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Finding and Keeping Your Brand’s Voice

The golden days of radio and print are long behind us. The new age brings with it a flood of new marketing communication channels. And while having more ways to communicate with our audiences is every marketer’s dream, it can be a double-edged sword. Each new marketing channel adds another layer of complexity to maintaining a consistent brand voice across the board. Especially given the fact that the quick-turn nature of new channels mean you lose some control over your message. But with the right strategy, you can make sure you capitalize on every available media without losing your message in the process.

Define Your Message

Before you consider how to address your messaging across all your chosen channels, you must first define your brand voice. Your business is undoubtedly unique and your message should reflect that. But the concerns and demographics of your customers are going to be the strongest driving forces behind your overarching voice. Whether your target client is a financial services professional in need of market information, a working mother worried about her child’s nutrition or a doctor looking for innovative new treatments, you must understand how to craft messaging that resonates with them.

Take a hard look at your audience and determine how best to address their concerns while still infusing your personality into the voice. Get started by considering these questions:

  • Who are we?
  • What do we do?
  • Who do we do it for?
  • How do we communicate?
  • What adjectives describe our brand?

Create a brand-messaging document with answers to these questions that will guide all of your marketing communications.

The Traditional Route

Traditional communications will likely prove the easiest avenues to stay true to your brand messaging. A controlled approval process plus the very nature of print, video, radio and even websites lend themselves well to a tighter message. That doesn’t mean you should approach each in exactly the same manner. Delivery method will change the tone, different ad campaigns will demand a distinctive voice, website content is impacted by SEO. An experienced copywriter will be able to strike a balance between purposeful content that also aligns with the overarching brand message. The key to success in this area is ensuring that everyone creating and approving content is aware of the agreed upon brand voice and is working within those guidelines.

Social Media Exception

The slew of social media channels open up a new world of brand voice considerations. Typically you can loosen your controls in these realms. If you don’t, your message may get bogged down by process and never make it through to your audience. But you should still be cognizant of your brand voice and the norms of the social avenue. Facebook and Twitter are more informal, LinkedIn communications should maintain some level of professionalism, heavily visual Pinterest means you must find a way to turn your voice into images. With all this divergence, it can be easy to slip into an inconsistent voice that reflects the individual rather than the brand.

To avoid that mistake, social media standards should be implemented and followed. Each person posting on behalf of the company should look at your brand as its own distinctive persona and speak in that tone. Blog posts have a bit more flexibility as each author can own their individual piece, but it should still fall under the umbrella of the brand’s voice.

There is no exact science to maintaining a consistent voice with so many communication options. But making conscious decisions about your brand’s messaging and ensuring everyone involved is on board with strategic guidelines will go a long way toward effectively communicating as one brand voice.

Eliza Green
Eliza Green
Passionate about all aspects of content, Eliza has spent much of her career building an understanding of the nuanced needs of various audiences across nearly every vertical imaginable. She leverages this understanding to bring compelling, engaging content to pages of both the digital and print persuasion.