How to Pick a Brand Voice That Matches Your Company

Are you looking to define your brand voice or are wondering how a brand voice might help advance your business?

You've landed in the right place.

Here, at Amazing Voice, we have hundreds of voice talents ready to speak up for your brand.

However, before you start recording your perfect voice over, we'll also guide you in picking a brand voice that matches your company.

In this article, you'll discover why brand voices are so important and learn the steps towards creating a successful one.

Plus, you'll understand how to take that brand voice and select the right actor to bring it to life.

Why is the brand voice so important?

Communication — both internal and external — is key to building and sustaining a successful business.

In fact, it's specifically important since, in this day and age, we only have 7 seconds to impress our audience.

Through communication you create connections, entertain engagement and invite to action, managing to drive in more and more customers.

In this context, defining your brand voice is an essential step towards achieving your objectives.

Outlining a brand voice helps you to create a unique company persona and build relationships with your audience.

It leads to originality, consistency, easy identification and long-term loyalty.

More specifically, a brand voice is important because:

It helps your brand stand-out

Let's face it: you're probably in a tough market; competing with companies selling the same type of product or service.

However, you've got a secret weapon to differentiate yourself and you'd better use it: yes, your brand voice.

A brand voice that's uniquely yours will help you stand out among numerous others doing what you're doing.

Without a differentiated voice, you risk falling into the pit of anonymity and having your message spread too thin to be remembered.

That's why developing a brand voice is of utter importance; offering your company that specific nuance that clients will remember.

A recent study from Render Forest discovered that more than 25% of customers recognize a brand by voice alone — an opportunity you shouldn't miss.

It's easier for your customers to identify you

In addition to helping your company stand out, a clearly defined brand voice will also help clients identify you with ease.

Whether it's an explainer video, a radio ad, or an article, it should be easy for your clients to know you're the one behind it.

The power of a brand voice is that it perfectly complements your brand identity and ties together all the elements you create.

After all, your goal is to be visible and attract attention with the least possible amount of effort.

It builds loyalty

The secret to retaining customers is adhering to the same standards you accustom them to.

Consistency is critical not only to being easily identifiable but to being trusted in the long-term.

If your brand keeps its promises and delivers day in, day out the same level of quality, then you're on the path to success.

Outlining a consistent brand voice contributes to this aim, helping you to gain trust and win hearts.

A brand voice can nurture emotional connections, which, as we all know, are at the crux of a successful sale.

How to define your brand voice

Outline your target audience

The most important thing you have to consider when defining your brand voice is your audience.

After all, you aim to find the perfect way to connect with your target and lead them towards buying your products or services.

To achieve that, you must nail the right language and the correct tone of voice for all your communication materials.

That being said, make sure you start by outlining the demographics and psychographics of your audience.

This will come in handy when deciding what tone to adopt and what words to use.

For example, a younger audience will require you to use a more upbeat tone and incorporate youthful catchphrases or even slang.

If you are, however, aiming to attract an older generation (think Gen X), then you'll have to stir towards a more temperate, pragmatic tone and use a more traditional vocabulary.

List the emotions you want to evoke

Another thing to consider when creating an outline for your brand voice in your industry.

What does your industry have to do with the emotions you want to evoke?

Everything!

Let's say you are running a beauty salon that promotes edgy looks and fresh new trends.

In that case, you'd definitely want to evoke non-conformism and a daring attitude, which can lead to a brand voice that's quirky and challenges conventions.

Now, let's consider another example, in which you're leading a metal fabrications company.

In this case, you'd want a tone of voice that instills trust and sends across a pragmatic attitude that's connected to success in the field.

You can run this exercise with your specific industry by looking at what happens on the market.

Ideally, you want to evoke the emotions your audience expects, but also trigger new feelings that make you stand out.

Describe your company as a person

To get a better feel of how your brand voice should sound like, try thinking about your company as a person.

Then, begin to draft a description of how it usually acts, how it interacts with other people to what interests it has.

By outlining a living picture of your company, you'll gain a better understanding of what type of brand voice it would use.

For example, if you picture your company as a cheerful, warm person who is interested in socializing, then the brand voice would pick up these influences.

If, on the contrary, your imagined person is more serious, builds more formal relationships and has an interest in science, then the language would need to be adapted accordingly.

