Your brand is the promise you make. It all starts with how your marketing talks to your customers. Find out how to define your unique brand voice.
Your brand is not your logo. It’s not your tag line or even the colours you use. Your brand is the promise you make.
Your brand communicates what you stand for and makes you unique. Your brand helps your target customers distinguish you from your competitors and the connection is much more emotional than you might think.
Make it a personal connection
A very simple exercise to boost the personality of your brand is to assign three human traits that represent how your customers feel about your business and the impression you want your business to give. Ask your customers to describe you in just a few words, or review all your testimonials to see the consistent themes.
Copywrite Matters is knowledgeable, creative, and edgy. I use these values to guide how I write about my business and how I communicate with my customers and peers.
It’s worth digging a bit deeper by building up a brand profile answering questions like:
- If your business were a friend, how would you describe them to your other friends?
- What are the qualities your business is known for, or you would like it to be known for?
- What is your brand passionate about? Who does it aspire to be like?
- What blogs does your brand like to read and why?
- What kind of car, food, and hobbies would your brand like?
Some of these might seem like silly questions but the more personal you can make your brand profile, the easier it will be to ensure your copywriting and communications are consistently “on brand”.
Turn that into a brand voice.
The next step is to translate your brand profile into a real voice, the voice of your business. You need to consider vocabulary, grammar and style used in your marketing copy. Consider the emotions you want your customer to feel when they interact with your brand. Do you want them to feel like they’re chatting with best friend, or getting the wisdom of an expert?
A useful exercise is to decide where your brand voice might sit between these extremes.
Formal___________________Chatty
Detached_________________Warm
Professional_______________Wacky
Serious___________________Humorous
Relaxed___________________Lively
Your brand might have different voices for different audiences but it should always be guided by your brand profile and brand values. Consider how the tone of voice might change in different circumstances, such as the first time you communicate with a customer versus how you talk to the most active members of your social media communities.
Be unique. Be authentic. Be consistent.
The more real your brand voice is, the more likely it is that your customers will respond to you on a deeper, more meaningful level. And that’s the stuff of brand loyalty.
