Building a brand from the ground up is a challenging but rewarding experience. There are a lot of things that you will need to think about when developing your brand, one of which is its ‘tone of voice’. This encompasses your brand’s ‘personality’ and it will help you to set yourself apart from the competition, making it a crucial part of the branding process.

In this post, we’re offering up our branding tips and tricks to help you develop an effective set of brand voice guidelines that are unique to your business.

 

What is brand voice?

Brand voice, sometimes referred to as ‘tone of voice’, is the character or personality of your business that is displayed through both your written and verbal communications. It’s not just what you say, but how you say it, too.

Thinking about your brand as a person and not a business can help you to pinpoint your brand voice. What would they dress like? How would they carry themselves? Where would they live? Once you’ve built up an idea of what your brand might ‘look’ like, it’s then easier to establish what it might ‘sound’ like.

We’ve handpicked some unique brand voice examples that you may already be familiar with:

 

MailChimp

brand tone of voice examples

 

Missguided

branding tone of voice

BrewDog

tone of voice descriptions

 

Why is brand voice important?

Your brand voice is a reflection of your business’ ethos and values and it helps you to connect with your customers and clients. Regardless of whether you’re communicating with customers on social media or distributing offers through email marketing, maintaining a clear and consistent brand voice will help you to distinguish your business and, more importantly, make it memorable.

If that wasn’t enough to convince you, here are a few more reasons why getting your brand voice right is so important:

 

  • It helps to build trust
  • It can increase your virality
  • It helps to communicate your values
  • It can be used to influence others

 

Developing your tone of voice brand guidelines

As mentioned earlier, it helps to think of your brand as a person when trying to develop your tone of voice. This helps you to picture what they may ‘sound’ like, and what image you’d like to portray to potential customers and clients.

In addition to this, you’ll need to think about your business’ values. It helps to ask yourself and the members of your company questions, such as:

 

  • What was your motivation for setting up the business?
  • How do you work differently to other organisations?
  • What can you offer your customers besides your product or service?

 

This can help you to identify shared themes and concepts within your organisation, and these can form the basis of your values and tone of voice.

 

Language and writing style

Once you’ve established your brand’s values, you’ll need about which language and writing styles best express your values.

Formal vs informal

Formal language can make your brand seem more professional and authoritative, whereas informal language can make your brand appear casual, friendly and approachable. Whilst your brand language doesn’t need to be strictly formal or informal, this is a good place to start when establishing the tone of your communications.

Example:

Formal - Thank you for signing up to our email list.

Informal - Thanks for signing up! We’re super excited to have you on board.

 

Technical language and jargon

The amount of technical language that you use in your communications will largely depend on your industry, and whether your organisation is B2C or B2B.

Too much technical language or jargon can alienate consumers, however, in some cases it’s impossible to avoid it. In this case, simply use everyday language where possible so that the majority of your audience will understand it.

 

Your customer’s language

Your customers should be one of your first ports of call when developing your brand voice. You could conduct a focus group to determine what people think of your brand and its services, or you could use social media to find out how people communicate with your business.

Whichever method you choose, you’ll obtain an invaluable insight that can help you to tailor your communications to suit your audience.

 

Brand development in Manchester

If you’re in need of a total brand redesign or you need assistance with brand development in Manchester, look no further! Our experienced team can help you with all of the above, as well as all other aspects of branding process, so you can set your organisation apart from the rest.

Contact the FireCask team below for more information on our services.

 

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