How do you develop a Tone of Voice for a brand? Part 2

Buyer Analysis

It's hard to imagine an interesting communication when you don't know your interlocutor at all. When developing 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.

To do this, you can use two methods of analyzing the target audience:

1. The method of the character
The brand's audience is represented by specific characters with certain characteristics of representatives of this audience. In order to create characters, you need to answer the following questions:

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

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

2. Shadowing — shadow surveillance of your potential buyer

It is not worth taking this method literally — conducting such an observation live requires a lot of time and money. You can use shadowing in social networks — see which groups your audience is sitting in, what they comment on, which news they prefer, and which posts they are more likely to hide from their feed. How active a subscriber is in social networks, how he communicates with other subscribers by sharing interests, etc. Do a little research, and your audience will become even clearer and more connected to your brand.

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): 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 voice of your brand. In the meantime, let's move on to the next point.

We analyze the content and choose the Tone of Voice

If you already have any content, then we analyze it; if not, we make a new one. First of all, you should start by analyzing the response to posts and news. Which posts are read to the end and collect comments? What news is less interesting to your audience?

When working with content, it is important to understand that there are news 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 even they are perceived as part of a dialogue with the brand.

One of the tasks of Tone of Voice is to have a uniform style for all the content that the company has. It is important to understand that the tone of the letter, post, story, and news on the site should be the same and recognizable. 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 in the appeal. Do not forget — the treatment 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 sarcastic jokes can become a distinctive feature of your company and a breath of fresh air for your audience. The main thing is to focus on the collected information.

The result, or what to do with all the information collected

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 Tone of Voice.