Your brand voice is how your company sounds when it communicates. It's the personality that comes through in every email, social post, ad, and customer interaction. A distinctive, consistent voice builds recognition, trust, and emotional connection with your audience.
Yet many brands struggle to define their voice or maintain consistency as they scale. Here's how to build a brand voice that truly resonates.
Why Brand Voice Matters
In a crowded market, products and services can be copied. Your voice cannot. It's a sustainable competitive advantage that differentiates you from competitors offering similar solutions.
A strong brand voice also builds trust. When your communication is consistent, customers know what to expect. Inconsistency creates confusion and erodes confidence.
The Brand Voice Framework
We use a simple framework to define brand voice across four dimensions:
Tone: The emotional quality of your communication. Are you serious or playful? Formal or casual? Enthusiastic or measured?
Language: The words you use. Simple or sophisticated? Industry jargon or plain English? Contractions or formal grammar?
Purpose: The intent behind your communication. To educate? Inspire? Entertain? Persuade?
Personality: The human characteristics your brand embodies. If your brand were a person, how would you describe them?
Discovering Your Voice
Start by examining your existing communication. What's working? What feels authentic? Look at your best-performing content and customer feedback for clues.
Consider your audience. How do they communicate? What tone resonates with them? Your voice should feel natural to both your brand and your audience.
Study your competitors. If everyone in your industry sounds corporate and formal, there might be an opportunity to stand out with warmth and personality.
Creating Voice Guidelines
Document your voice in a guide that anyone can reference. Include:
Voice attributes: 3-5 adjectives that describe your voice (e.g., "Confident, Warm, Witty, Clear")
Do's and Don'ts: Specific examples of language and approaches to use or avoid
Sample copy: Examples of your voice applied to common scenarios (social posts, emails, error messages, etc.)
Word lists: Preferred terms and phrases, plus words to avoid
Voice Across Channels
Your core voice should remain consistent, but it can flex slightly based on context. Think of it like how you speak differently to your best friend versus your grandmother—you're still you, but you adjust your approach.
Social media might be more casual and playful. Customer support might be warmer and more empathetic. Sales materials might be more confident and persuasive. The underlying personality stays the same.
Maintaining Consistency at Scale
As your team grows, maintaining voice consistency becomes challenging. Strategies that help:
Onboarding: Make voice guidelines part of new hire training
Templates: Create templates for common communication types
Review processes: Have brand guardians review important communications
Regular calibration: Periodically review content as a team to ensure alignment
Evolving Your Voice
Brand voice isn't static. As your company grows and your audience evolves, your voice may need to adapt. Review your voice guidelines annually and update based on what you've learned.
However, evolution should be gradual. Sudden, dramatic voice changes confuse customers and can damage trust.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Being generic: "We're passionate about quality" could be any brand. Find what makes you unique.
Trying too hard: Forced humor or artificial personality feels inauthentic. Let your natural voice emerge.
Inconsistency: A playful social presence and a stiff website create cognitive dissonance.
Ignoring context: The same joke that works on Twitter might be inappropriate in a support email.
Getting Started
If you don't have defined voice guidelines, start small. Identify three adjectives that describe how you want your brand to sound. Use those as a filter for all communication. Refine from there based on what resonates.
Your brand voice is one of your most valuable assets. Invest the time to define it well, and it will pay dividends in customer connection and brand recognition.
