Putting your brand into words can be a bit tricky. And if you’ve got a team of people who all contribute to the words, it’s so important that they know what the brand voice is so that all of your content sounds like it’s written by one person instead of several.
But even if it’s just you there – the founder – doing all of the copy, you still need to know how to put your brand into words so that you can clearly talk about what you do and who you do it for. It’s more than getting your brand voice right but also about your positioning, your mission statement, elevator pitch and more.
All of those foundational elements need a cohesive brand voice and one that flows through into everything else you do. Brand voice isn’t just about your external marketing, but it’s also crucial for internal comms and employee branding. How you speak to your team and the ways in which you communicate with them will filter through how they talk with each other (and talk about your business).
Brand voice
Your brand voice should help your ideal customers feel like they are part of your world. A strong brand voice will help you resonate with them and build their trust in you. It’s about creating a deeper, emotional connection with the people you want to work with.
Plus, it’s important that your audience doesn’t get confused on a subconscious level between what they see and what they read. How you communicate with them is the difference between them feeling their needs being met by what you do and not wanting to buy from you at all.
According to research by Stackler, 88% of people support brands with an authentic voice. This means knowing your audience and speaking to them on the right level. If you are the personality behind the business, then make sure that bleeds through into all of the content. If your business is dealing with tough issues, make sure that compassion is front and centre.
And it’s good for business, over two-thirds of businesses report a 10% increase in sales when using a strong brand voice. What would a 10% increase in sales look like for your business?
So, let’s do an exercise on how brand voice can change the way you position your business.
Brand voice exercise
Some of the best brand guidelines I’ve ever cast my eyeballs on have one thing in common. They describe their brand voice as “you could write it like x. X is very close to y. But we need you to write it as Y”.
Comparing how something could sound okay to how something can sound spot on is really helpful in letting people know how to write (or do anything) in your brand voice. If you hire contractors, this can shortcut a lot of rounds of edits. If you have multiple people in your team writing, it can make everything sound consistent.
But if you’re doing all of the writing yourself, pulling a guide together can help cement it in your mind and future-proof it for when your business grows and you do hire someone else to write it.
So let’s try the beans on toast test.
Here are three different ways in which you can describe beans on toast on a menu:
1. Beans on toast. Choice of white or brown bread.
2. Baked beans served on hot buttered toast made from freshly baked bread. Choose from farmhouse or wholemeal.
3. Organic haricot beans, freshly oven-baked in a delicately flavoured sauce. Served over organic sourdough made with ancient grains.
Each of these says the same thing but to different audiences. As such, you’d expect a different price point for each of them.
One of my favourite games when eating out is to turn the flowery menu descriptions into what they’d be if they were served in a greasy spoon.
It’s the play with language that you need to incorporate into your brand style.
Now, do this for your business. Write something in three different ways to illustrate how your brand voice works. Then you can put every piece of writing through the beans on toast test and really see if it’s meeting your brand voice guidelines.
Position your business
But it isn’t all about price points. It’s about who you are as a person and a business.
Try this: when you’re looking at your website copy, choose 3-5 words where you could use an alternative. I find having an online thesaurus helps with this.
Write down the alternative words you could use.
It could be that you like to call the people who buy from you ‘clients’, or you could call them customers, tribe, club, or something else. Which feels most comfortable with your voice and your brand?
Then every instance where you see this word, replace it with the one which is in your brand voice.
Not sure where to begin? Talk to your customers, listen deeply in phone calls and go back over emails. What language are they using? What words are common? Are these fitting in with your business and the way you want your brand voice to sound?
This takes time to build up but once you get the hang of it, you’ll start to see other ways you can build your brand voice into the copy you write.
Put your brand into words
When you’ve finally built up enough of a guide, you’ll need to make sure everyone in your business and who works with your business knows this and uses it. You’ve got to encourage them to refer to it when writing and that anyone who is the last line of defence for your content is checking it against your guidelines.
Need help with this? Book yourself onto a Content Clinic and get an outside set of eyes looking for the gaps in your brand voice.