White Sparrow Coaching

How does your brand speak to the world?

We tend to focus on the eye-catching parts of the brand: logos, colors, and fonts. And we know how vital a good logo is to your company. But once you’ve got your audience’s attention, how do you keep it? 

You need to use every available medium to show your potential clients who you are.

Just like you’ve established cohesive visuals for your brand, a consistent voice is crucial to its identity. Using the same linguistic style (words, phrases, and overall vibe), adds to your authenticity and shows you’re connected as one team even as your customer engages with multiple people and through multiple mediums (email, social accounts, etc). 

Of course, no one speaks exactly the same way all the time (in fact, science tells us that we speak a little differently to everyone). Small modifications to your voice will show concerned customers you support them, convey authority when you’re making explanations, or lighten the mood when you’re making an exciting announcement. You’ll also likely change tone between platforms, many brands save their most casual language for social media.

Your brand voice is likely to change over time. Wendy’s, for example, has never been afraid to push the envelope, adopting the apparently contentious slogan “Wendy’s. Ain’t no reason to go anyplace else,” before shifting to the more demure “Wendy’s Kind of People,” in the early 1980’s. These days, Wendy’s flame roasts both its burgers and its competition on Twitter, with comebacks that positively scorch those who dare.

The best way to make sure everyone in your organization is on the same page is to give them the book; a content style guide available online like Mailchimp’s is easy to access and read whenever someone needs a refresher.

If you’re having trouble settling on a brand voice, start by looking at your core values and decide how those manifest in a tone of voice. It may also be helpful to imagine your brand as a person, and think about how they would speak and interact in different situations. 

Once you’ve got an idea of how your brand “sounds,” it’s time to sprinkle that new special flavor across your accounts, including your website and social media profiles. This process includes revising current content but may require starting from scratch. If that sounds like a lot, sometimes it is; the size of the project depends on the degree of your brand voicing pivot and the scope of your brand’s presence. This also makes the case for pumping the brakes on your launch until you’ve firmly settled on a brand voice so you can avoid reworking your copy (at least for awhile). Getting it done cohesively and promptly is important if you don’t want to confuse clients with differing (or possibly incompatible) brand voices. 

Creating (or changing) your brand’s voice is like a major house renovation – lots of research, preparation, and labor, with the right changes adding significant value and attracting the attention of folks who may have not looked your way before. And, just like renovating your house, you can absolutely DIY, but a professional will have a plan, the time, and the expertise to attend to the details that will make the project shine while you focus on what you do best.

The right professional will learn your brand’s story so they can frame and tell it in a way that honors its values, vision, and goals. The process of developing curated content and copy is dynamic and thoughtful and you’ll need to be available for periodic reviews to ensure things are tracking in the right direction.

Bonus points if you can find someone who has experience with your brand’s industry – they’ll have a foundational knowledge of business influences, culture, and what the competition is doing. They’ll leverage that information to create a unique identity that will speak for itself.

Andrea has worked in retail, hospitality, sales (including freight brokering!), healthcare, and educational settings. So, whether you need something playful and funny or practical and formal, she’s adept at tailoring content to a variety of audiences.

Ready to see how she can tell your brand’s story? Just fill out the form!