How to find your brand voice

A brand’s voice is apparent in all the ways customers come in contact with your business (known as touch points). This includes written content like blog posts, social media, your website’s content and design, and how you interact with your customers.

You need to establish a brand voice, also known as brand personality or brand identity, to create a consistent brand image your customers can easily recognize and trust.

Creating a brand voice requires some prep work, though. You need to have a solid idea of who your customers are and what your brand values are. This can take some time to develop, but I’ve taken the extra work out for you. With this article, you’ll be on your way to discovering your brand voice.

Discover who your customers are

Every organization has a unique audience. The first step to creating your brand voice is to know who your customers are and the best way to communicate with them. One of the biggest mistakes new businesses make is believing that their target audience is everyone. You’ll want to create buyer personas or profiles for your customer base to discover who your audience really is. 

Summarize the commonalities of your customers to build a model of who your target audience is. 

These characteristics might include the following:

• Age
• Location
• Education level
• Industry or occupation
• Homeownership, car ownership, etc.
• Gender
• Hobbies or interests

You’ll also want to list the problems your customers face. The more you can narrow down your audience the better.

Now it’s time to create a rough draft of a buyer persona. It doesn’t need to be perfect just yet, but it should be honest. Now, imagine your customer base is an individual. Using the information you brainstormed or analyzed, create a profile for a single customer. You can be as detailed as you want and even give them a name. This should be your ideal customer.

With all this information, you’re one step closer to developing your brand voice and improving your marketing efforts by knowing who to target.

Some sections of your buyer persona/profile can include:

• Name for your persona
• Job title
• Age 
• Gender
• Location
• Hobbies and interests
• How they find you (such as reading your blog, searching for a particular product or service, or social media)
• Why they buy from you (relate this back to a problem they’re facing)
• What might hold them back from purchasing from you

Understanding your brand values and culture

Your brand’s voice shouldn’t only fit your audience. It needs to mesh with your company culture and values. By developing a brand voice centered on your customers and your culture, your branding will be authentic. 

Your brand mission and values

If you haven’t determined your brand’s values or mission yet, these tips can help.

First, think about why you started your business. Maybe it was to make money, but why start your particular business instead of something else? Be honest. Once you’ve thought of your answer, consider your personal goals for your business. 

Now let’s take it a step further. What does your business stand for? What’s the impact on your customers? What problems do you solve?

Take all of this information and craft a mission statement. This is your brand’s reason for existing and serving customers. This should guide the future of your organization. 

Now, determine what core values your organization represents or strives for. It should relate to your mission and your business goals. They should be unique to you and realistic. 

Here are some examples of core values:

• BigCommerce’s core values are: Customers first, team on a mission, think big, act with integrity, and make a difference every day.
• AirBnb’s core values are: Champion the mission, be a host, embrace the adventure, and be a cereal entrepreneur.
• Canva’s core values are: Make complex things simple, set crazy big goals and make them happy, be a force for good, and empower others.

Your company culture

Last but not least, your brand voice should reflect your company culture. Do you and your employees have fun at work? Or is it a more heads-down environment? 

Robert E. Quinn and Kim S. Cameron of the University of Michigan coined four types of organizational culture:

• Clan culture: Organizations emphasize collaboration
• Adhocracy culture: Organizations promote the sharing of ideas and taking big risks
• Market culture: Organizations focus on financial success and how each individual employee contributes to that revenue
• Hierarchy culture: Organizations focus on career paths

Think about your organization’s culture as you develop your voice.

Review your current content

You should also review any content and communication your brand has with customers. Content can include social media posts, emails, your website copy, and how your customer service team interacts with customers. What trends do you notice in the style of your communication? Are there any repeated words or phrases? 

Take these findings into account as you develop your brand voice.

Creating your brand voice

Now you’re ready to work on your brand voice. First, think about adjectives or values that describe your brand. Which of these most represents your customer base, too? 

Consider these adjectives if you’re stuck:

• Active
• Ambitious
• Artsy
• Authentic
• Bold
• Boundless
• Brave
• Calm
• Caring
• Casual
• Cheerful
• Classic
• Competitive
• Creative
• Current
• Cutting-edge
• Daring
• Dynamic
• Earthy
• Elegant
• Faithful
• Fearless
• Feminine
• Fine
• Formal
• Fun
• Generous
• Glamorous
• Helpful
• Industrious
• Innovative
• Kind-hearted
• Knowledgeable
• Masculine
• Mellow
• Neighborly
• Patient
• Personable
• Positive
• Romantic
• Sarcastic
• Secure
• Sentimental
• Serious
• Simple
• Sincere
• Sociable
• Sophisticated
• Spiritual
• Thrifty
• Witty

Which ones match your brand?

To stand out against your competitors, you’ll want to ensure your brand voice is unique and true to your brand. Create a list of your top competitors and examine their brand voice and personality. Places to check include their social media channels, website, videos, and more.

Do you notice any similarities between your competitors’ voices and your brand? Is there anything you liked or disliked about their voices?

Now put everything together. How do you want to make people feel? How do your products make people feel? 

If you’re struggling to put all of this information together, don’t worry. You can also plot your brand on various spectra to see where your voice falls. For example, does your business lean more formal, neutral, or informal? Are you more serious or humorous? Do you want to be detached or warm?

Examples of brand voices

Here are some brand voice examples from well-known organizations:

• Skittles: The famous candy brand doesn’t take itself too seriously. It's known for its humorous social media posts and commercials.
• Slack: The communication platform uses straightforward but casual language. It’s professional, but welcoming.
• Dr. Squatch: The men’s personal care brand known for their hilarious YouTube ads for their bar soap doesn’t hold anything back. They use jokes and emotion to frame the problem their customers face, what their competitors do wrong, and why their products aren’t s*it (if you know, you know).

Create a brand style guide

Once you've settled on a brand voice that complements your mission, vision, values, and customer expectations, you can formalize it by creating a brand style guide. This guide is a handbook for how your brand looks, communicates, and feels.

Style guides can include rules/tips for:

• Word choice and brand tone
• Sentence and paragraph length
• Spelling
• Colors
• Typography
• Font sizes
• Any mottos or slogans
• Logo and usage
• How to interact with customers

A style guide will help you follow your brand voice so you can create a seamless experience for your audience.

Check out my other blog posts for more content marketing and small business tips.

Featured image by Thomas Le, Unsplash.