Whether your business is a small firm targeting customers in your immediate area, or a multinational giant with global reach, the creation of a strong brand voice is crucial to your success. Consumers today have access to an unparalleled level of choice via the internet, and if you don’t stand out from the crowd you may struggle to make an impact online.
Your brand voice lies at the heart of your online identity, and is what will differentiate you from your competitors. It can help build lasting relationships with your customers and capture the attention of newcomers. So how exactly do you go about creating and maintaining a memorable brand voice?
Know who you’re talking to
Online marketing is really a conversation between your organisation and the prospective customer. In order to strike a chord with your customers and ‘speak their language’, you must first understand explicitly who they are, so carry out some market research and come up with a rough composite picture of the person you’re trying to reach.
Identify what makes your company special
What makes you different from the dozens of other firms vying for the same share of the market? Is it your level of expertise? Your prices? The personalised service you offer? The originality of your products? Whatever it is that makes your company special (ie worth paying attention to) must be woven into your brand voice at every step of the way. It may help to brainstorm some words with which you’d like your business to be associated with. A marketing or copywriting agency can help you to build on these and develop your voice.
Provide evidence
Words are easy to say and modern online consumers are highly aware of this. Many of us have been bitten at least once by a company that made bold promises which they then failed to live up to. Back up what you say with evidence in order to promote trust in your brand voice and your company. For example, if you claim to be experienced, tell the customer how many years of experience you have; if you have ‘many satisfied customers’, provide some testimonials or even case studies.
Consider tone and style
The way you talk to your customers will have a significant impact on how they perceive you. For many firms, particularly small local ones, a friendly tone of voice can work well, and you can go some way towards achieving this by referring to ‘you’ and ‘we’ regularly. Conversely, your copywriter might create a sense of luxury and exclusivity by using prose which is a little more poetic and ornamental.
Be consistent
Being consistent means not only sticking to the same brand voice in all of your website content, it also means adapting it to other online arenas, such as email marketing, social media and paid advertising. While you might make minor adjustments to account for differences in medium, your core values and unique selling points should remain relatively unchanged.
