A brand voice is the way your business sounds whenever it speaks: on the website, in an email, on a sign, in a reply to a review and on the phone. It is the words you choose, how formal or relaxed you are, and what you would never say. It stays the same whoever is writing, so customers recognize you by how you talk as well as by how you look.
Why a small business needs one
In a small business, the website was written by one person, the social posts by another, and the replies to reviews by whoever had a minute. Each of them sounds like themselves. The customer meets all three and gets three different businesses: a stiff website, a jokey social account and a curt reply.
A written voice fixes that without making anyone sound like a robot. It is a short description with examples: “we say this, not that”. Anyone can check a sentence against it before it goes out.
Signs your business has no settled voice
- Your website sounds formal, and your social posts sound like a different company.
- Replies to reviews depend on who wrote them and what kind of day they had.
- You use words your customers would never use, or explain things they already know.
- When someone new writes for you, you rewrite most of it and cannot say why.
- You could not describe how your business sounds in a sentence.
How 76 Design Solutions solves it
Tone of voice is part of the brand identity work at 76 Design Solutions, written into the same guideline document as the logo, the color palette with values and the typography, so everyone who writes for you works from one page. See 76designsolutions.com/branding-marketing.
If your website is the first place you want the voice to be right, start with the Website Plan and Homepage Mockup from 76 Design Solutions: a page plan saying which pages you need and what each must say, plus a homepage mockup for desktop and phone, delivered within 5 business days for $49.99. The full $49.99 is credited toward a Small Business Website build, and the credit does not expire.