Brand Voice Copywriting: The Comprehensive Guide
Lil Key Takeaways: This Blog at a Glance
Branding isn’t just visual, it’s about your voice, too.
Brand voice reflects a brand's consistent personality, vibe, and attitude in all communication channels.
It conveys not only the brand's personality but also its mission, values, and ethics, such as transparency or inclusivity.
A strong, curated brand voice connects emotionally with the ideal audience, helping to build brand loyalty and recognition across all platforms.
Consistency in brand voice is essential for creating familiarity and cohesion, just like with visual branding elements.
Establishing a clear brand voice ensures that all communications align, making the brand complete and scalable as the business grows.
Implementing a cohesive brand voice livens up content, making even the most technical or understated messaging more engaging and true to the brand's personality.
Wanna tackle your clear, sticky brand voice on your own time? Our mini-course Brand Voice Roundup teaches biz owners like you how to wrangle their reliable, reusable brand voice guide so you can use your words to speak to your dream people.
When someone says the word brand, what’s the first thing you think of?
Maybe you’ve got a color palette in mind. Maybe a killer logo pops into your head. Maybe you’re thinking of the way a particular company has set up its brick-and-mortar shop. (I can think of, like, 25 coffee shops that give off the perfect brand vibe just by the way they’ve chosen to decorate the space).
All the visual things are crucial to branding as a whole–and those elements are usually what people think of first when branding comes up.
What’s often a very overlooked part of branding is a brand’s voice. Or rather, how they talk to their audience.
And here’s the thing. Brand voice isn’t something that can be ignored; it’s an enormous part of branding as a whole.
I’d argue that having a clear, consistent brand voice is actually a much bigger deal than having cohesive tangible brand elements.
But what is brand voice, exactly? And further, why does your company need to perk up and pay attention to your own brand voice? We’re diving into all that and more in this blog.
Brand Voice Copywriting Basics: What You Need to Know
What is Brand Voice, Anyway?
Let’s keep this definition simple. Brand voice is quite literally your brand’s voice–it’s the perfect little fusion of who you already are and who your dream people (your ideal audience!) needs you to be.
Yeah, the concept is actually that straightforward. (It’s the execution that gets tricky).
To put it another way, your brand’s voice is the consistent personality, vibe, and attitude it takes on when you’re talking to your customers.
Think of this in terms of how some of the most unique, memorable, and compelling people speak.
By this, I don’t necessarily mean their accents or intonations, but rather their mannerisms, personality, and unique quirks.
The way you’d describe these people’s personalities–engaging, moody, direct, spontaneous, exciting, transparent–is how you’d describe their brand voice.
And the same goes for your company.
Your brand has a personality, and it’s super important to curate it so that it shines through in all your communication.
Your brand voice is a crucial part of your overall branding. In fact, the most successful brand voices happen when brands are recognizable in any format or on any platform without needing logos, color palettes, and physical brand elements to connect the dots.
And the thing is, almost every single successful company you can think of (no matter the size or the niche) has a developed brand voice.
Even if you don’t think you’ve ever been talked to, persuaded by, or inspired by a brand’s voice, the reality is that you totally have. That’s because brand voice, when done correctly, doesn’t feel demonstrative–it just feels natural for their niche.
An established, clear, and true-to-you brand voice is more important than ever.
Why? Because brand voice needs to be present and consistent at every touchpoint to establish a cohesive brand in a world full of wordy, online chatter.
That means if there are words involved, a unique and consistent brand voice needs to be present. This includes things like:
Email campaigns
Social media marketing
Website copy
Digital resources
Customer service
Sales copy
Landing pages
Every avenue of your digital advertising, marketing, or communication is an opportunity to communicate with your customers as effectively and on-brand as possible–so your brand voice needs to be on point.
The Top 8 Reasons Your Brand Needs to Tap Into Your Clear, Sticky Brand Voice
I’ll be honest; this list could go on and on (and on). But we’re going to keep it succinct and list out just a few ridiculously important reasons that your brand’s established voice matters.
Brand Voice Says Everything About Your Goals, Mission, Values, & Ethics
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a brand’s voice is just about its personality.
Don’t misinterpret me–it is. But there’s much more layered in. Your brand’s voice takes on the massive responsibility of communicating the big stuff–your company’s morals, values, goals, and ethics.
That means your brand voice isn’t just responsible for capturing the lighthearted, relatable parts of your brand’s personality; it’s about communicating your commitments.
Does your brand prioritize fierce transparency? Your copy needs to support that. Do you value being inclusive? Your brand’s voice needs to make this as clear as possible.
Whatever heavy-hitting values, ethics, and goals your brand focuses on–honesty, authenticity, sustainability, it’s up to your brand’s voice to communicate that clearly.
Brand Voice = Your Personality (& You Should Want to Share That)
When people think of brand perception, they tend to think directly about the tangible elements of a brand. You know what I mean, right? I’m talkin’ about the logo, the colors, the fonts.
But they also think about the intangible stuff, too. The things they can’t put their finger on–the things they can’t see.
Yep, the vibe. The feeling. The attitude. The personality. How you say what you say.
How your brand decides to consistently speak to its audience is an enormous part of developing your brand’s personality. For example, if you’re trying to resonate with an audience in a chill, laid-back, and very conversational way, you’re not going to talk to your audience in a type-A, uptight, everything is fine-tuned way.
