Think about your favorite TV show. If you saw a line of dialogue from an episode that had not yet aired, would you be able to tell right away which character was going to say that line?
Or your favorite book. Do you ever come across a line of dialogue in your book without a dialogue tag (the part before or after the dialogue that tells you who said it), and you’re still not confused because it’s so obvious which character said it?
If the writers are any good at their job, you should be able to match characters with their dialogue without being told, and the same goes for your brand.
When people see something you (or someone writing for your brand) wrote, it should be immediately obvious that it belongs to your brand. Your logo should be displayed everywhere you distribute your content, but your logo should be like those dialogue tags: a confirmation of what the reader already knows. It’s nice to have it there, but it’s not necessary.
See if you can name the brands that published these statements:
- Rock on!
- Nice.
- Great! The post has been added to your queue.
You can skip down to the bottom of this post to see the answers, or you can keep reading and wait to see the answers when you’re done. The point is each of these statements conveys a distinct tone of voice that is consistent with the company’s overall brand.
This exercise demonstrates why it’s so important to define your brand voice while you’re defining your brand. Before you can start communicating your brand, you first need to have a clear idea of what the brand is, as well as the goals that brand is trying to achieve.
Now that we know why your brand voice is so important, let’s talk about what you can do to define it.
Table of Contents
- Describe Your Brand’s Voice
- Describe Your Competitors’ Brands
- Create a List of Words You Use a Lot
- Create a List of Words You Don’t Use
- Create Your Brand Voice Guidelines
- Rinse and Repeat
1) Describe Your Brand’s Voice
Can you describe your brand? If not, start there. If you can describe it but it takes more than three words, work on paring down that selection to just three words. The point is to get to the essence of your brand, and as a result, your brand’s voice.
Consider the above examples of statements made by various brands. If I said one was light, playful, and encouraging, it would be slightly different from the one that is serious, encouraging, and minimalist.
2) Describe Your Competitors’ Brands
We all know that a successful marketing strategy requires separating ourselves from the rest of the pack, so sometimes you need to define the rest of the pack before you can define your own brand.
The beauty of this exercise is that you can take another look at the words used to describe the branded statements above, but instead of thinking about which words might apply to your brand, think about which words apply to your competitors. You don’t necessarily have to think of the antonyms of those words, but take a minute to think about the cross section between words that describe your brand and words that help you stand out from the crowd.
3) Create a List of Words You Use a Lot
I always hesitate to overuse any word, but for the purposes of this exercise, it’s OK to recognize that there are some words you tend to use over and over again that you want associated with your brand. One of the first examples that comes to my mind is a client of mind who uses the word “awesome” a lot, both in her content and in the way she talks to her clients. It’s fun, encouraging, and informal, which is a pretty accurate description of her approach to working with her clients.
In some cases it might help to work backwards. Create a list of words you use a lot when talking to your clients and colleagues, then describe those words and use those adjectives to describe your brand.
4) Create a List of Words You Don’t Use
I don’t swear a lot, but I have certainly been known to swear in certain situations. When I started blogging for my business, I decided I would never swear in any of my marketing content. I wanted to maintain a sense of professionalism and I think profanity would harm the reputation I wanted to build, so I have avoided it. You might think that would be easy, but there have been a few times when I struggled to find a substitute for the word I really wanted to use.
Another example of words you might not want to use would be acronyms and/or industry-specific jargon your target audience doesn’t understand. If you’re working in a B2B industry and you know your audience does understand the jargon, then feel free to use it in your content. Otherwise, stick to the basics.
5) Create Your Brand Voice Guidelines
Now that you know what words describe your brand, what words don’t describe your brand, what words you’ll use in your content, and what words you’ll avoid, it’s time to put it all together into a guide. You can refer back to it every time you create content for your brand, but more importantly, you can give it to a professional content marketer you hire to write for your company. If you get to the point of being able to hire either an independent contractor or a full-time writer for your company, having a guide for your brand’s voice you can hand them on their first day will make their transition to the team go that much more smoothly.
As a content marketer, I can say from experience that having a guide for a client’s brand voice makes my job much easier. Without it, I have to comb through pages and pages of content (and/or interview the client) to get an idea of the their brand’s voice, as well as the kinds of words they tend to use a lot and the words they tend to avoid in their content.
6) Rinse and Repeat
As your company grows, it’s bound to change, and as a result, your brand is likely to change with it. You might decide to ditch the more informal language for something more formal to match the growing level of professionalism you want your brand to exemplify. Or you might want to stick with the informal language in order to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Whatever direction you decide to go with your brand (or your brand decides to go with you), just make sure you don’t forget to take your brand’s voice with you.
By the way, these are the brands whose taglines were mentioned at the top of this article:
- MailChimp
- Momentum
- Buffer
If you have your brand’s voice defined and ready to put to good use, but you don’t have the time and/or inclination to write all the content yourself, I can help.
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