Finding your (brand) voice

“Brand voice” is one of those phrases that we marketing and PR types like to toss around. And the truth is that many businesspeople who aren’t marketers look at me sideways when I bring it up. Unless they’re business leaders who have been doing some reading on branding.

"Sure, it sounds like it makes sense. But does our brand even have a voice?"

It does. And it’s up to you to craft it, monitor it and consistently write copy in a way that represents your organization’s work, values and clientele. Resist the urge to write marketing copy in the stilted formality of your tenth-grade English class. And likewise resist the temptation toward that overdone smart-alecky tone favored by too many advertising copywriters. For most businesses, your brand lies somewhere in-between.

When you're writing in your voice, you know it. It's the "now that sounds like us" feeling. 

Not sure how you should sound? Here are some quick creative brainstorming questions to ask when writing copy: 

• If your brand were sitting across the table speaking, what would it sound like?
• Which sorts of words and language would sound natural and which would seem out of character?
• How do your competitors sound? What makes you different from them?
• Who are we actually talking to? How do they speak?
• What’s most important to communicate about who we are and what we do?