Creating a Strong Brand Voice: Expert Advice and Best Practices

Having a strong brand voice is essential for any successful business. It’s how your company communicates its message to customers and sets it apart from competitors. A well-crafted brand voice can help create an emotional connection with your target audience, build trust, and even shape customer loyalty.

Aligning the brand voice with the company's mission statement and core values is crucial for defining the brand's personality traits and building a cohesive strategy.

But what exactly is a successful brand voice? And how do you develop one that resonates with your target market? In this article, we’ll discuss why having a clear brand voice matters and how you can create one that will capture the attention of potential customers.

Brand Voice Definition

Brand voice is a brand's personality and character. It’s how a company speaks to its customers, the language and tone it uses, and the values it conveys. It reflects what makes a business unique and gives it an identity that can be shared with customers. A strong brand voice helps to create trust, foster relationships, and ultimately shape customer loyalty.

Developing a strong brand voice requires careful consideration of several factors. First, you have to understand your target audience — who you are trying to reach with your message — so that you can craft your content accordingly. You should also think about your company’s core values so that those values come through in how you communicate with potential customers. Additionally, consider the tone of voice that best suits your business: professional or casual. Formal or informal? Serious or light-hearted? An elegant brand voice can connect with the audience and cultivate the brand's elegance.

Source: BrandBastion

It’s important to remember that brand voice isn’t static — it evolves as customers’ needs change and as your company grows. As such, it should be regularly monitored and adjusted as necessary to your company’s mission to remain relevant and resonate with customers in meaningful ways.

Why Does Brand's Voice Matter?

Brand voice matters because it helps to create a connection between a business and its target audience. A strong brand voice can help establish trust and build customer relationships, leading to increased customer loyalty. It also helps to differentiate your business from competitors by conveying a distinct personality and character.

With your own brand's voice, you can foster connections, build community, and instill confidence in your products by showcasing your company’s values and communicating why you are different.

Crafting content that resonates with customers will help them identify with your distinct brand voice. This helps foster an emotional connection — a feeling of understanding and familiarity — that encourages customers to choose your business over others.

Source: Brandloom

A brand voice also allows you to engage with your audience in new ways, such as through storytelling or humor. These engaging tactics help capture customer attention, which is essential for any successful business.

Finally, having a clear and distinct brand voice helps customers recognize your company’s messaging and are more likely to remember it when they need your product or service. This recognition can have a lasting impact on customers’ buying decisions and help increase sales over time.

Brand Voice vs Brand Tone

Think of brand voice as your brand’s personality — it’s the consistent way your brand sounds, no matter where or how you communicate. Whether you’re writing a social media post, a blog, or a customer email, your voice stays the same. It’s what makes your brand instantly recognizable and creates a strong connection with your audience.

Brand tone, on the other hand, is how you adjust that voice depending on the situation. Imagine talking to a close friend — you have a natural way of speaking (your voice), but your tone shifts depending on the conversation. If they’re celebrating a win, you’re excited and upbeat. You're more empathetic and calm if they’re going through a tough time. Brands work the same way.

Source: BrandBastion Blog

For example, if your brand is generally playful and friendly, your tone might be:

• Upbeat and fun in a product launch announcement
• Reassuring and clear in a customer support response
• Sincere and warm when addressing a serious issue

A strong brand knows how to balance consistency (voice) with flexibility (tone). The key is making sure your tone fits the context while staying true to your brand’s overall personality.

What Does It Mean to Have a Good Brand Voice?

A good brand voice isn’t just about what you say — it’s about how you say it. The personality behind your words shapes how people feel when they interact with your brand. Here’s what makes a brand voice truly stand out:

It Feels Authentic

A strong brand voice doesn’t try to be something it’s not. It aligns with your brand’s values, mission, and audience. If your brand is casual and friendly, don’t suddenly sound corporate. If you’re a luxury brand, don’t start using slang. Stay true to who you are.

It’s Recognizable

Your brand voice should be so distinct that people recognize it even without seeing your logo. Whether it’s playful like Oatly, bold like Liquid Death, or refined like Aesop, the key is to make sure it sounds uniquely you.

It Connects with Your Audience

A good brand voice speaks the language of the people it’s trying to reach. It understands their problems, interests, and humor. The best brand voices make people feel like they’re conversing with a friend, not being sold to.

It’s Consistent Across All Channels

Your tone and style should stay the same whether you’re writing a tweet, an email, or a website copy. If your brand voice is friendly and approachable on Instagram but stiff and formal in customer service emails, it creates a disconnect. Consistency builds trust.

At its core, a good brand voice makes people feel something. It’s what turns casual visitors into loyal fans and makes your brand more than just another name in a crowded market.

What Are the 3 C's of Brand Voice?

