When agencies talk ‘brand’ they think of colours, typography, logo, line thicknesses, etc, what is frequently not given is the correct amount of attention to the brand voice.

With social media on every device, your clients’ brand voice needs to be given a rock star performance to rise above the elevator music chatter out there.

Whilst “brand voice” might have you thinking of a voice actor, it actually refers to content and tone. For example, the company who sells skateboards takes on the “speak”, grammar and viewpoints of a skateboarder. Sure, your client can survive without having a consistent, distinctive voice, however, for material growth, they need to find their brands’ Adele voice.

So let’s provide you and your agency with some advice on how to help your clients find their brand’s voice.

What Is This Vocal Characteristic?

As we are sure you know but may have forgotten, the voice of a brand is the particular personality adopted in ALL its communications.

What is your client’s brand’s personality? What do they like and what do they dislike? What phrases should their brand use on a consistent basis? Maybe the word “dig” is appropriate, maybe “admire” is more their brand’s style of word.

The amalgamation of all these factors produces their brand voice. Whenever and wherever their brand speaks, it keeps the same personality. This applies to internal communication as well.

So Why Care?

The inhabitants of your client’s market are in a digital hurricane. Brands, institutions and individuals are flinging wind, rain and noise at their market. Are you going to base your client’s dominance solely on images, logo and product features?

Is your client’s written content going to be highly technical one day and hip-and-happening the next day?

Consumers will unfollow your client’s social media accounts if they find their content is irrelevant or if it doesn’t consistently resonate with them. Posting varying brand styles will make the consumer uncomfortable and they will unfollow your client.

Maintaining Consistency For Your Client

When you have had your epiphany and the brand voice for your client has been chosen, it is time to document it. You should still produce a brand voice guide. It is essential if there are multiple internal divisions needing it. Content should be regularly checked against it.

This Voice Doc, or Split Personality Avoidance Doc, should tell the reader about personality traits, common vocab, phrases the brand would be expected to use and examples of these elements.

Voice Coach Your Current Client’s Voice

So what is your client’s current voice? Read their current articles, blogs and packaged wording. Look thoroughly across the board. Is the voice consistent? How do their clients talk to them? Which posts did the best for your client and what was the personality of those posts?

Now you have the gist of what their brand voice is, flesh out its personality some more and put that info a voice guideline document.

The Depth Of Your Client’s Voice

No, we are not talking Barry White here. We mean the voice/personality is more than appropriate vocab. There is a depth to it, a tone, a particular way in how the words are said. This will of course be different depending on your client’s audience, as with all human personalities, so the tone per scenario will need to be documented as well.

Don’t Let It Gather Dust

The journey of your client’s voice is not a once off-road trip. You need to keep revisiting that road trip or when you are redoing a strategy overhaul for your clients. The language also evolves and what was on trend a few years ago will most likely be way off trend now.

If your agency wants to up the sales conversion ability of your clients’ brand voice and tone contact us today. The depth of marketing and journalism knowledge in our team will transform your clients’ brand’s capricious chatter into a profitable conversation.

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