Your brand voice is your company's first chance to make a good impression.

The harsh truth is that no matter how fantastic your products or customer service may be, if your brand voice is off, no one will care, because no one will be paying attention. 

Think of the last time someone approached you and something was "off" about whatever they were saying...

Maybe they seemed dull, flat and monotonous...

Or maybe their story didn't really match their appearance...

Or maybe they just seemed to be parroting what others like them had said...

Whatever it was, you probably "checked out" or ignored the person pretty quickly. And you most certainly weren't going to buy whatever it was they were selling. 

Your brand voice is so much more than just your "tone." It is your entire personality and the message that you project to others.

An undeveloped brand voice will make your business disappear against the background and be almost invisible.  On the other hand, if you try to over-craft your brand voice, you'll end up with something that doesn't quite fit and it will feel inauthentic to your ideal buyers.

But a well-defined brand voice presents your company, its purpose, and the benefits it has for your customers in a way that your prospects WANT to relate to. 

Today's training is going to be ALL about crafting your brand voice so that it perfectly aligns with what your ideal buyer wants and needs.

If you google "how to craft your brand voice" you're going to come across thousands of different opinions and approaches. I'll be honest, some articles out there will give you a decent framework that will work just fine to get you started! 

But the majority will overlook some vital pieces.

Because MANY factors go into crafting a brand voice that is able to connect with complete strangers and inspire them to take action and fuel long-term customer loyalty. 

And it's those factors -- those vital pieces -- that I'm going to give to you in this training. They are broken into 4 pillars that will give you the WHOLE PICTURE of how to craft a powerful brand voice. 

1. Company's Core Purpose

2. Customer Alignment

3. Process & Transformation

4. Your Secret Sauce

When myself and my team at Built by Love® help our clients craft their company's brand voice, we do it as part of our proprietary process, the Marketing RAMP®.   The RAMP®, or Responsive Automated Master Plan, gives business owners a complete marketing strategy, from the high-level overview all the way down to the nitty-gritty details of implementation and more. Crafting the voice of a brand is STEP 2 of the Marketing RAMP® process. 

If you want to learn more about the Marketing RAMP® and how it can make your life easier and your marketing more successful, click here to schedule a free consult with me.

What Is Your Company's Core Purpose?

Many people think when we ask them about their company's core purpose that we're asking them about their vision for their company, or where they see their company going in 5 or 10 years...

But we want to change the focus on that question to be aimed directly at your prospects.

So, instead think of the question as: What is your brand's core purpose in your prospects' lives?

Here are a few questions to help you establish your company's core purpose in your customers' lives:

Once you know your company's core purpose in your ideal buyers' lives, your brand voice and messaging will fall in line much more easily!

As an extra tip, it is important to review or audit where your messages are being broadcasted.

Just as important as WHAT you say and HOW you say it, HOW your company reaches out to its customers is also important. 

Sometimes, the message and the medium are not aligned (such as when people post the same exact message across all social media platforms), or a mode of communication has been totally ignored or overused, leading to poor results in both cases.

Whenever you craft your brand voice, be sure to also examine which social media channels you use and what the performance has been like. 

Where Do You Have Customer Alignment?

Here is where we get a bit more granular.

Customer alignment means your prospect feels like you and them are working toward the same goal. They believe that your values are on the same track as theirs, and because of such, they're pleased to do business with you. It makes them feel good. 

So, if you want to create more customer alignment, you will want to create a brand voice that is based on your customers' expectations.

If you are able to do that, you'll find that it's much easier to be heard, connect, and sell more. 

Ask yourself the questions below to discover where you and your customers are most aligned:

And of course, TRUST goes a long way for customer alignment. To build trust, you need social proof. Social proof goes much further than you tooting your own horn. When you have positive customer reviews and testimonials, prospects are going to immediately trust you more. 

To find your company's social proof, consider your past company successes. Positive testimonials and reviews from fans and loyal customers work well, and video reviews are even more powerful. Likewise, case studies showcasing hard data about how you've helped others can be very persuasive as well. 

Social proof doesn't just help build trust and customer alignment, it does even more than that...

Testimonials, case studies, and reviews can help to demonstrate customer transformation.  And it's this concept that is essential to your brand voice as it shows what your prospect "gets" out of doing business with you.

To define exactly how to discover that for your business, keep reading. 

What Does Customer Transformation Look Like?

Customer transformation is what happens to every hero in every story: they have a problem, and only by overcoming it (with the help of a guide) are they able to transform into something better and brighter. 

A very basic example of customer transformation is the before-and-after photo. The skincare photo below visually demonstrates what the customer was experiencing before they used a particular product and after. 

The shortcoming of this particular photo (and of many before-and-after photos) is that they don't communicate the customers' emotional transformation, which is the primary driver for why people choose to purchase in the end. 

Using the photo above as an example, the before image doesn't communicate that she has spent hundreds of dollars on "solutions" with no luck and is frustrated, scared, and worried and because of such, all areas of her life are negatively affected. It doesn't communicate that once she used your product, not only did her skin clear up, but she was able to stop worrying about how she looked and improved her self-confidence and energy greatly. It even gave her the confidence to apply for her dream job (she nailed the interview, by the way).

A basic before-and-after picture, like the one above, doesn't show that emotional transformation. 

So how do you paint that emotional before-and-after and then clearly communicate it to your prospects? You can start by asking yourself a few questions...

Ask yourself these questions to paint a powerful before-and-after picture of customer transformation:

And then we have to take this one step further.

This next step will not only help your business really connect to your customers' needs; it will help you determine 2 very important things about your content: 

1. WHAT kind to create, and
2. WHEN to present it to your prospects. 

So, in order to transform the before-and-after picture into an actionable marketing strategy, you have to...

Define your customers' internal talk track. 

The internal talk track is a mental list of questions your prospect is asking themselves as they look at your product or service. They are questions that they NEED answers to BEFORE they do business with you.

Let's keep rolling with this skincare example. Say you own a high-end cosmetic dermatology clinic and you have a proprietary skincare program that promises amazing results for troubled skin. 

Your prospect's internal talk track might include questions like:

By nailing down what your prospects are questioning or unsure of, you now have a punch list of content to create and share! 

Some of the content you could create to answer the questions above include: 

This process of figuring out your customers' internal talk track can be your cornerstone for creating engaging content that continually pulls people in and converts.

What is Your Brand's Secret Sauce?

Every burger company needs a secret sauce. 

That secret sauce is the something extraordinary about your product or service. It's what makes a person drive 20 miles to bite into your juicy business instead of the competition's right down the street from their house. 

Your company's secret sauce is the ONE BIG THING people are going to remember. 

The human brain is overwhelmed with a million stimuli, all competing for its attention, so your company's secret sauce needs to make your product or service so unique that it stands out from the competition and demands attention.

Ask yourself these questions to get the recipe for your brand's secret sauce:

Want help crafting your brand voice? Schedule your free consult today.

Crafting a strong and true brand voice will help you stand out from the competition and should help guide the direction of your content strategy. Plus, I guarantee it will help you make more informed, strategic and powerful marketing decisions across the board!

If you want to establish an authentic and engaging brand voice, schedule a free strategic consult with me to learn more.  We can see how I can help, and if you're looking for a team of professionals to do all the marketing work for you, well, my team and I can do that, too. 

Contact us today to see what we can do for your business.

Don't forget to pick up the free training guide to take you through the step-by-step process of crafting your brand voice.