Your brand voice is more than just words—it’s your brand’s personality in writing. It’s how people recognize you, connect with you, and remember you. To make sure your voice stands out, keep these 3 C’s in mind:

1. Clarity – Say It Like You Mean It

Nobody likes reading something twice just to understand it. A strong brand voice is clear and to the point. Whether it’s a social post, an email, or a tagline, your audience should get it instantly — no fluff, no confusion, just straight-up communication.

2. Consistency – Keep It Familiar

Ever followed a brand that sounds fun and friendly on Instagram but suddenly turns robotic in an email? That’s a branding red flag. Your tone should feel the same everywhere — on the website, social media, and in the ads — so people know it’s you speaking, no matter where they find you.

Source: beehiiv Blog

3. Character – Make It You

Your brand should have a personality. Are you witty and playful? Sophisticated and authoritative? Warm and encouraging? Whatever it is, lean into it. The more human your brand sounds, the easier it is for people to connect with you.

At the end of the day, a great brand voice isn’t just about sounding good — it’s about making people feel something. Keep it clear, consistent, and packed with personality, and your audience will keep coming back for more.

How to Develop Your Own Brand Voice

It’s important not to forget why brand voice matters in the first place: it creates an emotional connection with customers, helps differentiate a business from competitors, establishes trust, and builds relationships with potential customers. When crafted correctly, a compelling brand voice can help capture customer attention and shape loyalty over time, leading to increased sales.

For instance, brand voice examples from companies like Skittles, Harley-Davidson, and Spotify show how they have developed unique and consistent brand voices to connect with their audiences and stand out in the market.

Source: Altorise

Ultimately, creating a strong brand voice requires careful consideration of several factors, such as target audience, core values, language and tone used for communication, storytelling abilities, etc., as these all contribute to building trust and relationships with customers, which in turn leads to an increase in sales over time.

Research Your Target Audience

Creating a strong brand voice requires thorough research on the target audience. Knowing who you are trying to reach with your message and their needs, wants, and interests is essential for crafting content that resonates with them. This can be done through surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other suitable research methods. It should also include analyzing existing customer data to understand the types of language they respond to best.

For example, if your target audience is millennials, you need to be aware of their preferred forms of communication, such as social media platforms or video content. You should also consider what topics might interest them — such as technology, sustainability, or social issues — and tailor your messaging and social media posts accordingly. Understanding customer habits and preferences will help you create content that speaks directly to them in ways that capture their attention and encourage them to engage with your business.

Source: Unsplash+

Additionally, researching your target audience can give you valuable insights into their words when discussing products or services like yours. This understanding can inform the tone of your messaging so that it aligns with how customers talk about similar items or services. Paying attention to these details helps ensure that your brand voice resonates with customers and creates an emotional bond between them and your business.

Researching your target audience is essential for creating a strong brand voice that captures customer attention and fosters relationships over time. By understanding who you are trying to reach and what they care about most, you can craft content that speaks meaningfully to them and helps differentiate your business from competitors in the same market.

Establish Your Brand’s Tone and Style

Once you have researched your target audience and understand what interests them, you can craft a unique brand voice that stands out. To do this, you need to establish a tone and style of communication that aligns with your brand personality and business’s core values and resonates with customers.

When crafting the tone of your brand voice, consider what type of language resonates most with customers. For example, if you have a more casual target audience, using informal language in your content may appeal more than stiffer professional language. Consider which words and phrases your target customer uses when discussing products or services like yours — incorporating these terms into your messaging can help make it feel more authentic and positive for customers.

It is also essential to consider the overall communication style used in your messaging. Do you want to be more conversational or formal? Are there any industry-specific terms you could use to add an element of expertise? And what topics could you discuss to demonstrate thought leadership? By answering these questions, you can ensure that your content's brand tone and communication style are appropriate for the target audience and industry space.

Source: Tidio

Finally, think about how storytelling might play a role in communicating with customers. Telling stories about your product or service can help create an emotional connection between customers and your business while providing valuable insights on using it effectively. Additionally, humor is another great way to capture customer attention, as it helps messages stand out from competitors while positioning your brand's personality as fun and approachable.

In conclusion, establishing a tone and style of communication for your brand helps create an engaging experience for customers that speaks directly to their needs, interests, and preferences. This will make it easier for them to recognize and remember your messaging and develop an emotional connection with it over time — leading to increased sales in the long run.

Refine and Adjust as Needed

Once you have established a tone and style for your brand voice, refining and adjusting it as needed is essential. Refining your messaging means ensuring it aligns with the business's goals, meets customer needs, and resonates with customers over time. This process can involve testing different types of content or experimenting with different formats until you find what works best.

Additionally, adjusting your messaging means paying attention to customer feedback and how people engage with your content. This can help inform which topics to focus on or how to tweak existing content to appeal more to customers. Adapting your content will help ensure that it remains relevant in an ever-changing market space while continuing to capture customer attention and build relationships over time.

