How to Standardize Your Brand Voice When Content Writing
Creating a great customer experience in 2020 depends on companies’ ability to establish a relationship with their customers. One effective way to present a consistent and compelling face to the customer is through the establishment of a voice for your brand. Sticking to a definitive voice, carefully tuned to represent your company in a resonating way, allows the business-to-customer relationship to become more personal and distinct.
Marketing teams, in-house content creators, as well as freelance writers, can further that relationship by creating a brand voice for content writing. Sticking to a definitive voice that speaks to a business audience will foster a trustworthy business-to-customer relationship that drives sales.
Brand voice is the distinct personality an organization takes on in its communications, according to Sprout Social. It’s created and used by marketing teams, internal copywriters, and freelance writers. Implementing a strategy for brand voice will create a consistent company “personality” across print and digital communications. A key consideration for settling on a brand voice should be how it reflects the audience to which the company is speaking too.
Good content writers never lose sight of who they’re writing for; always considering the important questions of: Who am I speaking to, and why are they reading? Examples of businesses’ using a distinct brand voice can be found everywhere in marketing and advertising. Ford Motor Company does this often in television advertisements — this can also be applied in written content. Ford’s advertisement shows a shiny, new pickup blasting through deserted, icy roadways with a rough-n-tumble, man’s man telling the viewer to buy “Ford Tough.” The spokesman’s voice sounds reliable, familiar, and knowledgeable. This brand voice speaks to the company’s alleged core values and mission statement.
Brand voice plays a part in every objective in a company’s marketing plan. Website copy, social media, company blogs, press releases, brochures, and signage are all outlets where a brand’s voice can be employed and reach a reader… Businesses can choose how detailed they’d like to go when developing an implementation plan in each type of application. For example, posts on LinkedIn might call for a more serious brand personality, while a brand’s comments on social media could be a bit more humorous.
When developing a plan for your brand voice, it is often useful to create a persona that reflects the audience to which the brand is speaking. For example, it is often a bad idea to use a lot of industry jargon in content writing. However, if a company is selling new, exclusive software specifically to web developers, the technical language may be the first thing that the audience is looking for. In this instance, the brand voice could come off more serious and technical. A marketing team or content writer should choose adjectives that describe the character when building out a brand voice.
Knowing where to start when creating your brand voice can be overwhelming. Do not let paralysis at the vast possibilities delay defining this core branding component. For decades, companies across the world have invented and reinvented their brands by writing with a specific tone in mind. Writers who don’t know where to start should study businesses that have a specific brand personality. Finding and emulating a company that has this process nailed down is a great place to begin developing a brand voice. In the end, it’s always about the audience. A brand’s voice may change over the years with that audience. However, the question will remain the same: Who is my audience, and why should they care about what I’m writing?
