Proven Steps to Find Your Brand Voice With Examples

We all consume a lot of content online and spend tons of time on Social Media, Streaming platforms, Gaming Platforms, etc. If there’s an advertisement in between, most of the time you know which brand’s advert is it, even before watching it fully. That is the magic of their unique brand voice. Apart from Online platforms, this brand voice is integrated into print, billboards, and TV advertisements also. Developing and maintaining a true-to-self brand voice is the key to standing out from other brands on Social Media and other platforms. Social Media is the key to instilling your brand voice into the consumers because of its reach and availability to the masses. In this article, we’ll discuss how to find your brand voice. First, let’s try to understand what is a brand voice.

What is a Brand Voice?

We interact with a lot of people, given that you are not an introverted personality. Just kidding, we still need to interact with a lot of people, that is how society works, right! Coming back to the point, interactions can be casual or official, with friends and family or colleagues.

Every person that you talk to has some unique traits about the way they speak, and many times you can tell who’s on the other side of the phone just by listening to the way they talk, that voice, the tonality is their brand voice. Again this is for people, what about companies.

Companies are not just buildings, factories, outlets, etc. They tend to be people and brands that come alive by instilling a voice into them, that is a brand voice. Every time your favorite brand interacts with its consumers through social media, advertisements, etc. it uses a pre-defined voice, to resonate with its ideals and values, i.e. a brand voice.

More simplifying every time a brand talks to its customers( current and prospects) via social media posts, replies, posters, advertisements, launching a new product or service, etc. it uses its unique brand voice.

Why is it Important to Find Your Brand Voice?

There are billions of people in the world and you meet hundreds of them in your lifetime, but you connect on a personal level with only a handful of them. You connect with those special few because they have a personality that resonates with your ideas of living and loving. The same applies to brands.

People connect with those brands and purchase from those brands that provide them value and are in line with the values they resonate with or the likeness they find fit for themselves. People buy from the brands that they like the personality of.

As said before brands are alive and they should reflect a personality everywhere they connect with their current customers and prospects. Having a brand voice enables you to connect with people and tell your brand’s story and build relationships. Relationships are what convert into revenue.

That is why it is important to find your brand voice. A brand with a consistent brand voice across channels is loved by all. A good brand makes itself stand out from the crowd by possessing a unique brand voice that helps people remember the brand and can relate to it.

This develops brand loyalty that translates into consistent revenue. The brand voice also helps to attract new customers even before they use your product or services. More people, bigger revenues! It’s that simple. Before jumping into how to find your brand voice, let’s understand the much-debated difference between Voice and Tone.

While many might say that both are different there is a noticeable difference between the two. Simply put voice is something that your brand says while the tone is the way it is being said.

Going Deeply Voice and Tone Can Be Differentiated as-

Voice

As mentioned above also, voice is what your brand says across different media channels. Voice is something that makes your brand come to life. It builds a personality of the brand that people can resonate with as a person. Voice can be defined with the help of the following pointers:

• Type of language used by the brand i.e. simple or are there more complex words being used.
• Many brands use emojis to make the conversation easygoing and acceptable, while others avoid them as childish things.
• Brands who want to sound more casual use slang, acronyms, or contractions, while more formal brands might avoid them.
• Many brands find it easy to connect by using humor in their writings.
• Reflecting Point of View.

Tone

The tone is something that is the way you say things. While the tone is important while speaking, writing different tones is also as important as when speaking in person. Many argue that others can’t hear what you write or what your brand expresses in its voice.

But if you make the other person hear what your brand voice is speaking then tone makes it easy to find your brand voice. Being able to talk in your brand voice in the right tone is just beautiful. Tone can not be defined by words but punctuation can affect it dramatically.

Just like putting an exclamation mark (!) at the end of a sentence can show how grateful or excited you are to the person you are writing. Removing a single exclamation mark doesn’t make any major difference in the written content but it can drastically alter the level of your wholeheartedness.

