Defining your Brand Voice to Improve your Content Marketing Strategy

In everything related to marketing and promotion, a well positioned business should have a consistent message and a unique brand voice across all channels. Conversely, you’ll end up with a mixed message that might not resonate with your customers on any level.

This is easily overlooked by brands as they grow. The risk entailed is that your brand will end up with a random shuffle of voices in the content you produce, failing provide a consistent picture of your brand, or even use the same style of language across marketing channels.

No matter what you’re selling, you need to create an engaging brand voice that’s authentic to your values. Just as important is to project a consistent brand image and keep the same communication style on all marketing channels.

Some of the well-known brands are great examples of using their brand voice to raise awareness about their product and increase engagement of their audience:

• Dollar Shave Club: different, casual and fun.
• Nike: inspiring, powerful and positive.
• MailChimp: helpful and encouraging.

Defining the Brand Voice

In order to define a clear brand voice, you need to know what kind of message you want to transmit. Think about who uses your product or service. Create your brand voice that speaks to your target audience and creates an emotional connection to what your brand represents.

For example if your audience is comprised of millennials who love cycling, your voice will be vastly different than if you’re targeting women shopping for clothing.

When defining the voice, try to find answers to this type of questions:

• How do you want your customers to see your brand?
• What’s the single greatest benefit your product or service offers to customers?
• How do you want people to feel when/after using your product?
• How does your product differentiate itself from the competition?

Three Characteristics

Once you find some answers and have a clearer image of your brand message, dive deeper in outlining the brand voice. Think of your brand as a person and choose three words that characterize it.

Here are some examples of words for describing the brand voice:

• Enthusiastic
• Confident
• Helpful
• Innovative
• Inspiring
• Fun
• Authoritative

The next step would be to further define the chose characteristics, e.g. funny but not silly. This helps at clearly outlining a brand identity that can be used to create targeted branding content.

While the brand voice is meant to provide a business with a consistent identity, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be evaluated on a regular basis. As competitors enter the market and your target market might change, it’s well advised to evaluate the message your brand is sending and refresh it if needed.