The five powerful benefits of a crystal clear brand tone of voice

Many businesses talk about tone of voice. Few actually understand its powerful benefits. Fewer still successfully define and use their tone of voice to its full effect.

Most businesses have heard about ‘brand tone of voice’ and they recognise it’s something they ought to have. But until they can really understand the purpose and benefits of a strong, clear tone of voice, they’re loath to invest in one.

So let’s change that.

What is brand tone of voice? 

A brand tone of voice is the way your business talks and sounds.

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

Your tone of voice is how your business talks to customers. How your marketing represents your company.

It’s how your brand stays fresh, focused and effective – how you get more sales and grow your business.

It’s how your message stays clearly and unmistakably your message.

Why is a brand tone of voice important?

Your tone of voice is the tool, the identity that helps you communicate effectively with your target audience and get more sales. That’s why it’s important. It helps you make money.

It’s important, because according to Prof. Albert Mehrabian’s study into communication, tone of voice makes up a huge 38% of any conversation.

Tone of voice is an essential foundation to your brand identity. It’s one of the core parts of your brand that lets you connect with your target audience. To speak directly to those customers who will buy from you.

It defines who you are as a business. And it gives you a personality, making your business more human. Building trust.

Done correctly, a strong, clear tone of voice brings a wealth of benefits to your business.

Here are five of the most powerful:

1) A strong tone of voice improves perceptions and makes a great impression instantly

Your business is always being judged. Every prospect and every customer is looking at every word you write. They all make an impression, and a strong tone of voice helps you make sure it’s the right one. With a unique tone for your business, your marketing will be instantly recognisable, building positive opinions that help your target audience like you, trust you, and want to buy from you.

2) A strong tone of voice brings clarity and consistency to all your communications

Prospects and customers move through a huge number of touchpoints on their journey to buy from you. There are probably several people within your business responsible for creating the content they’ll see – from that first social media ad through website content to customer service emails.

A well-defined, clearly understood tone of voice helps you bring order to all that content. A single, clear, consistent approach across every touchpoint. No disconnects, no confusing messaging. One tone. One personality.

3) A strong tone of voice gets buy-in from every department and every stakeholder

Finding that one single approach to get behind can be a big challenge for businesses. There are too many opinions. But using our interactive tone of voice workshop, you can bring all those differing opinions into the journey. The discussion, the debate, the deliberation.

The outcome is one tone of voice everyone has contributed to and agreed on. The result is buy-in from every key stakeholder, and a single, agreed way forward. Any new marketing piece, new product name or new web page either fits with the tone of voice, or it doesn’t. Simple and effective.

4) A strong tone of voice delivers increased performance across the board

When your business gets behind a single, focused tone of voice and truly embraces it, you’ll see positive results in pretty much every area. An effective tone of voice connects with your audience and gets them to act. It inspires clicks. It encourages purchases.

It helps improve efficiency too, a clear direction for design, development and content production. It focuses advertising efforts and builds brand trust. And it even helps reduce customer complaints.

5) A strong tone of voice gives your business an unbeatable competitive advantage

Lastly – and perhaps most importantly – having a clearly defined tone of voice sets you apart from your competition. It gives you the edge they lack, in strategy, marketing, sales and every department in between.

But how do you find that tone of voice and get that competitive advantage?

It sounds like a big, complicated and expensive task that only multinational corporations can afford.

It’s not.

Not with Hampson Nattan Williams.

Not with our interactive tone of voice workshops.

They help your whole team narrow in on the perfect tone of voice for your business in one highly effective session.

They’re ideal for any scenario too, like:

• When you’re a start-up and need to establish a good brand identify from the off
• Or you’re rebranding and need to begin with the most effective foundations
• During mergers and acquisitions, where two cultures are fusing together and you need to get everyone on the same page
• Or for product launches, where you have a new exciting offer that’s different from your usual, and you need to define it with its own unique brand

And if you’re selling tone of voice workshops to your clients, there are big benefits for your agency too.

If you want to resell a Hampson Nattan Williams tone of voice workshop as a collaborative or white label offer to your clients, they won’t be the only ones who benefit.

Your agency will see great results too.

You won’t just become your client’s brand guardians, helping them understand every part of their tone of voice and verbal brand identity. You won’t just be the partner to help them implement their new tone of voice.

You’ll see huge improvements to your own processes and deliverables too.

With a clearly defined client tone of voice, your agency will:

• Deliver more impressive and more valuable brand books, packed with useful tone of voice guidelines
• Streamline design and development with a stronger brief and clearer understanding of the brand
• Improve marketing strategy, ad copy and content creation with a focused tone of voice and clear, consistent messaging.

It’s simple really. 

A strong, well defined tone of voice has clear, powerful benefits for everyone involved.