Think about your communications channel

Your brand voice will have to remain consistent across all your communication channels, whether these are digital or offline.

However, you need to assess the flexibility of your selected brand voice by doing an audit beforehand.

To start, make a list of your communication channels and take some time to research the latest trends regarding each.

Consider what type of content works best (articles, posts, videos) and draft some guidelines and best practices for each.

This way, you'll have a better chance at matching your brand voice to each channel, by adapting it to fit the context, yet remain truthful.

Define a scale for your main brand voice characteristics

After conducting the steps above, come up with a list of 4-5 characteristics your brand voice should always have.

For the sake of exemplifying, let's imagine you want your brand voice to be funny, joyful, surprising, and upbeat.

To make sure your company's tone of voice remains consistent throughout time, you must specifically define the degree to each of the characteristics.

For example, is your brand funny in a light way, or does it rely heavily on jokes to get messages across?

Is it joyful to the point of having every sentence interpreted in an exhilarating way or does it transmit a cheerful attitude in a subtle way?

As you can see, the extremes can substantially change how your brand is perceived, so make sure to accompany each characteristic with a description.

Usually, it's recommended that you add "Do and Don't" guidelines.

How to pick the right professional voice over for your brand

Know your brand voice

Without a doubt, the first step in selecting the right professional voice over to match your brand is... knowing what your brand voice is.

If you have a clear outline on paper with the main voice characteristics carefully drafted, you'll have a much easier time in imagining how the professional voice over should sound.

Is your brand voice optimistic and giddy? Then you'll probably need an upbeat voice that is cheerful and engaging.

If, on the contrary, your brand voice is serious and insightful, you'll want to go with a more mature voice over, that has a deeper timbre.

Look at market insights and stats

In our day and age, data is King and Queen, so make sure to actively listen to what data has to say.

To match the right professional voice over with your brand, consult the industry expectations in terms of desired attitudes and values.

For example, beauty companies are expected to deliver specific types of values, while law firms adhere to a completely different set of expectations.

By understanding the context of your business and looking at what other companies are doing, you'll know where you stand.

With this knowledge, you'll be able to find a spot to fill and bring something new, while also meeting the expectations of your customers.

Create a brief

There's nobody who knows your company better than you do.

And, since the professional voice over you'll work with will have to get intimately familiar with your brand, you need to share the knowledge.

The best way to do that is by drafting a brief that contains the most important information your chosen talent will have to know.

What's a brief, you ask?

A brief is a to-the-point document that contains a set of instructions related to the task you want completed.

In this case, selecting a professional voice over to record an audio or audio/video communication material.

The brief should include the following:

• 1. Your goal for creating the type of communication material
• 2. The channels you'll communicate on
• 3. A clear definition of your brand and industry
• 4. A description of your target
• 5. An outline of your brand voice with DO and DON'T examples
• 6. The emotions you want to evoke with the material
• 7. Your script
• 8. The deadline

The above outline is, in most cases, all you'll need to brief any professional voice over.

Of course, be open to answer questions and offer additional details if needed.

Try out different voices

Be prepared to try out a few voices before settling on the best professional voice over for your brand.

It's been scientifically proven that people make better decisions when having the possibility of comparison, so aim to listen to 3-4 voice talents.

Offer them a sample from your script and have them read it back to you.

Then, see if they manage to get the message across and evoke the feelings you were looking for.

At Amazing Voice, we have hundreds of voice talents you can choose from, which guarantees you'll have the right brand voice to match your company.

Work with a professional agency

The fastest, most efficient way of finding the professional voice over that can capture your brand voice is to work with a professional agency.

A professional agency will have years of experience, plenty of voice actors, and the technical capabilities of bringing to life your vision.

No matter what type of recording you need, they'll have a solution and a voice.

For example we, at Amazing Voice, are ready to meet you with a group of the most talented professional voice overs.

Plus, your brand voice will come across crystal-clear thanks to our state-of-the-art equipment.

Ready to pick a brand voice that matches your company?

Now you know both how to develop a brand voice from scratch AND how to select the perfect professional voice over to bring it to life.

If you're serious about taking your efforts to the next level, we're here to give a voice to your projects.

Reach out to Amazing Voice, and let's see which of our professional voice overs is the right match for your brand.

Contact us today!

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