How important is it for a brand to have a voice? I would say— extremely important! How else are consumers supposed to relate to your brand or understand what your core values are? A brand voice refers to the personality and emotion infused into a company’s communications.
Let’s compare a brand voice to the qualities and characteristics of an individual— their personality. Everyone has a different personality that relates to them, what they believe in, and how they want the outside to perceive them. The friends that they have, the way they dress, even the music they listen to coincides with their overall personality.
I can only imagine what life is like without a personality, a pretty boring one if you ask me. When it comes to brands, there are multiple companies that offer the same product. What makes your brand different? What do consumers benefit from purchasing your product? Your brand voice is what sets the standard for your company. Consumers should expect to see the same tone and messaging throughout all of your communications.
If we go back to the personality traits of an individual, we expect the person to act relatively the same regardless of who is in their environment, right? Unfortunately, there are people who can be deceiving (two-faced). This same ideology can be applied to brands! If the brand is unsuccessful at creating one brand voice, the consumer would assume that the brand is unauthentic and dishonest, and with no true identity, how can the consumer align their core values with your brand? Erica-Lee Lick from Medium said that there are 3 ways to start building a consistent brand voice; “talk to the head of the Marketing team, hire an experienced brand writer, or just do it) yourself!”
In my previous post “Innovate Now! Merriam-Webster in the Millennial Twitter World”, I examine the brand voice of some unlikely favorites, and how they successfully built their brand voice on Twitter. Can you name a brand that doesn’t have a consistent voice? Probably not. Majority of the time when you name a brand at random, it is a brand that has a voice, a brand that immediately stands out to you. Your brand is its own identity, and ultimately you want people to buy into the idea of what your brand stands for. Be real, be consistent, and be different.
References
Erica-Lee Lick, Erica-Lee Lick. “Brand Voice: What the Hell Is It, and Why Does It Matter for Your Business?” Medium.com, Medium, 28 June 2017, medium.com/@ericalick/brand-voice-what-the-hell-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter-for-your-business-a1284be010bc.
York, Alex. “5 Simple Ways to Define & Maintain Your Brand Voice.” Sprout Social, Sprout Social, 31 Jan. 2018, sproutsocial.com/insights/brand-voice/.
Ellering, Nathan. “How to Establish a Unique Brand Voice and Tone the Best Way.” CoSchedule Blog, coschedule.com/marketing-strategy/brand-voice/#brandvoicechart.
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