How to Find a Brand Voice for your Business

The importance of digital content in a marketing strategy has made the development of a consistent brand voice more important than ever. When businesses think about their branding they often focus on how the brand looks visually; paying particular attention to the fonts, colours and designs. However, a vital element that is often missed by many is the much needed – brand voice.

What is a brand voice?

A brand voice is the personality, emotions and values that are embedded into a business’s communications. It’s a linguistic representation that helps manage how a brand is perceived by its audience, and helps to develop relationships through its humanised approach. A great way to think about a brand voice is to view it as a person who is representing your business.

However, there is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach to developing a brand voice as this will depend on how you want to be presented to the audience that you’re targeting. For example, an accountancy might use a formal tone to convey a more professional and corporate persona, whereas a nursery provider might prefer to use a more informal tone to convey a warm, friendly and welcoming identity.

What are the benefits of having a brand voice?

Businesses of all sizes use various channels to communicate with their audiences such as social media, blogs, advertisements, websites and newsletters. For this reason, it is vital that businesses use an authentic and consistent brand voice that enables them to be easily identified across channels.

A well planned brand voice doesn’t only develop personality, it brings a business to life by providing its audience with original and personable content. Having these features enables businesses to create a connection with their consumers on a subconscious level which in turn, can influence their perceptions and behaviours. For example, how they perceive your brand, their emotions towards it and how they respond to its products or services.

Having a brand voice is also an opportunity to build long-term and trusting business relationships – after all, people connect with personalities. So, if you strategically refine the voice of your business and use this to communicate with your audience, you are more likely to make connections through the strategic persona that you’ve developed.

How do you develop a brand voice?

If you have already identified a target audience for your products or services then you can use the following tips to develop your brand voice:

Tip 1 – Analyse your audience

Think about the age group(s) of your audience, and what type of language and tone do they have? Using this as a starting point will enable you to think about what kind of persona would be most effective. Nevertheless, you must make sure that you don’t unintentionally disengage a segmented group from your audience by using a personality that could be considered inappropriate – such as too youthful or too informal.

Tip 2 – Review your current content

After analysing your audience, you can also review your current content with a critical eye. For instance, what has been successful with your audience so far and what hasn’t? Analyse your top performing content to find out what style has had the most positive response and identify its structure, language and tone. Was it formal, informal, or did it have a different structure?

Once you’ve identified these features, don’t forget to review your unsuccessful content too as this can contain important information that could help you refine your brand voice.

The voice of your brand should always convey a personality that most suits your business, it could be bold and adventurous, informative and ambitious, quirky or entertaining – don’t hesitate to stand out and be distinctive! Whatever you choose, make sure your brand voice is a reflection of your business, its products or services, and the audience that you want to connect with. 

Finally, keep it under review – language trends change, content types move on and so will your brand as it grows. So, make sure you review your brand voice regularly, ensuring that it reflects your business throughout every stage of its development.  

How can we help?

Creating a well-developed brand voice can provide many benefits for a brand – helping make your business become recognisable, identifiable and allows your audience to relate more easily to your brand through consistent messaging. Developing a solid brand voice does take time and effort, but the benefits make it all worthwhile.

As consultants, we exist to help you get the best results out of your business. We spend time ensuring that we understand not only the businesses we work with, but their audiences too. This enables us to work with our clients to help them develop a strong brand voice that reflects their desired persona and resonates with their targeted audience.

If you want to find out more about how we can help you with your brand voice, brand guidelines or any training then call the GoGo Team on – 0116 3191017 or email.