audience in precisely the right way.
Five Points To Consider When Creating Your Brand Voice
Know Your Audience
You know how to stand out from the crowd? Make sure you are different from the group. Make your brand voice unique to you but also’s connecting with your audience.
This is where you create your customer persona or avatar. This enables you to really get into the mindset of your audience.
Get specific.
How specific?
I’m talking what they do from the moment they open their eyes to the moment they go to bed at night.
What do they eat for breakfast?
What publications do they read?
Are they Starbucks person, or are they a Blue Bottle coffee person? (If you live in LA, you will know Blue Bottle coffee is a rather fancy boutique coffee chain)
You need to know what gets them excited. How do they feel when they engage with your brand?
Excited?
Curious?
Are they feeling worried about something?
If that’s the case, you need to make them feel supported and come if they are confused. You need to be there to answer the questions.
Get Essential In Your Personality Traits
Imagine you are describing to somebody what your brand is. How would you describe it as a person?
Or as a character?
What are the personality traits your brand has?
Are they motivated, or are they adventurous?
Are they laid back?
What are the unique aspects of your brand? And remember, your brand doesn’t have to be professional and successful.
Explain What Those Personality Traits Mean To Your Brand
We bang on all the time about being authentic, but authenticity can mean completely different things to entirely other brands. So you need to define what personality traits mean to you.
Keep your sentences short but get into the nitty-gritty. For example, if you’re authentic, that could be described as your confidence in who you are as a brand. But you don’t try to be fake.
Establish Your Brand Do’s And Don’ts
This is pretty self-explanatory. It’s your Bible of what you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to your brand voice coming alive. This is the go-to for any new employee to understand what they should be doing and focusing on if they’re learning about working for you, or with you.
Make your do’s and don’ts clear and concise. But make sure they are still detailed enough for somebody who knows nothing about your company to really understand what they should be experiencing when they hear your brand voice.
For example, let’s go back to being authentic again. A ‘do’ for being authentic within your company could be sticking to your promises, or it could be owning up to mistakes. Or even just being confident.
Then your don’ts could be you don’t make promises you can’t keep, or you don’t change your mind, or go back on your word. And you never try to be something that you aren’t.
Always make sure your brand voice is a reflection of your company. How can you make sure your brand voice gets your message across?
Make sure you use it everywhere – your website, your social media, your blogs, and anywhere you’re communicating with your audience.
Shift Your Voice As And When You Need
Just because you had one type of brand voice when you started your company, it doesn’t mean that it should be the same five years down the line.
Trends change, and so do you as you grow and expand. This can mean changes to your brand voice guidelines, or personality traits.
In the same way, you wouldn’t try and squeeze your four-year-old child into their newborn’s baby grow, you could outgrow your brand voice and message.
You may have never tried to work out what your brand voice was in the first place.
This is why it’s essential to keep learning from your audience, asking what they want, and reassessing how you speak to them through your messaging. Get your brand voice right, and your audience will want to keep working with you.
Want to learn more about how to refine your brand voice? Download my easy-to-follow questionnaire now on this link.
If you liked this post, check out my post on how to use emotional bias in your content.
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