Imagine someone scrolling through a sea of brands where your brand is competing with others. Each brand tries to catch their attention with catchy ad slogans and shiny promises.
What do you think? Which one brand will grab their attention?
A brand with flat communication
OR
A brand with memorable and relatable communication
A brand that communicates on a personal level that is memorable and relatable grabs the attention of its target audience better than a brand that has flat communication.
So, to create attention-grabbing, memorable, and relatable brand communication of your brand, you need to find your unique brand voice. That sets you apart from the competition.
No matter if you don’t know how to find a unique brand voice for your brand, from now on, there is no need to be worried!
In this guide, I will discuss how you can find your unique brand voice.
No matter whether you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, freelance copywriter, or a marketer. This guide is for everyone who wants to create a brand communication attention-grabbing that resonates with their audience.
So, are you ready to dive in and find your unique brand voice?
If Yes!
So, Let’s get started.
What is Brand Voice?
Brand voice is more than just a word. It conveys attitude, personality, and values. A brand voice gives personality to your brand that distinguishes your brand from other competitor brands.
A brand voice determines how people perceive your business. It contains everything essential to communication, such as word choice in which the brand speaks with its target audience.
Example of brand voice comparison of Coca-Cola and Pepsi:
After understanding what is brand voice let’s move to the next step and start working on how to create your brand voice:
Find Your Muse
In this section, I will discuss the first step you have to take to create your brand voice.
What is a Muse?
In brand voice, the muse could be a character, a person, or an archetype expressing the style and voice you want your brand to convey.
Your muse could be a “fictional character”, which you can take from a movie or book, or an archetype such as “hipster” or a “coach”, or you can take a real person, such as any “celebrity”.
Remember that whatever muse you choose should have a recognizable and distinct voice that you can incorporate into your brand’s communication.
How to find Mause?
To find your brand muse, just take a piece of paper or your laptop and start to figure it out with the help of a Four-Step process.
Step 1: Muse Should Reflect On Brand Values and Audience:
Before finding your Muse, you must deeply understand your brand value and the audience you want to reach.
To understand both the values and audience of your brand just, simply answer these three questions:
- Who is my target audience?
- What are their preferences?
- What are the aspirations of my target audience?
- What does my brand stand for?
- What emotion can I evoke to engage my audience?
By answering these five questions, you can understand your brand values and target audience.
Remember to develop your Muse according to your brand value and target audience. It should align with your brand values and resonate with your target audience.
For Example:
If your brand is innovative and inspirational, your Muse might be the character of a young entrepreneur known for his time management and innovativeness.
Step 2: Explore Different Variations:
It’s not necessary for the beginning Muse to find you come up with the perfect one. You should explore different variations to find a Muse that truly represents your brand voice.
For example, your brand is Alpha Car. Let’s explore two different muse variations for this brand:
- Real Person:
For a real person, I am going to choose Elon Musk because his persona of Elon Musk serves as a strong muse for any car brand for a couple of reasons:
- Elon’s communication style is visionary, direct, and sometimes provocative.
- His personality is like there is no fear of taking a challenge, and he is ambitious and daring.
- Elon’s persona conveys the emotional appeal of confidence, continuous progress and innovation.
- Fictional Character:
For the fictional character, I am going to select Iron Man because this character’s persona gives a sense of confidence and intelligence, and it could be a strong muse for Alpha Car because:
- Iron Man’s personality is innovative, charismatic and a bit rebellious.
- It gives a sense of leadership.
- The communication style of this character is full of personality, confident and witty.
As I have made two different muses, you do this exercise for your brand. Once you have done this exercise, you will have a clear idea of which Muse you can choose for your brand.
Step 3: Identify Major Attributes Of Your Muse
After selecting your Muse in this step, determine the major attribute that defines your voice chosen.