Considering the human perspective, voice is consistent and remains constant, while tone changes depending on the context and whom you are talking to. For example, you talk in two different tones while you are chatting with a kid and when you are talking to a client or your co-worker.

As we can see that both are different in the way they are perceived, let us not ignore the fact that both are equally important for creating a lasting brand impression and maintaining it. Reiterating that brands are not humans, but because a brand voice and tone can create a personality for your brand, it is enabled to converse with people as a living entity.

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So on popular demand, here are some examples of brands that created their brand voice and are following them consistently over the years from the time they came into being.

Amul

When talking about the brand voice we cannot leave our beloved Utterly Butterly company, Amul. Amul has been around for all of us can remember and they have this fun and quirky way to show the world their take on things happening in and around India. I don’t think anybody here hasn’t, in their life, seen an Amul topical.

Amul has this way of conveying what it wants to humorously, obviously not on serious matters. Amul’s tone, however, is always somewhat easygoing and friendly. They instill their brand and products by creating their own slang words.

Zomato

Favorite of many, Zomato enjoys what it does best (apart from food deliveries). Zomato is known for its humorous and quirky social media posts. Zomato reflects its values of being an easy-going brand that loves its work. Zomato always rides on the social media trends bandwagon and comes up with some very funny content. Zomato’s push notification for their food delivery app also has many quirky ways to make you order from them.

Cafe Coffee Day

Cafe Coffee Day is all about coffee and conversations. We all have, at some point in time, been to a CCD nearby to catch up with friends, family, and some business stuff. Cafe Coffee Day likes to resonate with the idea of refreshments and creating memories.

Their social media posts also reflect that in some or the other way, but they try and build stories around coffee. They do have some more products down the line but coffee is their niche. Here we took a look at some of the examples of brand voice. Moving forward!

Also Read: Brand Marketing

How to Find Your Brand Voice?

Now that we have read the theory and I also provided you with some examples let’s dive into the process of finding your brand voice.

#1 Defining Your Brand Identity

The first step in the process to find your brand voice is to ask yourself, Who are you as a brand? This is the most important question while finding your brand voice.

Below are some examples that can help you map out the basic personality of your brand.

• Is your brand someone quirky or downright serious?
• Do your brand like to be humorous or more of a serious business like a news agency?
• Do you want to be casual or formal in front of your audience?
• Do you intend to be fun or like to be sounded sexy like a luxury fashion brand?
• What are your values as a brand?
• Are you an easy-going brand or a serious business meaning corporate?

Apart from these pick a few adjectives that you believe define your brand appealing, charming, collaborative, creative, delightful, exciting, fancy, glamorous, modern, playful, retro, smart, trustworthy, thoughtful, upbeat, witty, youthful, etc. These are just a few examples select your adjectives based on the nature of your brand.

#2 Identify Your Audience

If there is no ear to listen to, what’s the point in speaking. Every brand creates content for its audience. Identifying your audience plays an important role in the process to find your brand voice. Different brands cater to different age groups. Many times different brands cater to different people in the same age group, sometimes based on their financial status, their gender, academic qualifications, or just pure taste in one or the other type of product.

Tone changes with different customer groups to cater based on different criteria. A toy company can’t use technical jargon in their ads, a construction company can’t be bubbly about their latest engineering marvel, a science-oriented company manufacturing life-saving drugs and vaccines cannot deliver their message playfully, etc.

All said identifying your audience is something you need to do seriously (even if you intend to be humorous while communicating). Ultimately what this means is that you have an audience to cater and if that audience is happy then they’ll become loyal customers and help you establish your brand and make good money while you do it.

Identifying your target audience might mean using google analytics, asking people to join your email list, or maybe simply asking people to fill out a survey for you.

#3 Don’t Look Too Far

When you launch your brand you already have a good number of people that are working with you. People who are invested in your brand, people who build it from the ground up are already connected to the brand both emotionally and professionally.

Asking them how they see the brand is a good idea. You can survey every level of your workforce from junior to senior to executives. This can lay out a brand persona before launch and interaction with customers. This process can help you plan your social media posts, advertisements, and interaction both online and offline.

