Brand voice: highlight your brand thanks to the language

If we talk about brand voice, most people will look at us with a blank stare. What is it about? The brand voice aims at generating our own language that identifies with our brand.

Most of the companies are looking for the added value to make them stand out from their competitors. This is where the brand voice comes in to help us with this task. Many focus on a good design for the corporate image, a colourful website that serves as ambassador for the company, but fail in looking after the language.

Here you have  some key tips so you can begin applying a brand voice strategy.

 

What exactly is brand voice?

The brand voice is the unique way in which each brand communicates with the external environment. Every company has one, whether they know it or not, but very few care about it. A good brand voice connects with the image you want to give of your company.

It is not the same to sell stylish clothes as to sell sportswear. Every company will have to find the language that best communicates its personality.

 

First step: identify our image.

In order to create a good tone of voice we must think about how we want to convey ourselves to others. This is clear to many companies, and they simply need to build on their brand image to develop good verbal branding. The best way to decide about our brand voice is to think about our brand values.

If, for example, one of our values is youthfulness, talking formally to our audience will be contradictory.

Compile a list of values, or take one you already have, and think about how a person (or a group of people) who has them would speak.

 

But how do I transfer my identity to my texts?

Firstly, think about what values we want to emphasise, and how they can be reflected in language. It is important to keep in mind the formality that we are going to give the text

Another key aspect are the themed roles, i.e., the actors of a speech.

We must ask ourselves who does what in our text in order to know how to structure it. Will our company mascot be the one to address the client, the company as such (cases in which we would use the singular) or the people who make up the company (cases in which we would change to the plural)?

 

Words are everything

Something we should not forget is the vocabulary we will use. There is no point in us following an informal register if the vocabulary we use in our brand voice is not in line with that of our audience.

[bctt tweet=”Study your clients, analyse how they speak in their social media, and try to employ their language. #brandvoice #languages #SM #toneofvoice” username=”on_translation”]

But be careful! It is better to have a neutral vocabulary than a jargon that we do not know much about. To prevent this from happening, we can always ask our target audience when revising our texts.

The customer’s opinion is also necessary during the process!

 

Why should I care about brand voice?

Few companies do, and it is something that will set us apart from the competition. We all know that the image we give of our brand counts, today more than ever. There is nothing that brings more security to a consumer than a coherent corporate discourse.

Analyse your values, study who will represent them and create a discourse in accordance with them, taking great care of how you communicate. That’s it!

And if you are not sure… We are, and we can help you out.