Here in this step, consider three major elements:
| Elements | Determine |
| Voice | Is it formal, informal, serious, or playful? |
| Style | Use of sentence (punchy or descriptive) |
| Language | What words or phrases frequently use? |
For example: I have selected after exploring my muse variations, which I have done in step 2. I am going with Elon Musk’s Muse, so
|
Elements |
Elon Musk Influence |
|
voice |
Ambitious, Bold, and Visionary |
|
Style |
Confident, direct, and mostly provocative. |
|
Language |
Focus on pushing boundaries, innovation, and disruption. |
Step 4: Make a Muse Profile
Once you have identified the key attributes of your Muse, then start work to make a profile of your Muse. Here are the key characteristics which include:
- A pictorial representation of your Muse.
- Some quotes that summarized their voice.
- Describe why you chose them as your Muse and how their voice influences your brand communication.
Once you complete step 4, you will have your own Muse, which you can refer to as this Muse (person, character, or archetype) that best represents your brand voice.
Set Your Voice Principles
After finding your muse in this section, I will discuss how you can take your muse and use it as an inspiration to define your tone of voice through a few voice principles.
What are the voice principles, and how do we identify them?
Consider voice principles as descriptive words or adjectives that define your voice. To identify voice principles for your brand, you need to analyze their muse language.
Let’s take an example of Elon Musk as your muse for the brand Alpha Car:
Let’s say I have analyzed how Elon communicate, and I have found three voice principles for Alpha car:
- Innovative.
- Bold.
- Visionary.
Those three principles determine the unique qualities of my muse, Elon Musk’s communication style, and will help me shape a distinct voice for Alpha Car.
Let’s take other examples of voice principles to understand this concept better:
Define Your Voice Principle
Once you have found voice principles for your brand, you can go to this step, where you have to define your principle. Here, you must determine your principles and what each means in your brand voice’s context.
Remember that defining voice principles is more than just writing descriptive words.
Let’s take an example of Alpha Car’s three principles, which we discovered in the above step.
Many people could be bold, visionary, and innovative, but what is (bold, visionary, and creative) to Elon that differs from others?
That’s the reason you need to define your voice principle.
Although you know why you have selected those principles by defining them, you will see how these will translate into actual writing because you need to understand how your principles sound in actual writing.
I hope you now understand why it is important to define your voice principle, so let move one step ahead and let’s define three principles of Alpha Car in detail:
Bold
Communication of the alpha car should emphasize confidence and assertiveness. Communication should be based on powerful language, and there shouldn’t be any room for ambiguity. The formation of sentences should be based on direct language.
For Example:
“Alpha Car doesn’t just challenge the status quo—we redefine it.”
Visionary
Brand communication should focus on forward thinking to make people see beyond the imagination what is possible. It should show them their bright future and that they are leading the way.
Example:
“At Alpha Car, we’re not just imagining the future of driving—we’re building it.”
Innovative
Brand communication emphasizes change, which means evolving daily and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with the help of new ideas and technologies.
Example:
Innovation isn’t just a word at Alpha Car—it’s our lifeblood. We create what others can’t even imagine, delivering an experience that’s always ahead of the curve.”
Once you have defined your principles, you can apply them to your brand’s overall communication. You just need to ensure that all of them are clear, true, and actionable to your brand voice.
Good and Bad Voice Principles
This section will greatly help you when you write your voice principle because here, I will discuss the difference between good and bad principles.
To make this section easy to understand, I have made a Vs table of good and bad principles where I have shown differences between good and bad principles, which is mentioned below:
| Good Principle | Bad Principles |
| Each principle is distinctive and focuses on a unique aspect. | Leading to a one-dimensional voice means too similar. |
| Perfectly aligned Principles that complement each other. | Contradictory principles that create confusion. |
| Provide guidance for communication and writing. | General, Unclear, and irrelevant to your brand identity and goal. |
Remember this table when you are finalizing voice principles for your brand, and make sure the principles you choose for your brand should strengthen your brand voice.
