What is brand Tone of Voice?
Tone of Voice – or ‘TOV’ as marketers often refer to it – is an invaluable business tool that often gets overlooked by fledgling businesses.
“Yes, sure we have a tone of voice – it’s just whatever we write and say isn’t it?”
Well, yes.
But mostly no.
A long time ago, in an office far, far away, I overheard a perfect example of the impact that tone of voice can have – with a single word:
“It’s the difference between coming home to a dinner, and coming home to a candlelit dinner”
That single word delivers a whole new ambience, environment and significance to the recipient.
Tone of voice is how the personality of your brand communicates – both written and spoken. It’s the way you say it – not what you say, and it’s vital for a business to get this right so it makes the intended impression on everyone who reads or hears you.
Every individual, group or organisation you come into contact with has their way of articulating. Some are playful, some are serious. Some soft sell, others hard sell. Some ramble a lot, others are masters of brevity. All are unique and all represent their personality and values through their tone of voice.
However – and this bit is business critical – tone of voice is so much more than quality writing or clever messaging alone. It’s using language within ALL of your communications that gives you a unique and recognizable brand voice. Not just marketing presentations, but all written and spoken content: printed literature, merchandise, packaging, website, emails, calls, presentations, signage… the lot.
All communications should have the same, consistent tone of voice, to ensure your target audience effectively hears the same person speaking whenever interacting with your business. It presents your brand’s values as dependable, which in turn promotes that every aspect of their personal brand experience with your brand is likely to be similarly positive.
Successfully defined and implemented tone of voice gets your brand recognised using text alone, even if the audience doesn’t see your logo or company name attached.
The benefits to your company by focusing on tone of voice:
1
It adds personality to the brand: Everyone likes brands to have personality they can recognise and bond with. Given a choice individual consumers and business clients will go with the brand or company that connects with them on an emotional level as well as providing a rational benefit.
2
It replaces face-to-face communication: Digital-first life presents fewer opportunities to talk face to face, so written words have to work harder. Often we don’t connect with companies directly for a purchase until we have researched the options fully. So, the tone of your website and marketing comms builds trust with them from the start, establishing the relationship. Tone of voice has to take the place of emotion, body language, gestures and voice to show your brand identity and personality.
3
It helps your brand shine: Having a distinct brand tone allows you to cut through the clutter and connect with people, making you instantly recognisable and distances your brand from competitors.
4
Your brand delivers clout: Implemented successfully, tone of voice presents your brand’s authority and values, confidence in what you’re saying, and conveys your company as your target audience want to hear and see it.
5
A laser focus on your brand identity: A powerful tone of voice is not easy to achieve, as every communication needs to deliver clarity and simplicity that everyone can fully understand. Once established, it helps set strategic objectives, direction and personality to hone in on the most relevant audience.
6
It makes your company different: Tone of voice is still a relatively untapped resource. Many companies haven’t woken up to it; some have taken great strides. Virtually NO companies have utilized tone of voice to genuinely transform the way they use language — and that presents a huge opportunity for you!
…which leads to our favourite tone of voice quote:
“Very few brands have been doing this for long enough that we can say they’ve definitely nailed it for their whole brand. But what that means is that the first people who do nail it, in any sector, will clean up.”
Research on the impact of professionally developing a brand’s tone of voice has shown that it impacts on:
- Connection building: encouraging a dialogue. Two thirds of the population say they get emotionally connected to a brand in a way that makes them feel like the company cares about them, encouraging them to interact with you more.
- Audience trust building: via shared values – especially community or charitable-based initiatives.
- Increasing your revenue: through delivering clarity, presenting your brand consistently and competently across all channels you operate in.
- Presenting your brand – and the team behind it – as memorable: via your unique tone of voice – as well as other factors such as key colours, which improve brand recognition significantly. This is vital for small or start-up companies where content is created without bespoke design assistance.
Two Shoes Creative has the expertise to define your company’s tone of voice, as we have:
- Writing skills to express your brand’s personality
- In-depth brand knowledge to define your company values
- Analytical resource to target and research audiences
- Ability to unify how your company uses language
Unique, powerful, effective tone of voice is exactly what Two Shoes Creative can deliver for YOUR brand: bringing your customers to you, and helping you retain them.
Discover how Two Shoes Creative can help you – request a free callback