Make sure to follow this in any type of communications listed above and other than those also. This will be a building step in creating that personality and making customers know what to expect from the brand.

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#4 Review Like It’s Never Been Done

No matter if you are just starting up or are in business for quite some time you need to find your brand voice. In the process of finding your brand voice, you might slip into a place where you focus more on what your brand should be than what it is right now.

You should always concentrate more on what your brand is in its current state. Review all your content and see how your brand communicated to people. Sieve your social media posts, articles/blog posts, newsletters/emailers, advertisements, etc., and pick out the thing of importance.

Note down the most used words and the type of descriptions you use in your content. If your vocabulary is of a particular kind say bubbly and fun-loving, there is a high chance that your audience perceives your brand like that.

#5 Talk How You Write

Feels wrong? Because it is. The key is to always write the way you talk. Including jargon and lengthy technical terms in your content can deter your audience. Keeping it simple like everyone does while they are talking is the key to good communication.

You should always make your audience comfortable while they consume your content, making them feel the other way may not go well with most. If you kick jargon away from your content it can make your brand sound real. It makes your brand persona to be like an alive personality.

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#6 Consistency is the Key

Being consistent in the content creation game is of utter importance. Being consistent in the way you communicate and converse with your audience is key to maintaining your brand voice. Consistency helps you maintain your brand voice and sound the same on all different channels of communication.

Consistency in many things related to written content like sentence length makes you sound the same every time you reach out to your audience. Short sentences tend to be on point and can be made funny. If you want that kind of voice, use shorter sentences. If you want to go formal and eloquent go for longer sentences.

Apart from sentences, vocabulary is key to a great brand voice. It is important to reiterate the second point here i.e. to know your audience well. If you know them as they are you can be more confident about using the kind of vocabulary to be used in your communication. Whether you want to use professional or casual language.

If you can include slang in your content or not. These all can be determined after assessing your audience well and knowing them fully. To ensure that all this is being followed across all channels of communications with different teams and team members working on different channels, you can create a brand voice template. That template can include sentence lengths, tone, and vocabulary to be used.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is a brand voice in layman’s terms?

This is the most asked question when it comes to people and brands when they hear it for the first time. In the most simple terms, Brand Voice is the voice and tone in which a brand communicated to its audience, just like you talk to your friend or colleague. A brand voice is a key to making a lasting impression among people and being remembered among others.

A brand voice makes the brand easily identifiable even if the communication medium doesn’t include your logo or tagline. When people recognize a brand by its brand voice and if that brand voice resonates with them they can become loyal customers who will support your business and in the process increase your revenues. So friends for the sake of that employee who is asking for his long-awaited raise it is important to find your brand voice.

Q2. What is the process to find a brand voice?

The process to find your brand voice can be simple and tough at the same time. But the process can be broken down into some simple easy-to-follow steps to help you along the way. You can start by defining your brand identity, then you need to identify your audience, review your content and make changes according to the identified audience, review your content again based on performance, writing the way you talk naturally is good, and being consistent on all mediums of communication in terms of sentence formation, vocabulary and following writing guidelines is a very important part of this process.

Q.3 How to be authentic while building a brand voice?

Being authentic while you find your brand voice is similar to being authentic in real life. Communicating what you believe in as a brand can be a key to building and reiterating your authenticity. Although it is very hard to build and maintain a brand voice that is engaging, smart, provide value to people, and is entertaining at the same it, copying is never a solution. Never copy from companies already in the market, whether or not in your industry. People consume a lot of content and when they see someone impersonating someone else they lose the belief in you.

Conclusion

Without a brand voice, your brand is left with a serious issue of multiple personalities. What I meant to say is that you can not sound different to different people, right, or maybe different to the same people at different times. It will not create an image in the other person’s mind. Having a single image of your personality is what is needed, to be recognized and loved by all. The same is with brands. Brands shouldn’t sound different every time they communicate with people. For that, you need to find your brand voice. I hope this article helped you on your quest to find your brand voice.