Tone of Voice: How to Build Your Brand’s Unique Identity

The tone of voice is the tone and style of a brand's conversation with its audience. It is thanks to a well-established voice that the brand becomes recognizable, the loyalty of the audience increases, and the company itself is not perceived as a faceless seller of goods or services.

Let's figure out what you need to develop your own tone of voice.

Some Theory or Why the Tone of Voice Is Needed

The time of faceless companies has long passed. Due to high competition, the main tasks of the brand are the development of a unique selling proposition, the creation of an interesting and memorable image, the provision of useful and informative content, as well as the establishment of strong and trusting relationships with its customers.

Indeed, the seller can build a reliable communication channel with the buyer with the help of a well-developed tone of voice. After all, the client can always ask a question, express gratitude, communicate with representatives, and joke in the comments. However, as with the usual face-to-face communication, the brand must first earn such trust from its client.

One common mistake when thinking about a communication strategy is to assume that being polite and responsive is sufficient. Indeed, you will find a lot of brands that are moderately responsive and very polite. However, after a few days, you won't remember the names of these companies.

It is not enough for a brand to be just "good." Let's find out what it takes for a brand to become a loyal friend that customers will want to order goods or services from again and again.

Company Analysis

It's not just about the characteristics of the brand and its main directions. To develop a tone of voice, you must conduct a large-scale "self-interview." It will allow you to choose the direction of your communication with customers.

To begin with, it is worth answering the following questions:

• Who are you and what do you do?
• Who do you work for?
• How is your brand useful for the audience?
• Do you have a unique selling proposition and significant differences from your competitors?
• In which social networks do you communicate with the audience?
• What social issues or social trends or ideas does your company support?
• Which values does the company adhere to?
• What brand values would you like to share with your subscribers?
• What is your brand's mission?
• Does your brand comply with all of the above (values, mission, unique selling proposition)?

After you have figured out the main characteristics of the brand, you can proceed to the most interesting stage: presenting your brand as a real person and a potential conversation partner. Dealing with a character is much easier and clearer than trying to focus solely on brand characteristics.

Company Persona and the Tone of Voice

So, to imagine the company as a person, answer the following questions:

• What does this person look like?
• What is their age?
• Does this person have habits? If so, which ones?
• What character traits does he or she possess? 
• What makes him or her stand out from other people?
• How does this person communicate with people?
• What are this person's hobbies and interests? What does he or she do in his or her free time?
• Why do other people want to communicate with this person?
• What is the person's social circle?

After answering all the questions, you will see that you are no longer a faceless company but a brand with its own personality, character, and charisma. It becomes much easier to develop the tone with which this person will present his news, offers, posts, and other content.

Tone of voice is how the character of your business comes through in your words, both written and spoken.

The Acrolinx Team

Buyer Analysis

But, as we all know perfectly well, two sides are needed for communication. In addition to analyzing the brand, it is necessary to analyze its communication partner — a potential buyer.

It's hard to imagine an interesting communication when you don't know your interlocutor at all. When developing the tone of voice, it is very important to thoroughly study your audience in order to find a suitable and appropriate tone for communicating with them.

Personas

The brand's audience is represented by specific personas with certain characteristics. In order to create personas, you need to answer the following questions.

• What does my customer look like?
• How old are they? 
• What is the percentage of men and women among potential buyers?
• Where do they live?
• What kind of education do they have?
• Do they work? What position do they hold?
• What is the buyer's lifestyle? Do they have a personal life? What is their marital status?
• What hobbies and interests does the buyer have?
• How do they spend their free time?
• What is the customer's social circle?
• How does the customer talk to other people? What style of communication do they adhere to?

After drawing up a specific character, the development of a strategy will be based on the communication of two personalities: a brand and a representative of its audience.

Shadowing 

Shadowing is the surveillance of your potential buyer. It is not worth taking this method literally — conducting such an observation requires a lot of time and money. However, you can use shadowing in social networks — see which groups your audience is visiting, what they comment on, which news they prefer, and which posts they are more likely to hide from their feed. So do a little research, and you will know your audience better.

If you have the opportunity to personally communicate with representatives of the audience, be sure to use it! To begin with, you can ask them the same questions about your brand that you answered above — ask the audience to present your company as a real person.

Don't be afraid to ask the audience about personal things (within reason). For example, inquire why they use your brand, what they like or dislike about your products (or services), what their lifestyle is and how your brand fits into it, what they value your brand for, who their idols are, and how they communicate among themselves.

It is best to enter all the analytical data into a table, with the help of which you will be able to deduce the main hypotheses for developing the tone of voice of your brand. 

Analyze the Content and Choose the Tone of Voice

If you already have any content, analyze it. First of all, you should start by analyzing the response to your posts. Which ones of them are read to the end and have comments? Which ones are less interesting to your audience?

When working with content, it is important to understand that there are items that need to be published, regardless of their informativeness and interest for buyers. The main task is to learn how to present them in a recognizable style so that they are perceived as part of a dialogue with the brand.

One of the tasks of the tone of voice is to have a uniform style for all the content that the company has. Indeed, the tone of the email, post, story, and news on the site should be recognizable. So analyze which channels of communication with customers are most effective and what style of communication you used in these channels.

To choose a voice, decide on the characteristics that are important to you. Do not forget — the options should not contradict each other. Otherwise, instead of the brand's voice, you will get an incoherent monologue.

Don't be afraid to choose characteristics that seem (at first glance) risky for the brand's voice. For example, sarcasm and jokes can become a distinctive feature of your company if enjoyed by your audience. 

After you have collected all the necessary data, decided in which direction your brand will move, and formed an idea of the tone with which you will communicate with the audience, make a content plan and instructions for using and observing your tone of voice.

In Conclusion

So, creating a tone of voice is a complex endeavor. You need to study your own brand and the personas of your audience. However, having a consistent tone of voice is very useful in the long run. Make sure that you create a voice that will attract loyal customers!