Choosing the correct tone of voice for your brand is a decision that can drastically impact how effectively you interact with your audience. If your tone fails to match the rest of your branding, people might find your brand to be inconsistent.
When someone interprets your tone of voice, you want them to clearly understand what sort of company you have and how you would like to interact with them.
In order to make the correct decision, there are certain factors that must be considered including: what content you are providing and through what means you would like to convey the information being presented, who your target audience is, and what branding decisions have already been made.
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Your first step in choosing your brand’s tone of voice is to decide your brand’s personality. You also consider what content you will be providing and how you want to provide it.
While you may choose to have several options for content, for example, ads and a blog, you still want to decide what kind of content you want to bring to your audience as well as what you want to be known for.
Your goal might be to educate on science through a blog, which automatically lets you know that you will be providing specific facts and technical terms. Educational is now a tone component of your brand voice that will need to be considered.
If you want to make sure that people have fun while reading, that will also change your tone of voice, making it both educational and entertaining. Both can be true, but both must be considered for the sake of consistency every step of the way.
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Knowing your target audience is important for choosing a tone of voice purely because you want that tone of voice to be effective when your words reach that audience specifically.
If you know that your target audience is middle school children who want to be scientists, you will not want to write with the same speech patterns and vocabulary level you would when addressing an established professor with complex knowledge around the content being provided. You will probably want to explain more, use less jargon unless providing definitions, and make it fun.
These are all voice decisions. Your job is to determine what tone of voice will be best received by your audience, and begin working from there.
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In addition to considering your audience, you will want to consider any other branding decisions that have already been solidified. When you build your brand around professionalism and precision, it is best to have a tone of voice that matches that same image rather than being overly casual.
This will help you to remain consistent with your branding and will help impress your consumers by showing them that what they see truly is what they get.
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Once you understand the personality of your brand and the audience you are trying to reach, you will be able to more easily find your brand’s proper voice.
Your core considerations will be built around who you are, who they are, and how you want to communicate with them. As soon as you can make these decisions, you will have a keen eye for what does and does not match your brand, as well as what makes your company unique to your audience!
