A strong brand voice can take a company to the next level. But, contrary to this, a poor brand voice can be off-putting for customers. How, then, can your business get its brand voice right?
1. Know Your Audience
The first step in developing a strong brand voice is to know your audience. This includes both existing customers and potential customers that you may want to target with a new campaign.
There are many ways to conduct customer research, from web analytics to surveys and interviews. As well as identifying the strengths of your current branding, consider any weaknesses or areas for improvement. And make sure to include feedback from each market segment you hope to reach.
2. Define Your Brand Personality
Your ‘brand personality’ should appeal to your target customers and fit with your corporate values. It could be formal and serious. Or it could be informal and irreverent. It all depends on your company.
A good tip here is to come up with three words that embody your brand. You can then use these as the basis for your brand voice. For ProofreadMyEssay, for example, we might choose to use:
- Friendly – Because we want customers to trust us with their writing.
- Expert – Because we are proofreading and editing experts.
- Empowering – Because our service helps people make their voices heard.
3. Be Unique
To succeed in business, you company must stand out from the competition. Part of your brand voice research, then, should involve looking at what similar companies are doing.
But while it is fine to take some inspiration from competitors, don’t just copy them! Instead, think about what makes your company unique. How do you differ from your competitors? What do you offer that they don’t? You can then use this to guide your brand communications.
4. Create a Style Guide
Consistency is a big part of developing a strong brand voice. Ideally, everyone at your company involved in communications – from marketing campaigns to social media – will have a good understanding of your brand voice, target customers and business goals.
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To make sure your content is consistent, then, you may want to create an in-house style sheet or guide. You can then share this with anyone who creates content for the company.
5. Monitor and Adapt
Developing a brand voice is an ongoing process. As such, you need to keep track of how customers react to your marketing and adapt your brand voice to ensure continued success.
Keep in mind, too, that your company has a dynamic, evolving relationship with its customers. A campaign or promotion may be successful once, but if you repeat the same thing over and over it may become annoying. Ideally, then, you will know what customers want even before they do.
The key here is to seek continuous feedback from your audience. Some of this may be from surveys and interviews, but it can be as simple as engaging with and monitoring people on social media.
Summary: 5 Tips for Developing a Brand Voice
A strong brand is crucial for any company. To make sure yours is right:
- Conduct thorough customer research so that you know your audience.
- Pick three words that define your brand personality and use these to guide your marketing.
- Make sure your brand voice is distinct from that of your competitors.
- Create a style guide to ensure consistent branding.
- Remember that a brand voice should evolve. You will therefore want to monitor customer engagement and adapt your branding as required.
These tips can inform every element of your business writing. And if you’d like help making sure your marketing material is up to scratch, let us know.