Structuring Your Voice
So, you have learned about muse identification and voice principles. Now is the time to discuss how to structure your voice.
A well-defined voice structure will help you to maintain consistency in your brand messaging.
With the help of your voice structure, you will be able to ensure every piece of your content resonates with your target audience exactly in the way you intended.
To create your voice structure, you have to focus on three key elements:
- Word Choice refers to a particular vocabulary defining your brand style and language.
- Length and Structure: Define the flow and rhythm of your writing. Should your sentences be punchy and short, or do they have a more elaborate, flowing structure?
- Emotion: It refers to feelings you want to evoke, such as excitement, reliability, trust, or inspiration.
Example voice structure for (Alpha Car):
- Word Choice: Innovative, autonomous, revolutionary.
- Sentence Length and Structure: A blend of short, impactful sentences with longer, visionary descriptions.
- Emotion: Empowering, exciting, forward-thinking.
With the help of these three elements, you can create your own brand’s voice structure. Well, after making your voice structure, let’s move to the last and final step, which is:
Assembling Reference Sheet
Well, now you have your voice structure, tone principles, and Muse, it’s time to bring everything together to make a reference sheet that will be a valuable tool to help you maintain brand voice consistency and authenticity across all channels.
To assemble the reference sheet, follow these steps:
Step 1:
In the first step of your reference sheet, mention your ideal Muse’s profile, mention your Muse’s name and the inspirational quote that captures the essence of the voice you want to convey.
For example:
Brand Name: Alpha Car.
Inspirational Quotes: When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.
Step 2:
After mentioning the profile of Muse, say all the voice principles you have set the description that you have set in the description in the “Define your voice principle” step.
Let’s take an example of Alpha Car 3 voice principles:
- Bold: Communication of the alpha car should emphasize confidence and assertiveness. Communication should be based on powerful language; there shouldn’t be any room for ambiguity, and the formation of sentences should be based on direct language.
- Visionary: Brand communication should focus on forward thinking to make people see beyond the imagination what is possible. It should show them their bright future and that they are leading the way.
- Innovative: Brand communication emphasizes change, which means evolving daily, pushing boundaries, and what’s possible with the help of new ideas and technologies.
A brief description of each principle will explain what each one means for your writing style.
Step 3:
After completing the voice principle step, mention your voice structure, which you have set in the “Structuring Your Voice” step.
For example (Alpha Car’s voice structure):
- Word Choice: Innovative, autonomous, revolutionary.
- Sentence Length and Structure: A blend of short, impactful sentences with longer, visionary descriptions.
- Emotion: Empowering, exciting, forward-thinking.
Step 4:
Finally, in the end, in the step for mentioning About me sentence, this should be an ideal sentence that encapsulates your brand voice. This sentence will help you as a quick point whenever you have a blank page and assist you in jumpstarting your writing and aligning with your brand voice in no time.
Example (Alpha Car) About Me:
“At Alpha Car, we drive the future with bold innovation, visionary design, and groundbreaking technology that redefine the automotive experience.”
That’s it. After completing step 4, you will have made your reference sheet. Now, you must ensure that you keep it handy while crafting any copy blog, social media, press release, etc.
With the help of steps, you can harness your brand voice and differentiate yourself from your competition. After completing this sheet, you can write using your brand voice.
Conclusion:
Finally, I want to congratulate you because now you can find your brand voice.
Always remember your brand voice is a powerful tool because it helps you build relationships and connect with your audience.
With the help of the following guide steps, you can align your muse, create your voice principles and make a final reference sheet that will help you maintain consistency.
But remember, never get stuck on one thing ever. It’s an ongoing process. Refine your voice as much as you can.
Ensure that your reference sheet is always handy, follow voice principles, and continuously evolve your brand voice.
So that’s it for now. If you have any confusion, you can send me an email.
Now it’s your turn. Start speaking your brand’s language today 😉!
Thanks!