“Hello”, “Dear Sally”, “Hey”,“Morning”,“What’s happening?”
All of these could be ways to start a conversation with a customer. And all provide a unique insight into the type of business the customer is dealing with. Each phrase from formal to casual indicates the brand tone and personality of the business.
Your brand tone is vital in the ongoing positioning of your brand, and the right tone will help you stand out from the crowd and connect with your audiences.
Here are the two important reasons why tone is important for your business:
- Shows your brand personality. Your brand tone will help convey your business’ personality by using specific language and sentence structures.
- Helps you connect with your audiences. Your brand tone will evoke emotions with your audiences that will help them to connect with your brand.
Top reason why brand tone is important: it shows your personality!
Fun, helpful, corporate, smart…Your brand personality can have as many colours as the human personality. But once you have defined it, the tone is the magic tool that will help you to communicate with your peeps, people or peers and ensure that your content is noticed..
To convey your brand personality with tone you need to use specific words, sentences and structure when communicating with your audiences. For example:
- If you write in first person and use simple, casual phrases, perhaps with a play on words you will create a friendly tone and your personality can sound witty.
- By using third-person forms, and more structured expressions you will create a formal tone and sound corporate.
Keep in mind that defining how you want your personality to sound is as important as defining how you don’t want your personality to sound. Audiences are savvy and will want your personality to clearly stand out to feel part of your tribe.
How brand tone will help you connect with your audiences
There is a constant stream of content being pushed to your audiences. For online users, It takes an average of 0.5 to 1 second to create the first impression of your website or social media platforms. In other words, you need to connect with them instantly, and ensure that they stick around once you get their attention. Pretty wild but rather cool!
Your brand tone speaks to your audiences on an unconscious and personal level. It’s one of the first elements that the human brain scans to evaluate whether it is worth investing mental resources on. (Remember? We said tone is a magical tool!)
Thanks to your tone, your audiences create a “human” association with your brand that will make you stand our from your competitors. It can evoke the characteristics embodied within your business and help audiences decide if they connect with you or not.
For example, from the tone used with their audiences these brands communicate the following:
- KFC: “I don’t care” slogan and language creates a perception of youthful fun.
- Save The Children: “you can be a lifesaver” creates a sense of responsibility and urgency.
- NRMA: “help is who are” creates a perception of reliability.
At We Are Savvy we are passionate strategists and storytellers and can help you work out what’s the best tone and positioning for your brand.
Get in touch via hello@wearesavvy.com.au to talk about how we can help you stand out from the crowd and connect with your audience.