A Practical Guide to Discovering Your Brand Tone

The complete guide to discovering, understanding, and implementing a consistent tone for your business or brand!

Your personality is what makes you unique. It’s what separates us all and allows us to express ourselves as individuals. However, a personality isn’t something that’s just unique to people. It’s also something that will make your business or brand identifiable to customers or potential clients and allow them to pick your brand, message, product, or service out from the crowd. And it’s a big crowd.

So, how do you set up your business or brand for success with the right tone?

In the following article, we’ll explore the core elements of a successful brand tone, including:

What Is A Brand Tone?
Creating Your Brand Tone
3 Examples of Successful Brand Tones

What Is A Brand Tone?

Your brand tone or brand voice is the personality your business or brand will assume for all communications. This includes your website, advertising, social media and marketing, and communications with customers.

Your brand tone will help guide your business in what you say and, more importantly, how you say it. In addition to being unique to your brand, your tone of voice should reflect your company’s values.

It’s essential that your brand tone is uniform across all channels, including your website and social media channels. According to Crowd Spring, a consistent brand tone can increase revenue by as much as 23%. From social media campaigns to emails and even packaging, your brand tone should be consistent.

According to Harvard Business Review, over 64% of consumers will form brand loyalty because they share values with the brand.

Recently, we’ve seen a significant rise in major brands feuding or firing shots at one another. This Tweet by Wendy’s below is an excellent example of two brands poking fun at one another while also getting some great engagement.

A brand tone doesn’t have to be funny or be firing shots at other brands on social media to be successful. It could also be inspiring, powerful, emotional, or uplifting.

Creating Your Brand Tone

One of the most commonly asked questions is, ‘How do I know if my brand tone is working, and how do I know if it’s reaching my target audience?’ If a potential customer feels like you are talking to them, your brand tone is doing its job.

If a customer feels like you’re appealing directly to them and they’re part of the conversation, then they’re much more likely to build a strong connection to your brand. According to Salsify Digital, over 46% of consumers will pay more for products and services from a brand they trust.

Below are 6 steps to creating your brand tone:

Start with your company’s mission – A mission or value statement will help you to determine the critical characteristics of your brand tone. Once you have values like transparency, customer-focused, eco-friendly, sustainable, modern, and progressive, your brand tone should reflect them in every communication or message.
Consider your buyer persona – What’s your target demographic? Who are you trying to reach? What do your buyers need, how can you give it to them, and why should they choose your brand over another? If your audience prefers funny and witty instead of serious, then your message and brand tone should reflect that.
Evaluate the content that’s performing the best – Look at the content you’ve been posting, separate the posts that performed the best, and start breaking them down to identify the key elements. If something is already performing well with your target audience, replicate the tone that best suits your brand’s tone for future content.
Create a do’s and don’ts list – One of the easiest ways to create a successful brand tone is by creating a list of what you don’t want your brand tone to sound like. Perhaps you don’t want your brand tone to sound pretentious, serious, corporate, or too technical. Once you identify what you don’t want to be, it’s easier to focus on what you do want to be.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help building your brand – Most companies spend 5-10% of their annual marketing budget on rebranding, which could be avoided if they’d gotten assistance with their brand tone the first time around. If you’re struggling to convert your vision into your brand tone, then marketing specialists could be the best investment you can make.
Write it all down – Once you’ve settled on a brand voice, write it down and define it for the whole company. If you want your brand voice to be universal, everyone in the company, from social media managers to customer service, must understand your desired brand tone and how to implement it in their communications.

3 Examples of Successful Brand Tones

If you’re struggling with creating your brand tone, below are three examples of companies that have successfully identified, implemented, and perfected their brand tone.

Dollar Shave Club

For a huge percentage of the population, shaving isn’t luxurious, relaxing, or even fun. It’s a chore. And Dollar Shave Club doubled down on that message with its brand tone. They’re brutally honest with their message, offering a cheap and affordable way for average consumers to enjoy a great shaving experience without paying an exorbitant price for it.

Their slogan is, ‘Shave time. Shave money’ came at exactly the right time. They offered an online subscription-based service that delivered affordable razor blades right to your door.

Dunkin’ Donuts

‘America runs on Dunkin’. That was the tagline used by Dunkin’ Donuts in their rebranding effort when they wanted to shift away from the perception that they were simply a doughnut shop. They wanted messaging that offered consumers a lot more. They wanted their brand tone to appeal to the common working-class citizen, in direct opposition to brands like Starbucks, who were leaning heavily into the ‘premium’ branding efforts.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s goal is to educate people without patronizing them. They use humor and a conversational tone of voice to get their message across successfully to potential customers. Their branding and UI are all about helping people to successfully navigate the world of email marketing in a way they can understand and afford.

Further Discovering Your Brand Tone

Branding is one thing that your business can’t afford to get wrong. While it’s never too late to rebrand, with many successful companies rebranding, it can be expensive, especially if you’re not 100% sure about what you’re trying to achieve and how to achieve it.

Remember, while your brand includes logos and colors, nailing the brand tone is essential to the success of your brand.

If you need help with your brand, business marketing, or social media, including blogs and articles, to improve your search rankings (SEO), please don’t hesitate to contact us at 6° Media & Marketing. Our experienced and professional team not only understands the importance of online marketing, but we can help you grow your business organically.

You can contact us directly using the contact form, email us at info@6degrees.media, or even book a complimentary 30-minute phone consultation to discuss your needs.

About 6° Media If you want to create a digital culture for your company that wins over customers' hearts, 6° Media is here to help. Our skilled marketing experts can foster your business's continuous growth at scale and on budget.