Four Simple Steps to Finding Your Brand's Voice
The first and most important step to launching your own brand is finding your brand’s voice. This is your brand’s identity and it is what will be reflected everywhere, online and offline. This is usually a one-time thing and, therefore, you have to get it absolutely perfect. You cannot usually change the brand’s voice, at least not without elaborate re-branding and expensive alterations, so this is one thing you simply cannot mess up. There is a huge pressure when it comes to picking your brand’s voice. It is a multi-pronged process which requires much thought and effort. Here are some tips that will help you make this major decision more efficiently.
Pick a sample demographic
It is important to pick the right kind of demographic. The things you need to keep in mind are age group, sex, social class, income bracket, educational qualification, background, etc. Ask yourself how your projected brand voice will work with different people from within the demographic. Unless your brand deals with a niche product or service, exclusive to a certain set of clientele, make sure that your voice does not completely alienate people outside the picked demographic. Once you have zeroed in on the demographic set, do some research on what hits home with this set of people so that you can reach out in the best way possible.
Pick the tone
Ask yourself, or your team as well if you have one, to write down the words you, or they, feel suitable to describe your brand. It is important to keep the product or service that you are selling in mind while doing this job. For example, if your brand deals with medical products or funeral services, you cannot use ‘funky’ as your brand’s voice. You have to set the tone more somber. Similarly, you cannot go with a Goth style if you are branding your pre-school chain. Once you have established all the different tones you can go with, sit down and weigh all the options and how you want them to represent your brand. These little words have immense value, so choose carefully. Once you have decided on the tone, you can work out the ways to incorporate it into various representations of your brand.
Create a test group
Create a sample test group to try your brand voice on. It can be your family, friends or neighbors even who can give honest, positive and neutral input. You can also make use of a sample demographic from a random test crowd. The best way to find these are at schools, colleges, malls etc. You get the most neutral views from totally different perspectives and discover so many various aspects and points of view that you wouldn’t have thought of by yourself. This will help you see your brand from a different perspective and allow you to make an informed decision about how to proceed.
Look for inspiration
Do not be afraid to seek inspiration. Once you have decided the tone of your brand, you need to give it a voice; that is what will deliver the tone and impression of your brand to your potential clients. Therefore, this is a crucial step. Before you start executing your plans, look into various brands with a similar voice for inspiration. You will be surprised to see many ideas that you haven’t even thought of. Jot down the points that strike you as interesting and you can work these into your brand. But remember that inspiration does not mean copying. If you simply copy others’ ideas, you will lose originality and invite lawsuits. Stay away from plagiarism and explore your originality.
Your brand’s voice is extremely important, so put a lot of work into making it absolutely perfect.