As you may know, consumers typically buy products from companies they can relate to and identify with by finding your brand’s voice.
The single most effective way to develop a relationship is by creating a compelling voice for your brand. The voice should reflect the values of your company. It should also correspond to how you communicate with your audience. It may sound simple but finding your brand’s voice can be a very complex process.
Alex Honeysett provides four great tips to help you identify your brand’s voice in her latest article, “4 Steps to Finding Your Brand’s Voice.” She explains that the brand’s voice can be just about anything you want as long as it is genuine. Consumers are quick to spot inconsistencies in voice and tone. To help create a cohesive brand with your customers, it is important to communicate the tone and voice with your employees to ensure consistency at all customer touch points.
With the help of Alex’s tips, you will soon be on your way to building relationships with customers and increasing your sales. Read the excerpt below to learn how to outline your company’s voice.
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1. Build Archetypes
As you work on nailing down your voice, it’s helpful to know who you’re talking to—beyond your audiences’ basic demographics. Pick one person from each of your target audiences (e.g., working parents, college students, or urban hipsters) and answer the following questions:
- What does he or she look like?
- What does he or she care about?
2. Fill in the Blank
Now, spend a bit of time answering the following questions:
- I want my brand to make people feel _______.
- _______ makes me feel this way.
- I want people to _______ when they come into contact with my brand.
3. Create a Test Group
In life, our friends and family can often reflect back the things we sometimes miss about ourselves. And you can use the same approach when looking for your brand voice.
Get a bunch of your closest people together—ideally, ones that represent your target community—and ask what excites them most about your brand. What’s unique about it? What words or phrases do they associate with it? Then ask them to answer the same questions aboutyou—the person who will be crafting that brand’s messages.
4. Find Your Muse
Once you have an idea of what you’re going for, it can be helpful to find other brands who have similar voices. Need a little inspiration? Check out these industry-spanning brands—both old and new. Some have witty brand voices, others have informative brand voices, but all of them are approachable and genuine.
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