Source: NewKind

Overall, refining and adjusting your brand voice should be an ongoing process that considers customer feedback and evolves alongside changes in the market space. By doing this, you can ensure that your messaging remains up-to-date and speaks directly to customers’ needs — which will help create an emotional bond between them and your business.

What Should Brand Voice Guidelines Include?

A strong brand voice is like your brand’s personality — it shapes how you connect with your audience and makes your messaging feel consistent and authentic. To keep things clear and on-brand across all platforms, here are the key elements your brand voice guidelines should cover:

Define Your Brand’s Personality

Think of your brand as a person. Is it friendly and conversational? Bold and authoritative? Playful and quirky? Your guidelines should clearly outline your brand’s personality traits so that every piece of content — a tweet, a blog post, or an email — feels like it’s coming from the same voice.

Dos and Don’ts: Keep It Clear

Help your team stay on track with examples of the right (and wrong) ways to express your brand. If your voice is fun and engaging, you might say, “We keep things light and relatable — no corporate jargon allowed.” On the flip side, list out things to avoid, like overly formal language or phrases that don’t match your brand’s vibe.

Know Your Audience

Your brand voice should speak directly to the people you’re trying to reach. Who are they? What do they care about? What kind of language resonates with them? Your guidelines should include audience insights so that every piece of content feels personal and relevant.

Writing Style and Formatting: The Finer Details

Even small details — like whether you use contractions, how formal your punctuation is, or if emojis are fair game — play a big role in shaping your brand’s tone. Make it easy for everyone on your team to stay consistent by setting clear rules around things like sentence structure, word choice, and formatting.

Source: Toptal

Adapting to Different Platforms

Your brand voice should be flexible enough to fit different platforms while staying true to its core personality. A social media post might be more casual and playful, while a press release or customer support message may need a more polished and professional tone. Lay out how to tweak the voice depending on where the message is going.

Real-World Examples: Show, Don’t Just Tell

The best way to ensure consistency? Give real examples! Include sample headlines, social media captions, email intros, and customer support responses that embody your brand voice. This helps your team understand exactly how to bring your brand’s personality to life in everyday communication.

Keep It Real and Evolve Over Time

A great brand voice feels natural, not forced. And just like people evolve, brands do, too. Make sure your guidelines stay flexible and open to adjustments as your brand grows and connects with new audiences.

3 Great Brand Voice Examples

Slack: Clear, Human-Centered, and Friendly

Slack’s brand voice is designed to make workplace communication effortless and engaging. The company prioritizes clarity while maintaining a warm, approachable tone that makes collaboration feel natural. Their messaging avoids corporate jargon and leans into conversational, easy-to-understand language, making Slack feel more like a helpful teammate than another tool.

A key aspect of Slack’s brand voice is its ability to balance professionalism with a touch of personality. The brand maintains a reassuring and friendly tone in product announcements, onboarding emails, or error messages. Their use of subtle humor and informal language helps reduce friction in communication, making work feel less like, well, work.

IKEA: Practical, Down-to-Earth, and Encouraging

IKEA’s brand voice mirrors its mission — providing functional, stylish, and affordable home solutions for everyone. The company communicates in a straightforward, warm, and practical way. Its messaging is always customer-focused, using simple language that makes its products and services accessible to a broad audience.

Source: Words to Voices

Beyond clarity, IKEA infuses its voice with a sense of encouragement. Whether guiding customers through DIY assembly instructions or offering home organization tips, IKEA’s tone is supportive and solution-oriented. This approachable style makes the brand feel like a trusted advisor rather than just a retailer, reinforcing its identity as a brand that understands real people and their everyday needs.

Duolingo: Playful, Engaging, and Witty

Duolingo stands out with a brand voice that is fun, lighthearted, and sometimes even cheeky. Their messaging is designed to make language learning feel less intimidating and more like a game. Whether it’s their quirky push notifications, humorous social media presence, or the legendary “Duo” owl gently (or aggressively) reminding users to practice, the brand keeps engagement levels high with personality-driven communication.

Source: Johnson Banks

Duolingo’s brand voice effectively motivates users while maintaining a sense of fun. They use gamification elements in their app and messaging, reinforcing the idea that learning should be enjoyable. Their tone is casual, energetic, and full of personality, helping them build a strong emotional connection with their audience.

Read more

• What Is Brand Experience? Crafting Unique and Impactful Touchpoints
• What Are Visual and Non-Visual Brand Guidelines?
• Power of Rebranding: Why To Redesign Your Business

Conclusion

A unique and distinctive brand voice is essential to any successful marketing strategy. By considering the language and communication style that resonates with customers, incorporating industry-specific terms for expertise, leveraging storytelling to create emotional connections, and using humor to capture attention, you can ensure your messaging stands out from competitors.

Additionally, refining and adjusting as needed based on customer feedback will help keep your content up-to-date while ensuring it speaks directly to their needs — leading to increased sales in the long run. With these tips in mind, you’re now armed with all the tools necessary to craft an engaging brand voice that drives results!