Your Small Business's Brand Voice: Why It Matters and How to Find Yours
Whether you’ve been in the small business game for a while or dipping your toes into it for the first time, the more you invest in your marketing, the more you’ll run into brand identity questions like describing your brand voice.
Knowing your brand identity is not just exclusive to artsy businesses or high-end ventures. Whether you’re a real estate agent for luxury condos or offer rodeo clown courses doesn't matter.
If you have a business, you have a brand.
Knowing what makes your brand unique is integral to marketing it well, and it all starts with your brand voice.
(Free)
Brand Voice Discovery Game Pack
Enjoy 3 interactive and gamified exercises to help you discover 3 essential layers of what makes your brand voice unique, powerful, and the weapon you can't go without in your marketing arsenal.
What’s a brand voice?
A brand voice is a marketing term that refers to your business's tone, vernacular, and overall personality.
Before caller ID, if you picked up your landline and heard your grandma’s voice on the other end, you’d know it was your grandma, right? Her elongated, gentle “hi honey” when she heard you say hello on the other end—she’d know it was you, and you’d know it was her simply by the words you both used.
It’s the same with a business.
Defining, refining, and committing to consistency in how your business communicates is a chance to build rapport, familiarity, and connection with your target audience.
Build rapport, familiarity, and connection with your target audience.
If you think about it, what’s the purpose of a voice in general? To communicate and connect. In a business’s case, the goal is to compel and sell to YOUR people (aka: your target audience). Your target audience are the ones who get you, resonate with what you do, and want what you have to offer.
They’re your followers, clients, and customers, and the job of a brand voice is to speak directly to them.
In your social media presence, advertising, and anything you write for your business, your brand voice is essential in bridging that communication gap between what you have to offer and who you’re offering it to.
Why does a brand voice matter?
Your brand voice matters because it’s an essential element of your brand identity, and people buy and book from businesses they feel connected with on a human level.
People like to buy from people, so no matter what kind of business you run, nurturing the humanized elements of your brand is imperative.
Humans buy from humans, so let’s ensure your business sounds like one.
This is where a thoroughly designed brand identity comes into play.
Are there any hardcore Sims fans out there? This CD Rom game absorbed thousands of hours of my and my sister’s free time growing up. We loved creating Sim people, building their houses (my favorite part), and playing out the motions of their lives from beginning to end. To start the game, you’d create your Sim, choosing their hair, eye color hopes and dreams, and unique personality traits. These choices would play into how their life panned out in the game.
Like a Sim you’re clicking to create, your business is an entity in itself.
If you could personify your business — give it a name, face, personality, and way of talking — what would that look like?
This is important to know because your brand is not an ice-cold, only down-to-business transactional robot. It’s run by humans, for humans, and should sound like a human.
Where is a brand voice applicable to my business?
Your brand voice is interwoven throughout your:
website
advertising
social media presence and engagement
blogs
client materials like flyers, brochures, and guides
customer service interactions
within your organization’s culture
and much more
Your brand voice is at play everywhere you write or speak words. Clarity on what your brand voice is and, just as importantly, what it’s not is vital in building your brand on a bedrock of consistency.
An unclear or ever-changing tone of brand voice will breed confusion for your target audience, and people don’t buy when they’re confused.
They buy when they feel connected with and compelled.
How do I find my brand voice?
First and foremost, don’t overthink this.
Finding your brand voice isn’t a test; it’s a discovery process. So take the pressure off, grab a notebook, and let yourself explore these topics without self-judgment.
Here are two ideas to help you start to pull the golden threads of what makes your brand voice unique. After diving in, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how your brand voice sounds and how it works to embody your company and its values and connect you with the audience you want to reach.
Explore these open-ended questions.
Free write in a notebook, externally process with a friend or via voice note (so you can listen back later), or take a walk to mull over these questions:
If my business were a guest, I invited to a party, which of my friends would they likely get along best with?
How come? What kind of conversations would they start? How would the atmosphere change when my business walked into the room?
How do I want followers to feel after interacting with a social media post from my business?
Inspired to make a change? Relaxed and at ease? Buzzing with excitement of what’s possible? What emotions do I want to invoke with how my brand voice comes across?
If my business were cast in a sitcom (or a show I know well — The Office, Parks and Recreation, Ted Lasso, etc.), what role would they fit best?
The sassy side character that always has a joke to crack? The humble, helpful neighbor who wants everyone to be happy? The over-achieving big sister that looks after everyone?
Get clear about your brand’s foundations.
Journal or externally process the following:
YOUR BRAND’S “WHY”
Your brand’s why is your business’s overarching purpose, driving force, and compelling reason to exist. Look at Simon Sinek’s quick trick to finding your business’s purpose and developing language for your “why” here.
YOUR CORE VALUES
Your core values are your nonnegotiables, the pillars of character that act as the framework for your business choices, goals, and direction.
YOUR STANCE ON INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE, PROFANITY, OR INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC TERMS
Considering your core values and the values of your target audience, what makes the most sense for your brand?
Is inclusive language integral to what you offer and who you serve? Is there specific language that will help your target audience feel safe and belong when interacting with your content?
Do you swear in your copy sometimes, all the time, or never? What’s your stance on soft swearing and using special characters to imply the use of a profane word (sh*t, f%&!, etc.)?
Are there terms specific to your industry that may not resonate with everyone but will, without a doubt, resonate with your target audience?
YOUR TAGLINES, QUIPS, OR GO-TO PHRASES
Catchphrases, taglines, and quips are great ways to build a micro-culture of rapport with your target audience. For example, one of mine is: “Let’s slay the marketing monster and have fun doing it.”
The marketing monster is a boogie man I reference throughout my copy and is a catch-all for the value I offer.
Maybe you have phrases you use in your advertising or within your organization already. Consider how you can make them a defining piece of your brand voice and identity.
In defining and refining your unique brand voice, you take a step towards communicating clearly with your target audience, embodying the values and the “why,” and upholding your business through the language you use. This infuses your marketing efforts with clarity and consistency.
Remember, humans buy from humans, so let’s ensure your business sounds like one with your brand voice.
(Free) Brand Voice Discovery Game Pack
The tool of your brand voice is the bedrock of effective and meaningful marketing, and knowing what makes yours unique is just the start.
Jump into this game pack to explore and leverage your brand voice to embody and advance your small business.