Determine your Brand's Tone of Voice Easily

by Monica Di Santi

October 19, 2023

What is Brand’s Tone of Voice?

The brand’s tone of voice is a particular communication style that the brand displays in every business message. This influences how the audience feels about the brand. And creates a quick association.

The tone of voice is the feeling your brand expresses in the business messaging through writing style, sentence structure and word choice. This is the way you communicate your brand’s personality or voice.

Different types of messages or channels own expected tones of voice. In general, social media accepts friendly and chatty tone of voice but emails and presentations expect more serious and objective way of communicating.

Bearing in mind these differences, it is essential to come across clearly, turning your brand into a memorable experience and producing a high level of engagement.

Why is Brand’s Tone of Voice Important?

The brand’s tone of voice provides uniformity to all business communication, helping the audience recognize it anywhere and at the same time, triggers a quick association.

Your communication style and consistency help people associate your brand with certain qualities and feelings they love or prefer. The instant identification in communication helps the brand become an important point of reference in that market niche.

The brand’s tone of voice makes this connection stronger and boost engagement.

Your particular tone of voice differentiates your brand from competitors. And, helps you develop a strong relationship with your audience through channels such as social media.

What’s the Difference between Brand Voice and Tone of Voice

A brand’s voice is the company’s personality which should be distinctive and consistent. It creates a representation of your mission, vision and values. Your target audience will be delighted to recognize a lovely and respectful brand in crowded market.

The Brand’s tone of voice is part of the brand’s voice and it is the emotional mode the brand uses in communication, showing they really know their audience and communicates appropriately.

The brand’s tone of voice includes the brand’s voice details and affects the way your audience perceive your brand.

According to the Nielsen Group, there are the 4 dimensions of tone to be analyzed along 4 dimensions: humor, formality, respectfulness and enthusiasm.

Any piece of communication’ tone of voice falls anywhere on each of these four categories extreme positions.

• formal----------------casual
• serious---------------funny
• respectful-----------irreverent
• matter-of-fact------enthusiastic

If your business message targets businesses or are in the category of banking, insurance, security companies your brand’s tone of voice has to be formal and informative. On the other hand, if your target audience is young you have to use a lighter tone.

The same message can be expressed with different tones such when you express gratitude or any other type of statement.

Please accept my deepest thanks. ( formal)

Thanks a million. ( casual)

Thanks for your help . ( serious)

You're the cheese to my macaroni. I couldn't have done it without you. ( funny)

Thanks for your support, Mr. Brown. ( respectful)

Thank you, so f... much ( irreverent)

Thank you so much ( matter of fact)

Thank you, so much. It meant a lot to me. (enthusiastic)

Brand's Tone of Voice Examples

How to create a Brand’s Tone of Voice Guidelines

Your Audience

To develop a long-lasting and successful relationship with your audience you have to know them. Research:

• where they hang out

• how old they are

• what they like and dislike

• how they communicate

• word choice

• broken sentences

• emojis

Brand's mission

Your mission explains the problem you solve, your target audience, your goals and how you plan to reach those goals.

Use these questions as a guide to write a mission statement for your company.

• What problem does your company solve?

• What are your business main goals?

• What will you do to achieve your goals?

• Who is your target audience?

• What differentiates you from the competition?

Apple's mission statement is “to bring the best user experience to customers through innovative hardware, software, and services.”

Nike's mission is: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete.

Brand's values

Your values represent your brand’s basic beliefs and guiding principles to function as a successful team.

One of Apple's values is:

Brand value: Simplicity Guiding principle: We ensure that our brand communications are clear, easy to understand, and aren’t overloaded with too much information for the customer.

Message Architecture

Message architecture is the way you create your core business message as a base for your marketing strategy. This includes your :

• brand biggest benefit

• your mission statement

• your unique value proposition that differentiate you from the competition

• tone of voice described as adjectives

• core messages are the base of all your marketing communication

Writing Style

Your writing tone expresses the emotional connection you create with your audience. Determine your vocabulary, type of sentences, verbs, adjectives. Altogether they will create the mood of your communication.

Your writing style should reflect the way your audience speaks to boost engagement.

Questions to Create your Tone of Voice Guideline

• What do you want your target audience to feel when in touch with your brand?

• what does your target audience think and feel about themselves?

• Which self-image do you want to encourage?

• What do you want your users to say about your brand?

• What objections are more common?

• How do you differentiate from the competition?

• What are the brand’s core message?

• What adjectives describe the brand best?

• What type of vocabulary reflect your brand's mode?

• What type of sentences will you use?

• What words should the writer use and avoid?

Tone of Voice and Copywriting

All the information about your brand's personality and tone of voice is quite important when copywriters create your web content, emails, landing pages, brochures and social media posts.

This background information guides any writer to create content that reflects the brand's personality and tone pf voice, creating trust, consistency and engagement through every piece of communication.

Conclusion

To define your brand’s tone of voice, you have to develop your company’s personality based on your mission, vision and values. Add a good knowledge of your target audience, and finally determine how your communication style will create a tone that’s appropriate, empathetic and easily recognized to create a quick association.