Make Your Brand’s “Voice” Distinctive

Good brands pay close attention to visual elements like their color palette, font choices, the types of images they use, and so on. Elaborate guides are created to ensure every designer knows how these details should and shouldn’t be used.

Great brands go a step further — not only by defining how they look, but also how they sound. Their copy is carefully written to create a consistent reader experience every time you encounter their messaging.

A good brand voice is rarely an accident. A well-crafted one will naturally complement your design standards, but it’s also possible to recognize how a brand “talks”, even if you can’t see a logo, design or other visuals. Comprehensive brand guides detail how language should be used to convey desired impressions, often with specific examples.

This article will explore how a consistent voice and tone can support your brand’s messaging, perception and goals; suggest elements to consider when crafting your voice; and explain how to document your choices so that multiple writers can use your voice consistently.

It’s How You Say It

Writers often use the terms “voice” and “tone” when describing the style of marketing copy. Here’s what they mean:

• Voice is the personality or “spirit” of the brand — a unique combination of traits that give it a recognizable identity. The voice is always consistent; it never changes.
• Tone refers to the mood or sentiment, which can be adjusted depending on the situation or channel. For example, your copy might be more relaxed and conversational in a blog or on social media than in a white paper or trade journal article.
  
  In addition, copy guidelines often include specific style and grammar standards. You can simply designate a default resource like the Associated Press Stylebook, but might also note exceptions or rules you’re allowed to break.

It Pays to Talk the Talk

Why should you take the time to develop and use a brand voice? As with design standards, the primary benefit is consistency. 

Whether your copy is produced in-house or by your agency, anyone who writes for the brand can use your voice and tone standards as a guide to craft copy that sounds “right” for your business.

A good voice will also deliver other benefits, like these:

• Create a connection with your prospects by using language that resonates with them.
• Convey unspoken impressions, such as attitudes or values that your brand shares with its core customers.
• Distinguish your product or service from competitors.
• Give your copy a human touch that helps it stand out compared to AI-generated content.

Finding Your Voice

Consider the customers you want most as you begin developing your brand’s personality. How do they talk? How much technical knowledge do they have? What do they need, want and value? Your voice needs to “speak” to them in ways they’ll respect and understand. This is especially important in today’s B2B market, where 60 to 90% of decisions are made before potential customers reach out to you.

At the same time, you’ll need to be authentic. Don’t try to fake a style or tone that comes unnaturally to your organization’s client-facing people. Attracting a particular type of customer with well-targeted marketing copy won’t get you very far if it doesn’t match the reality of doing business with your team.

Talking Points

Here are some attributes that often appear in voice guidelines. Use this list as a guide to the types of questions you’ll want to consider for your own brand.

Attitude

What’s your brand’s approach to life? Is it a deep thinker toiling away in a laboratory or an explorer with a sense of adventure? Many B2B brands present themselves as problem solvers with a “can do” attitude, especially if their customers need a custom solution.

Some companies adopt the persona of an established institution with a history of innovation that spans decades, or even centuries. Others position themselves as disruptive mavericks, ready to shake up an antiquated industry.

Traits

Voice descriptions usually include a list of attributes or impressions that copy should convey. A B2B brand might be defined as knowledgeable, practical, helpful and experienced.

Your industry may suggest other traits. For example, a company that manufactures health care equipment might want to be known for precision, efficacy, compassion and reliability.

Traits can also include aspects of your brand’s communication style: “TechnoBrand X never talks down to customers who have implementation questions or concerns."

Values

What ideals and standards does your brand share with its customers? Is there a common belief or way of doing things it wants to change? If your brand could solve one of your industry’s biggest challenges, what would it be? Although most items on this list shape how your brand “talks”, values help you identify what to talk about.

Formality

Is your brand buttoned-up and corporate? Scrappy and casual? Somewhere in between? Does it speak directly to readers (good idea) or hold itself aloof in the third person (BOR-ing)? Your industry may suggest a certain level of solemnity, especially if you’re in a serious field like finance, oil and gas, or pharmaceuticals. Even in traditionally conservative markets like these, however, a bold company might be able to break through the noise by bucking the norm.

Humor

Is your brand willing to be funny, and if so, how often? Can it crack jokes anywhere, or just on social media?

Humor is a powerful tool that can make your brand memorable. If you’ve ever seen a billboard ad for Lamar, you’re likely to recognize their snarky voice when you encounter it again, even if their logo — always small compared to the ad copy — is barely visible when seen from a distance on an expressway.

On the flip side, humor is notoriously difficult to write and can backfire if it doesn’t resonate with your audience. One of the best guides to doing it right is Mel Helitzer’s classic Comedy Writing Secrets, now in a third edition, with new material by Mark Shatz.

Reading Level

B2B prospects are more likely to be college-educated. Some will also have advanced degrees or certifications in business, engineering, finance, science, and other fields.

You may need to talk about some complex stuff to attract the attention of smart people and close deals with them. Influential subject matter experts often want proof that you understand their specialized challenges before they accept you as a credible brand.

That said, marketing copy that reads like a higher-education textbook may not serve you. The average reading level in the United States falls somewhere around the 7th or 8th grade on the Flesch–Kincaid readability tests, which is a good baseline to aim for. (This article scores about halfway through 9th grade, but we know you’re smarter than average.)

When in doubt, keep your language simple and clear. Use shorter words and sentences when you can. Microsoft Word, Google Docs and other word-processing platforms have built-in tools to help you get the level just right.

Word Choices

B2B copy often serves up a minefield of jargon, acronyms, clichés, marketing-speak and the most fashionable buzzwords of the day. When determining how much of this stuff your voice should use, there’s one simple rule: as little as possible, unless you’re making fun of them (see also: Humor).

Pre-qualification

Admit it: some people are just wrong for your brand. Their needs, values, motivations and more conflict with everything you stand for. Or maybe their organization is too big/not big enough. They will never buy from you (or if they do, working with them will make you miserable).

Your brand doesn’t need to cater to outsiders and can even poke fun at them to create closer relationships with the customers you want. Apple’s award-winning “Get a Mac” campaign (2006–2009) is a classic example of this approach.

Voices in Harmony (or Not)

There may be times when you want to sell the same offering to different audiences. If you’re in the construction industry, for example, you might need to appeal to both architects and general contractors — two groups that often have distinct perspectives and opinions.

You may be able to accomplish your goals merely by segmenting your messaging. We recently created a campaign for an industrial refrigeration client that was released in two versions: one for equipment manufacturers and another for end users. The two audiences were similar enough that the same voice worked with minor variations.

If you need to go in more than one direction, however, you may need to speak with more than one voice.

When Hallmark wanted to launch a line of funny and sometimes edgy greeting cards for adults in 1986, they knew they were making a big departure from their established identity. The solution was a new brand with a voice that clearly communicated the message: “This ain’t your grandma’s greeting card company.” Shoebox, “a tiny little division of Hallmark”, was born. The brand’s original voice is alive and well in its current tagline: “Hallmark approved. Sorta.”

Recording Your Voice

Documenting your voice decisions is a critical final step. This allows them to be implemented consistently by everyone who writes for your brand, from your in-house marketing team to agency content developers.

Establishing clear, documented guidelines about how your brand “talks” will make your content easier to create, more consistent and increasingly recognizable — with or without your logo attached.