What is a brand voice and how does it evolve?

Brand voice is one of the things that often inadvertently fall into the mind of planners when building a brand. Entrepreneurs pay attention to the finer details of branding and advertising campaigns without explicit interest in developing the brand's voice. This reflects negatively on the extent of the success and spread of the product among users, due to the absence of a brand voice that would make users choose this product over others.

What is meant by brand voice?

The brand voice, in short, is a means of communicating the vision of the company and the product to the user. In other words, it is the tone and language of discourse between the brand and the audience.

It's like giving the product a voice that fits the receiving community in order to achieve acceptance among users. Carefully choosing the brand's voice makes the brand and product familiar to the receiving community.

As companies today try to integrate into societies by building bridges of communication with users, these bridges are represented in choosing the most appropriate brand voice, which reflects positively on users’ trust, in addition to enhancing the position of the product in the minds of users. Where companies want their product to be the first thing that comes to the minds of users, and this matter can only be built in two steps:

The first is to build a healthy brand voice

It depends on choosing the right brand voice for the community in which companies intend to launch their products. This avoids any issues that may arise with users' acceptance of the new product.

Second: Make marketing campaigns aimed at solving a problem

Companies may want to showcase the benefits of their products in their marketing and advertising campaigns, but in fact users are primarily interested in how this product affects their lives. Which means that choosing a specific problem that the product is able to solve is one of the most successful ways to make the brand the first thing that comes to the minds of users.

What is the importance of brand voice?

The importance of the brand voice stems from the need for companies and organizations to communicate with individuals so that they can present their product to them and ensure that they use it. As the visual identity of the brand cannot guarantee its success alone, you need to build a method of communication between you and the user that guarantees you success. This means that the company cultivates a personality and a voice that enables its product to establish its presence in the markets, and thus sales and profits are inevitably achieved.

What is the difference between brand voice and brand tone?

First: the voice of the brand

In a slightly simplified form, it represents the firm's image and personality for users. The brand's voice should be consistent and not choppy, the brand's voice is what means it's still there. In addition, the brand voice is what differentiates the product and the company as a whole from other competitors. It is difficult today to imagine products in a market that is completely devoid of competition.

Second: the tone of the brand

Brand tone means the way the company chooses to deliver the product to the user, as this method changes according to a number of questions that the company must ask itself before starting any advertising campaign about the product. Which can be summarized in four questions:

How did the user access the content in the ad?

What mode will it find the most used ad?

What state will the recipient ad place in, after they have finished receiving the content?

What is the nature of the content provided? Is it a sensitive topic (politics, religion, privacy issues, controversial topics.)?

When answering the previous questions, the company has a clear picture of the nature of the product, and the tone and voice of the brand that must be communicated.

Brand voice development methods

1. Ask “why”

You have to define the goal of your brand in the first place. Users are more interested in knowing how your product can change their lives, as well as knowing what makes them decide to buy your product, than they are about what the product itself is. To choose the right brand voice for your products, you need to ask and answer some questions, including:

Why did your company start launching the product in the first place?

Why would people want to follow you or buy your product rather than other products available in the market today?

Whereas, when choosing the marketing phrases for your product, the voice of the brand must express what the product is and what it is. You want to achieve the best user experience by selecting the phrases that answer: Why should you choose this product?

Also, for example, AREI, the company specialized in camping and hiking products, the company used in its description terms and words that identify the products it offers and indirectly answer the above question. The recipient will not need long before he can determine that the company provides camping services, which in turn helps to learn more, in addition to spreading the spirit of adventure. A must have for everyone who wants to adventure or camp outside.

As a result, AREI was able to achieve success in its field to become one of the leading companies in Europe, as it was able to answer the questions that might prompt consumers to choose it over others despite the competition in this field.

2. Make your brand sound unique

Don't write like others do, we definitely don't mean here to break the basic rules in crafting appropriate marketing content. Rather, you have to find a way that will make your speech distinct from the style of others. Where repeating the phrases and addressing the methods previously used by other similar products, is enough to make users refrain from buying your product.

It is important that you commit yourself to following a chart outlining the goals of developing your brand voice, including:

I want the user to feel ___ when they receive the content.

I want my Producer's voice to have the following characteristics: ___, ___, ___.

Here you have to choose the best adjectives that describe your product completely, so that you will make your product attractive to customers only.

I don't want my brand voice to be: _____.

Try to fill in the space above with observations from an individual point of view - that is, count yourself as the consumer - and ask yourself: What are the things that, if found in a product, will make you hesitate and back away from buying it?

Here are the most important qualities your brand voice can have:

passion

Ambition and boldness

Confidence

But when you talk about one of these qualities, it is not enough to mention it directly in the context of the text that will make up the marketing phrases for your product, but rather the terms that mean these qualities should be used.

For example, when you want to gain the trust of the user, you should speak in a way that is absolutely clear, in addition to speaking directly and frankly. The goal is to make the user, when he hears it, completely free from confusion and doubt. Although this process is simple, it is a pivotal key to gaining users' trust.

In addition, it is necessary to know the phrases that it is better not to mention them. Like cliched phrases that will not bring you the desired result. You can build a table with 4 columns, the first column, in which you put the attribute you want your product to have. The second column, in which you talk about your vision, and a brief description of why you chose this trait. What helps you pave the way for finding the right phrases to use. Then in the third column you talk about the phrases you should use, and finally in the fourth column you talk about the phrases you should avoid.

Brand voice

You then have to create another table with two columns:

The first is a column to focus on the key phrases your brand voice will include. When relying on e-marketing techniques for products, you are interested in knowing the methods that will enable the user to reach your product.

Two: It includes a list of words and phrases that the brand will not use. For example, jokes or slang sentences.

3. Define your target audience by developing your brand voice

You have to learn how people read your phrases, this means how you can reach users in the best way, by choosing the best phrases and advertising methods, which in turn represent the voice of your brand. It is more than just paying attention to punctuation and the use of flowery words, and big terms that leave the user confused about the intended meaning. You want your idea to reach the audience in the simplest and clearest way possible.

To know the type of your target audience, all you have to do is ask them personally, by conducting surveys and interviews for individuals from the target audience, which helps you to develop a clear perception about them. For example, where do they live? And the types of activities they prefer to engage in in their spare time...etc.

4. Develop your brand personality

When you give your brand a voice, you give it a personality with which to communicate with users. This is in order to reach the main goal of acquiring your product by users. Therefore, the process of developing the brand personality is one of the basics of success in developing the voice of your brand. You are working on improving this personality that you have given to your brand in order to achieve better compatibility with users.

Imagine it as if you were at a group party, and you got to know someone and you two exchanged conversations, now you have to imagine what phrases the person you met uses to tell others about you? What impression did you make on him? In other words, how will the user see and convey your brand to other potential users?

5. Follow the progress of your brand voice

Creating successful content means that the user has reached the answer to the first question I asked, which is: Why your product and not others? You tell the story that your producer has the answer to, and the conclusion. Moreover, following the progression of your brand voice means following the platforms that your audience uses the most. What you should make it helpful to you in deciding the quality of advertising for your target audience.

You also have to know that markets and users are in a state of constant change and development, and the voice of the brand must be alert to adapt to changes that may occur in short periods of time.

In conclusion, to summarize the above, we can say that in order to succeed in building a brand, the process of developing a brand voice must be carefully considered. When properly developed, it will save a lot of efforts and ideas, in the best interest of the product's success.