3 Reasons Why Your Brand Voice Matters

I had a conversation with a business owner who is expanding her brand and adding course content. 

She shared that when she was writing copy for her website, sales page, and course content, she said she felt so insecure and uncertain about what she was writing. 

She said didn’t know if the structure was correct, if she was using the right words, and if the tone was good. 

Tone. 

As a brand and storytelling strategist, I have performed brand audits for clients and I have often found their content to have an inconsistent brand voice — their social media content sounds like one person, their sales page sounds like a different business, and their website sounds like another. 

They aren’t doing this intentionally. Perhaps they’ve outsourced some of their content to a copywriter or social media manager, or they wrote some of the content so long ago and haven’t revamped their touchpoints to reflect their evolved brand.

But having an inconsistent brand voice hurts your brand authority. So it’s important to get it tuned up.

Today, we will go over what brand voice is, how brand voice and brand tone are different, and three reasons why brand voice matters for your business. 

What Is Brand Voice?

Brand voice is the personality and unique way in which the brand communicates with its consumers.

If you’re a solopreneur or coach, your voice doesn’t need to sound ‘professional’ or anything other than sounding like you and your unique brand.  

It’s the vocabulary you use, the tone in which you use it, and the cadence that all play a part in what makes your ‘Brand Voice’. 

Vocabulary

These are the words you use. 

When I create brand voice strategy for my clients, we build a ‘Phraseology’, a bank of words and phrases that the brand uses over and over again in their content that is definable theirs to describe their offers, build their community, reflect their personality.

Be sure to make your content easy to read. It doesn’t mean your ideas need to be simplified or watered-down. But your word choice needs to be simple.  

Grammar matters, but for the sake of readability, you can ditch the High School English class rules and opt for conversational copy. Aiming for a Grade 6 readability level is ideal and research has proven that people relate to the content more if it's straight to the point and simple to read.

Tone

The way you are saying what you’re saying. 

Have you ever heard a parent say to their child, “I don’t like your tone!”  I remember these words being uttered my way when I was a snotty and extra-emotional high schooler (annnnd occasionally, a snooty 40-something-year-old).

Notice that it wasn’t that she didn’t like the word choice or vocabulary, but rather that she didn’t appreciate the tone that I used to speak to her. 

It’s the same when we are sharing content with our audiences. What tone are we using? Are we sounding inclusive? Relateable? Sassy? Polished?

Cadence 

The beat and rhythmic motion of a phrase or text. 

Cadence and tone run side by side. Cadence can be the soothing voice of a mother reading a bedtime story to her children, or the football coach encouraging his team with an exciting pre-game speech. 

It’s the fast and slow rhythm of naturally speaking. The same kind of rhythm can be read. Having a mix of long, descriptive sentences and shorter exclamatory ones can add variety to the text.  

It’s also how you break up your text in social media captions, your email content, what emojis you’re using, and how you’re sharing a list of points.

By mixing up the length of sentences, using punctuation and italics, bold fonts, emojis, symbols, and capital letters, it all communicates emotion and is read melodically like a song.

Why Does Brand Voice Matter?

1. It creates consistency.

So let’s go back to the beginning of this post when I said that I have reported inconsistencies in the messaging across client’s platforms when working on brand audits.

Do you think that I was noticing the difference in tone or a true difference in their brand voice?  

Sometimes, it was simply the tone was different. Which is normal and it should happen that way. 

But when it’s voice, like I have reported before, I often find inconsistencies in the brand’s content across its audience-facing touchpoints. 

I’ve noticed this most often when a brand has a blog and they hire writers to ghostwrite their content without instructing the writers on the tone and instead just focusing on the content. 

They end up with a slew of different voices happening. Under the name of one single brand. 

This is not a good practice. 

Now, I am not saying that you shouldn’t ever hire people to write your blogs for you. You absolutely should, especially if it means you gain that time back!

But let me offer a little advice. Hire writers who are skilled, pay them a fair price for their work, and guide them in your brand voice by offering them your Brand Guidelines to refer to. 

This way, there is consistency.  

2. It shapes your brand persona.

Your brand voice embodies the persona of the brand with which your audience can connect, build a relationship, and have a dialogue. 

Your brand will certainly make a first impression in one way or another, and that first impression should connect with your ideal customer. 

The words that are used to communicate with them on behalf of the business create a feeling and a reaction from your reader. 

You’ll connect by sharing a language (which we go over in point number 3), but it should also reflect your brand’s core values. This creates authenticity and transparency.

When strategizing your brand voice, consider what you want your ideal customer’s response to be and research what they react to and how they react to it. How do they speak? How do they respond? What are they interested in? What are their hobbies? What are their dislikes? 

Your brand persona is much more than your color palette and logo. The way in which your brand communicates is just as important and arguably even more important. 

You can always get a design makeover, but it’s harder to makeover your brand’s personality once your audience has already had interactions with you and decided what they think about your brand. So make that first impression ideal. 

3. It speaks your ideal audience’s language.

Language bridges the gap between people, so obviously your brand voice is the bridge between you and your audience. 

Research shows that people buy from brands that they trust and connect with emotionally, likely finding commonality in values or in personality. 

And trust me, not sharing a common language makes it very difficult to create a trusting relationship. So you’ll first need to speak your audience’s language. 

In order to know what voice will connect with your audience, you’ll first need to know the intention of your brand. Is your mission to educate your audience and even change the way they think about something? Is your purpose to build a meaningful community around a common cause?

Whatever it is, speak the language you know they will resonate with. How are they speaking about the topic your brand is focused on? What words do they use to describe your industry? Reflect the same language they use to help build rapport with your audience. Find the common language that you and your audience share to develop your brand voice. 

The Wrap Up

Now that you know what a brand voice is, the difference between brand voice and brand tone, and why your brand voice matters, you are ready to create, revise, and revamp.

Overall, your brand voice reflects your company and your offer.

It plays a huge part in creating the overall vibe and feel of your business. It creates trust between your customer and your brand. And that trust boosts sales. 

Additionally, it can establish your brand’s authenticity while creating a real connection with your ideal consumers. 

So knowing what that sounds like should be part of your brand strategy. 

Curious about creatingBrand Guidelines for your business? Check out the free Canva Brand Guidelines template below to get started.