NEW FEATURE: You can create your brand voice in Enji!
If your brand was a personality, how would you describe it to someone?
This question gets to the heart of determining your brand voice. You can also ask yourself, “How is my brand different from others in my space?” If you can answer these questions, you can begin to define your brand voice.
Making sure your brand voice (sometimes referred to as tone of voice) is consistent across all your marketing channels is extremely important. For example, your social media posts shouldn’t sound formal while your email campaigns are funny AF. The bottom line? No matter which of your marketing channels reaches a potential customer, the voice should sound like it’s coming from the same person because consistency is how you build a great brand.
Here are some simple steps to defining your brand voice:
Define what makes your small business special - List out 3-5 things that are unique to your brand. Think about what makes you different from your competition and use these things as the foundation of your brand voice.
Describe your business in three words - Would you describe your business as original, modern, reliable? Maybe your business is formal, educational, and trusted. Add the words that define your business to the list of what makes your brand unique.
Determine your tone - Think about how you want people to perceive your brand (expert, caring, relatable, etc.) and this will define the “tone” of your brand voice. In most cases, you'll want to keep your tone friendly and approachable.
Describe how you want people to feel - Because so much of marketing is about getting your potential customers and clients to know, like, and trust you, you want to be clear about what your words should make them feel. Maybe that’s empowered. Maybe it’s comforted. Think about those emotions and jot them down.
Finalize your notes - Create a single document with all your notes (and clean them up so they look nice). Then you can share it with anyone on your team that creates content or writes copy.
Pro-tip: Examples of copy written in your brand voice (as well as not) can really help people understand your guidelines.
Now, anytime you create customer facing content, make sure it includes aspects of what makes your brand unique. Weave in sentences that connect to the way you want people to experience your brand, and write in the tone that you have determined best fits your business’s personality!