How do you test and measure the effectiveness of your brand voice and tone?

Defining your voice and tone is important. Here's an example: an outdoor clothing brand wants to promote sustainability. They use a voice that is environmentally-conscious, adventurous, and inspiring. When they launch an eco-friendly product, they use an enthusiastic and uplifting tone. But when there's an environmental crisis, they use a serious and urgent tone that still fits their brand. It's important to be adaptable. A style guide can help your team know how to act in different situations. If you use a style guide to define your voice and tone, people will feel like they're having a cohesive, relatable, and authentic experience no matter what.

I know this is a challenge for so many and I've experienced the journey of finding my voice and tone over the years. Just a few thoughts today. Defining your voice is the first step toward creating a reliable brand identity such as its values, culture, and mission. Have a mission. You are the only you in the world if you're the one promoting the brand. Your tone will vary based on the audience, purpose, and medium. It can be formal, casual, friendly, or even humorous, depending on what you want to achieve with your communication. For instance, a casual and friendly tone may be more appropriate if you are writing a social media post. I'm a tremendous fan of being yourself in all circumstances to avoid having to think about it.

It depends on how your company is positioned or wants to be positioned. Are you a ruler, caregiver, creator, explorer, or magician? If you know who you are, clarifying the voice and tone is very simple. Your tone and voice are a part of your brand archetype.

It's too easy to think that a complete brand voice can be defined for all audiences and all channels with 4 adjectives (human, friendly, warm, approachable). Instead, a brand voice needs to be defined on all 3 levels on which its perceived by the reader: In the background, not made explicit, are the 10,000 ft overarching narrative guiding the topic choice. At 1000 ft, and still not made explicit, are the tonal values representing the personality of the brand. Finally, down at ground level, you have the nuts and bolts holding the copy together: grammar choices, sentence length, use of jargon etc All 3 levels need to be defined for you to define your voice and tone

You cannot do a content audit without understanding the role of your brand tone of voice. Key in this is looking at how the voice aligns with the brand values (and the tone of voice definition if you've created this). I suggest conducting an audit of 3-5 pieces of material in each of your channels

Producing content and more formal content marketing can prove to be a very hungry animal to feed. Checking that your content speaks directly to your target audiences wants/needs, concerns/challenges and ultimate goals is one acid test and relies on strong customer insights and well-developed proposition and messaging frameworks. A second test - is to look carefully at what themes your content is developing. Are the stories you are telling directly relatable and anchored into what you do and what you want to be famous for? A final point to watch....is your tone of voice and delivery consistent. Does your brand's personality shine through, regardless of what media/channels you are using and whoever had hands-on in the content creation.

Defining your voice is the first step toward creating a reliable brand identity such as its values, culture, and mission. Have a mission. Your tone will vary based on the audience, purpose, and medium. It can be formal, casual, friendly, or even humorous, depending on what you want to achieve with your communication. You are the only you in the world if you're the one promoting the brand. For instance, a casual and friendly tone may be more appropriate if you are writing a social media post. I'm a tremendous fan of being yourself in all circumstances to avoid having to think about it.

When it comes to the voice and tone, content audit is all about consistency. You have to use the same wording, brand colors, design, or readability on all your channels, from a website blog post and advertising banner to social media and email newsletters.

1- Survey of random users: By designing the right questions, we can assess our brand's position compared to competing brands. 2- Checking brand search volume: Tracking brand search volume is a valuable metric for measuring changes in brand awareness. 3- Monitoring user comments with social media analytics tools: Using various social media analytics tools, we can gain insights into how users perceive us in comparison to our competitors. 4- Conducting in-depth interviews: If our product is widely used, we can meet with regular users. If our product is niche or specialized, conducting in-depth interviews with users or potential customers is better.

Social media has changed the game. Nowadays, brands aren't just selling stuff; they're having real conversations, building real connections. I have loved Amul ads – for me it was a learning university when I started out. Even before digitalalization, Amul was acing it with their consistently high-quality content. Fast forward today, we've got all these amazing digital tools at our fingertips, helping us fine-tune our brand voice and message. But it's not all smooth sailing. When teams switch up or agencies move on, there's this hiccup in the brand's voice, that is seen and heard both. That's where our modern-day saviors – tools and AI – step in, making sure marketers like us can keep that connection with our audience consistent & genuine."

Keeping a close eye on voice and tone metrics is like maintaining a finely tuned instrument. Your users' experience and perception of your brand are directly linked to how well you strike the right chords. A harmonious user experience can be a symphony of success, with increased traffic, loyalty, and conversions. So, when things are sounding good in the metrics, it's music to your ears and your bottom line.

Knowing what makes your content successful is a huge chunk of the challenge. For example: If you're using a lighthearted tone, encouraging users to comment, that's your KPI. Comments. If you get a decent amount [whatever "decent" means for you], that's the best tone test you can run. If your rigid-tone post contains a link that drives to a website, track how many users visited your website from LinkedIn. If you run a poll, how many people engage with it? Just like deciding what TYPE of content works best for you, tracking your tone works the same way: | JUST SHARE | And evaluate as you go. No survey, feedback session, or focus group will tell you as much as how your audience engages with your content.

You can - perhaps should - review your voice and tone metrics annually. The market changes, audience's sentiments change and your competitors change too. Don't forget to look at efficiency metrics as well as effectiveness metrics. E.g. How long does it take you to publish something? How does that vary by channel?