How strong is your voice?

Brand language. Tone of voice. Or a combination, like brand voice. Whatever you call it, customers should feel a certain you-ness when they read your company’s words – from slogans to small print.

But to make that happen, you need everyone in your business on board.

We spoke to 200 brand and marketing folks to see how they make it a movement. Answer a few questions and we’ll share a score to show how you measure up.

Do you have a brand voice?

Yep, we have full guidelines Hmm, I think there’s a page on it in our brand book A what?

What form does your voice take?

Where do you use it?

In our customer comms (like emails, letters or live chats) In our ads Online (like social media or our site) Internal emails and messages Contracts, small print, terms and conditions In our corporate comms (like our annual report) Somewhere else Nowhere, really

Alright, you’re 50% through! While we’re on percentages, how many people at your company do you think use your brand voice?

Does your brand voice change from country to country?

We’ve designed it to work across the world We trust our translators to do that We don’t operate in different countries We have different personalities in different countries We haven’t thought about it

What do your most senior folks (like your CEO) make of your brand voice?

They’re big believers, and write in it themselves They’ve publically endorsed it They don’t get involved in it, but don’t detract They don’t know it exists They’re detractors: they openly disagree with it, or actively make our comms worse

How do you measure it?

We run A/B tests with writing We look at our brand metrics We ask for tone-specific customer feedback We run focus groups We measure our writing digitally (like with click-throughs) We don’t measure it

What’s the one thing you’ve always wondered about brand voice?

Okay, one more thing. We need your email to send you your results. (We’ll also sign you up for our newsletter too – it's good, promise.)

Ready for your diagnosis?

For us, your brand voice works (or doesn’t) based on four things:

The basics, like whether you actually have a brand voice (not a fuzzy idea of one)
getting others involved from the start: the more people have input, the better it’ll stick
creating an internal movement: training, talks, the lot
measuring it: fewer complaints, more happy customers: you need to prove what works.

And, sneakily, we’ve been measuring you on these very four things. So here’s how you did.

The basics

Good stuff – it sounds like you have a tone of voice (an important starting point), and you’re using it pretty consistently. Nice.

Okay, it looks like you’re off to a decent start: you’ve got a tone of voice in some shape or form. To really get the most of it though, you’d use it everywhere: from contracts to complaint responses and ads to internal comms.

At the moment, it sounds like you don’t really have a tone of voice, or you’re not actually using it – or both. All’s not lost, though. First things first, you need to define how you’d like to sound, then you can figure out how to best roll it out across everything you write – here are a few pointers.

Creating an internal programme

Wow, you’re on it. It sounds like you’ve put a lot of effort into helping people get your tone of voice – good job.

Not bad. You’ve put some effort into making your tone of voice stick. But is that effort consistent and regular enough, do you think? (Yup, doing it well is basically a full-time job.)

Everyone in your organisation writes – emails, presentations, reports. From what you’ve told us, it sounds like you could be doing more to help them with this. If you’re not doing it already, training is a good place to start.

Getting others involved

You’re treating your tone of voice like a real team sport – that’s great. You seem tuned in to how important it is to get your senior folks singing your tone’s praises, and your overseas teams using it on their terms (while staying true to the brand).

You’re not totally flying solo with this, but it sounds like you could involve people more: the more input they have in your tone of voice, the more they’ll use it. It’s called the Ikea Effect.

We’re social animals. We need to see other people doing something if we’re going to do it ourselves – it’s called social proof. So get as many people on board with your tone of voice as possible: that calls for getting your senior folks to praise it, and your overseas teams to adapt it.

Measuring it

Look at you go – the proof is in the pudding, right?

You’re getting there. But the more you measure, the clearer the case for your tone of voice will be. (If you are short on stats to slip into a presentation, here are some we made earlier.)

If you’re not measuring your words, how do you know they’re working? You can even get useful results like these from Google surveys. (Although the more bases you cover, the better: try a mix of surveys, A/B tests and customer feedback scores for a really meaningful measurement.)

So what’s next?

Talk tone and voice with us

or

Read the research

We really hope you found that helpful. And of course, you can give us a call if you need help right this moment.

Let’s begin at the beginning, then

Don’t know where to start with tone of voice? You’re in the right place. Our free guide takes you through why it matters, how to craft a tone that works for you and – most importantly – how to get everyone using it. Get it now.

Need more help? Get in touch Back to the quiz? Sure thing