Rule #1 of great copy: Build a strong brand voice
Your brand voice is the unique style, tone, and personality that shines through in your copy. It helps your audience recognize your brand the moment they begin reading something on your website or other digital channel. Just as you want to understand your target customers to better market to them, your customers want to get to know you and learn why they should or should not buy.
So, how exactly do you create a distinct brand voice? Hear from Peyton Fox, Founder and Lead Strategist at Spark Bridge Digital, as she walks through a quick 3-step process.
What does a great brand voice actually sound like?
Now that you understand how to identify and speak to customers like you know them, let’s walk through some real examples that exude a unique brand voice across marketing channels. Click into each tab to learn how Hazel Village inserts its own brand voice across the following digital channels.
Website
Your website is the heart of your online brand. Make this space count, with copy that speaks to your brand’s personality and ethos.
Hazel Village lets their brand voice shine with a few core strategies:
- Builds a strong voice that exudes whimsy and childhood fun.
- Uses a clear color scheme and visuals that support the persona of their brand.
- Develops a unique user interface (e.g., “build your dolly wardrobe”).
Use email to share brand updates, announcements, and valuable learning materials, like blog posts or product instructions. Insert a clear brand voice to spur action (e.g., encourage a customer to place an order).
While you should start your email with 1 clear call-to-action, this medium allows you to add sub-sections, imagery, and other design elements (product reviews, recommendations, best-selling product feed, etc.). Get creative and weave elements together into 1 cohesive message that aligns with your style.
Again, Hazel Village leans into its brand voice with the following email strategies:
- Embodies a whimsical persona while announcing a new toy collection.
- Uses a consistent brand color scheme, fonts, and image designs.
- Uses clear, active voice to convey their message.
Text messages
Text messages are small but mighty when it comes to using brand voice.
SMS, or short message service (i.e., messages without graphics), tends to outperform MMS, or multimedia messaging service (i.e., messages with graphics). Why? Because sometimes simplicity is best. That said, use both when relevant to the content you’re sharing. For instance, an image or GIF can add personality to a message (as is the case in this example) or provide important visual information about a product.
For SMS, you only have 140 characters, so keep your message short, sweet, and to the point. That said, use on-brand terms and images that convey your business's unique personality or benefits.
Hazel Village’s text messages use the following approach:
- Introduces a character from their brand to add personality.
- Speaks in a concise, direct tone while also remaining inviting and youthful.
Social media
Your social media is, of course, social! Use it to build a community, through which your voice should welcome and connect like-minded shoppers, reminding them of the value of your brand in day-to-day life.
Hazel Village lets its brand voice shine on social with a few core strategies:
- Creates personality-driven posts that show the value of their products.
- Leans into community-led content (e.g., user-generated content, reviews, and testimonials).
Build your own brand voice in 5 steps
With the above examples from Hazel Village in mind, it’s time for you to craft marketing copy that lets your brand voice shine. Here’s how you can create an impactful brand voice for your own business:
Step 1: Document what words your brand will vs. will not use
As a starting point, write down words you should and should not associate with your brand. Ask yourself: What are 3 words that I want people to think and feel when they see my brand?
With regard to terms you’ll add to your marketing content, make a list of words that you will use and words you will not use. Document this in a style guide for your team to standardize and reference over time.
Example:
When considering Hazel Village’s keywords, they do use the word “dolly” but would not use the word “stuffy.” In addition, while their brand exudes whimsy, they do not use that word in their copy, as it should be obvious to the reader and not overstated.
Step 2: Identify who you are talking to
As always, keep your customer at the forefront of your mind when building a brand voice. Ask yourself: How do they talk? And, what will resonate best with them?
Your goal is to connect with customers, so consider their general age, location, gender, interests, and more as you build this unique brand voice. Use the customer personas you built in your workbook as a starting point here.
Example:
As a toy brand, Hazel Village has a focused audience of children and parents of young children that they market to and thus take inspiration from. They mimic childhood phrases, give off a youthful energy, and lean into idioms and old-time-y phrases; all the while, building their brand around fantasy and community.
Step 3: Define your brand’s personality
Once you know who you’re talking to and what words make or break your brand voice, it’s time to build a world around your brand. Give your brand a personality. Decide what your brand cares about, what goals and vision you’ll share with your community, and how you want your business to be perceived long-term.
Consider sharing the following topics publicly in your brand content:
- The story of your brand (where did you start and where are you going?)
- What your brand’s values are (your ethos and place in the world)
- What makes your brand unique (the products, quality, etc. that sets you apart)
- How your customers fit in (what larger brand community are you building, and how can they connect with one another and you as a brand)
Example:
Hazel Village built a world around its brand. How? Well, the Hazel Village is actually a place, where their dolls and stuffed animals live, work, befriend one another, and grow.
Once customers read the brand's written copy, they can immerse themselves in this animal world. That’s because they employ what they call “method marketing,” in which they mimic the distinct animal characters that are their core product. Everything, from emails to social posts, shares clear time, place, and character-driven voice so readers feel like they are a part of this world.
Step 4: Stay consistent long-term
Stay consistent with your brand voice across all marketing channels (e.g., social media, email, website, app, text, etc.). Constant use is the only way for your voice to be believable and stand the test of time; that way, shoppers begin to connect with and recognize it.
Here are a few tips to stay consistent with your brand voice:
- Maintain a style guide
This guide should document the style, tone, formatting, grammar, design rules, and keywords that are core to your brand. All content-based teams should follow this style guide as their gold standard for developing great content. - Set up a peer review system
It’s best practice for peers at your brand to review one another's work, to (1) ensure content is cohesive before it goes live, and (2) learn from each other as you develop a unified voice together. Getting a second set of eyes and ears from another content-based team member helps to confirm that the digital copy successfully mimics the style and tone you’ve outlined in your style guide. - Stay connected with your team
Create a channel for connecting as a team to ask questions, brainstorm ideas, and share feedback or updates on major copy and marketing initiatives. For example, if you use a tool like Slack, create a channel dedicated to copy and style alignment.
Step 5: Analyze and iterate
Schedule an annual content audit, with a specific focus on brand voice. Not only should your content stay up-to-date regarding changes to your product or business, but you’ll also want your brand voice to stay true to your brand identity. Your business can and should constantly evolve.
So, while it’s important to maintain a consistent voice, that same consistency doesn't need to be stagnant. If your voice needs to change to better resonate with a growing audience or to adapt with your brand identity, then make that change. Just remember to adjust your messaging across all content so that there is a clear style, tone, and personality at all times.