Digital Marketing.
The tone of voice is a fundamental tool in any brand’s marketing strategy. Incorporating tone of voice into your message helps to create personality and emphasize the voice.
If you are a marketer and haven’t heard of the tone of voice, it’s about time to put this concept into practice. You need to start thinking about how your target audience talks. Not just what they talk about, but how they approach the conversation itself.
A tone of voice is not what you say but how you say it. This includes not only the words you choose but their order, pace, and rhythm. In business and marketing, the phrase ‘tone of voice refers to written rather than spoken content. A company’s tone of voice informs all the written content including, website, social media captions, messages, emails, and packaging. A brand’s tone of voice must be unique, distinctive, and recognizable. This may seem like an order until the use of your company’s language is considered in everyday life. Therefore, dialects and culture play a significant role in dictating the approach of people towards words. But we still tend to have our favorite expressions, infections, pace, and so on.
A tone of voice is also the expression of a company’s value and way of thinking. It can’t be plucked from thin air, created or based on a trend, but it must evolve of who you already are as a company and not who you might be tomorrow. This should begin with the forgotten question: what is it you want to tell the world?
For example, Libertine is a women’s lifestyle is an excellent example of a brand that asserts a mission to its work. The founder’s main goal was to redefine womens’ media landscape through celebrating inner self over physical appearance. Thus, Libertine addressed an area neglected by the media, which ‘women’ inner beauty.’ The brand clearly stated the core values, characters, wit, and good manners.
In other words, writing carries your brand, and your tone of voice is as essential as your logo and typeface. Think about famous companies like Google, BBC, Virgin; they all have clear and distinctive voices.
It is crucial to learn about your buyer personas to create an attractive tone of voice. You have to remember who you are as a company and who your tribe is. This is beyond semantics, meaning the energy and ideas used through the tone where people can identify and feel at home. Also, your tone of voice must serve your why to resonate with your audience.
Trust is also a crucial point to consider when having a tone of voice because when you have a community of people who believe in what you think, you will gain and feel trust. It is also vital if you want people not only to buy but also believe in your brand.
Last but not least, companies like Google and Apple are great inspirations to learn the tone of voice and knowing what your brand sounds like.