No way.
Your brand voice is going to dictate the personality backing your brand.
So, if you’re a chill brand that wants to speak casually to your customers, you’re not going to write a call to action that reads:
“Your business is important to us–let’s discuss how we can work together to bring your goals to life.”
You’re probably going to say something like:
“Are you vibing with us? Same. Let’s chat and see how we can make this thing happen.”
You can read the difference in personality there, right? The messaging behind both examples is really similar, but the way you address your customers should mirror your brand’s personality–and that’s what helps set you apart.
Curated Brand Voice Speaks to Your Ideal Audience
If you’re an established brand or business, you probably know whom you’re trying to reach, right?
Well, if you know whom you’re targeting and why you’re targeting them, wouldn’t it make sense to know how to talk to them most effectively?
Your brand voice should be about establishing your brand’s personality, but it also needs to be about resonating with your ideal market.
When you establish a curate, cohesive, and consistent brand voice that puts your audience first, you can make an enormous difference in your marketing, customer service, and branding strategy.
In other words, your brand voice needs to speak your audience’s language. And when you do that right, you’re in for a whole new world of brand familiarity, loyalty, and preference.
Brand Voice Attracts Customers
Your brand does more than just greet your customers and relate to them in a language they understand–it sneakily introduces your services or products to them as the right fit (without being too obvious, of course).
In other words, your brand’s voice reflects something we writers like to call the value proposition.
And no matter what your value proposition is–cost, cutting-edge tech, service, product, etc.–your brand voice shoulders the responsibility of presenting that in a fast, efficient, personality-saturated, and non-pushy way.
It Identifies Your Brand at Every Touchpoint
Remember earlier when I said the best brand voices would be recognizable no matter where or how someone is reading them? Bingo. This deserves a section all its own.
You’re probably wondering something along the lines of, “OK, so what if someone can recognize my brand’s voice from an Instagram caption or a Google ad–what’s the big deal?”
The big deal is that brand familiarity and brand loyalty is going to win the day.
Your written content needs to be able to stand alone. It needs to be able to win the day without your logo.
Brand Voice Keeps Things Consistent
A lot goes into establishing, curating, and growing a brand, but consistency is an enormous piece of that.
Think about it this way–you wouldn’t swap out your logos on every different social media platform, would you? You wouldn’t pick one brand color palette for your website and choose a totally unrelated one for your storefront, right?
No way. That would muddle your brand and confuse your customers.
In other words, a lack of consistency makes things confusing and complicated–and that’s generally not the route you want for your customers’ experiences and buying journeys.
Your Brand is Incomplete Without It
I have no issue making a bold claim like this.
You can set up the sweetest little brand package for your company–the greatest policies on how you treat your employees, the best logo, killer packaging, and a super-optimized website–but without establishing your brand voice, you’re basically wasting your time and money.
Why? Because brand voice ties everything together. If you’re not addressing how to talk to your customers, what you say, and what you don’t say, your brand is going to be all over the place.
Think about this in terms of growth and scalability, too. Maybe you’re running a one-man-or-woman show right now. Of course, the brand voice is consistent; it’s yours.
But what happens when you add another employee? When you get bigger and turn your little one-employee brand into a corporation bringing in the big bucks?
Without a guideline for your brand’s voice, you’re getting a little bit of this and a little bit of that–and that lack of consistency in your brand’s voice isn’t going to match up with the consistency you’ve established for the tangible aspects of your brand.
If everything else in your branding is cohesive, but your voice isn’t, you don’t have a cohesive or complete brand.
It Livens Things Up
I want to be clear that I don’t mean your brand voice needs to have a ton of zip, pizazz, or sass to really make a splash.
If that doesn’t fit your brand’s voice or your audience’s language, then your brand voice shouldn’t be edgy or zany or funky.
A brand voice that’s true to your brand’s personality should be just that–true to your brand’s personality. So that means if you’re subtle or understated, or minimalist, your brand voice (and copy) should follow suit.
What I do mean is this–no matter what your brand’s voice sounds like, implementing it cohesively across the board is going to help bring your content and copy to life.
Why? Because you’re saying it YOUR way.
Brand voice done right should put a little extra pep in the step of whatever you’re putting down–even if what you’re putting down is traditionally a little bit technical or boring.
Struggling with Brand Voice? We Got You
Creating and curating a brand voice is simple in theory, but the process itself (and implementing that process) can get tricky. If you’re struggling with finding and perfecting your perfect brand voice, you’re in the right place.
Boundless Copy is big on brand voice–in fact, we’ve built our entire biz on helping service pros and biz owners discover (and use) their clear, sticky brand voice to help flip on the neon welcome sign for their dream people.
You know when marketing pros talk about niching down?
Well, that exists in copywriting and content writing–and brand voice just so happens to be Boundless Copy’s niche.
We’re here to provide you with brand voice consultation, creation, and curation services so you can pin down and perfect your brand’s unique voice.
Have questions? We’ve got answers. Reach out to us with whatever is on your brain (brand voice or not), and we’ll tackle it together.
P.S., want to discover your clear, sticky voice on your own?
Brand Voice Roundup is all about that! In this mini-course, we teach you how to wrangle a reliable, reusable brand voice guide so you can tap into your brand voice and speak to your dream people with every word you write.
