How do you go about defining your brand's tone of voice? Start, by thinking about your customers....
Tone of voice is often considered as one of the highest priorities when starting a new business. The tone of your business can help customers engage with you and is very beneficial for businesses using Inbound Marketing. We have collected the top 5 factors you need to consider when creating your company's voice.
What is Tone of Voice? Informing, talking, chatting...
A tone of voice is how your business communicates with potential customers.
A company who uses colloquial language and informal phrases in their marketing will come across very differently to a company using serious terminology and hard facts!
Before you can establish the correct tone you need to research your audience. What content do they engage with? What types of marketing do they prefer? These types of questions can help you create your company's personality.
Why your business needs a great tone
Creating a tone for your business is very beneficial to your business:- Gives your company personality
- Benefits customer engagement
- Delivers your company's motives and goals
- Makes you memorable
- Unifies staff members
What you should consider when creating your business' voice:
1) Clarity
Be clear. Clarity helps your customers understand you. If they don't understand your business after the first meeting, they will unlikely contact you. You want a voice that engages and is CLEAR so people will easily remember and understand you.
2) Reassurance
Your customers need to trust you and you can achieve that confidence by reassuring them you have one voice with one ideal. The voice of your brand needs to show you have continuity so customers can trust your motivations and believe in you.
3) Efficiency
Having your companies tone agreed not only benefits your customers, but also your employees. When you have decided on the personality and tone of your brand you can create company guidelines for your departments. This improves efficency for your teams and new starters.
When your staff engage with customers they should represent your business' brand. Customers aren't talking to Bill in customer service, they are talking to the business.
4) Engagement
To engage effectively with your audience you need to know what they are like. Do they want to engage with a company who is quirky? Or would they rather communicate with a company who uses legal jargon?
There are many voices a company can adopt and you need one that will represent your company and engage with your customers. Your business' voice needs to build relationships with your audience.
5) Outvoice your competitors
When you are researching your tone of voice you need to take time to listen to your competitiors (we've actually created a really handy tool that does all the hard work for you, click here to take a look). How do they interact with your customers? You can take inspiration from your competitiors but you need to be unique. Make yourself stand out and have a personality.
Be the popular kid on the playground!
Creating a great tone helps you interact with your customers and invites them to interact with you. To create a voice that suits your business, Inbound Marketing is designed to help you understand your customers so you can create engaging and relevant content.
What do you think about Tone of Voice? Do you think it's important for business growth? Tell us in the comments below.