How do you align your brand voice with stakeholder expectations?

1 Step 1: Define your brand purpose

Your brand purpose is the reason why you exist beyond making money. It is the core idea that drives your vision, mission, and values. Your brand purpose should be clear, compelling, and meaningful to your stakeholders. To define your brand purpose, ask yourself questions like: What problem do you solve? How do you make a difference? What impact do you want to have? Your brand purpose should guide your brand voice and inform your tone, style, and language.

2 Step 2: Identify your target audience

Your target audience is the group of people who are most likely to benefit from your brand, buy your products or services, and engage with your content. Your target audience should be specific, realistic, and relevant to your brand purpose. To identify your target audience, use data and research to create buyer personas that represent their demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and needs. Your buyer personas should help you tailor your brand voice to resonate with your audience and address their pain points, goals, and motivations.

3 Step 3: Analyze your competitors

Your competitors are the brands that offer similar or alternative solutions to your target audience. Your competitors can be direct or indirect, depending on how closely they match your value proposition and market position. To analyze your competitors, conduct a competitive analysis that evaluates their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Your competitive analysis should help you differentiate your brand voice from your competitors and highlight your unique selling points and competitive advantages.

4 Step 4: Create your brand personality

Your brand personality is the set of human traits and characteristics that describe your brand. Your brand personality should be consistent, authentic, and aligned with your brand purpose, target audience, and competitors. To create your brand personality, use a brand personality framework such as the Aaker model or the Brand Archetypes model that categorizes brands into different dimensions or types. Your brand personality framework should help you define your brand voice attributes and expressions.

5 Step 5: Establish your brand voice guidelines

Your brand voice guidelines are the rules and best practices that govern how you communicate your brand personality across all channels and touchpoints. Your brand voice guidelines should be clear, concise, and easy to follow for anyone who creates or distributes content for your brand. To establish your brand voice guidelines, use a brand voice chart or a brand voice template that outlines your brand voice attributes, examples, dos and don'ts, and tone variations. Your brand voice guidelines should help you maintain your brand voice consistency and quality.

6 Step 6: Monitor and measure your brand voice performance

Your brand voice performance is the outcome and impact of your brand voice on your stakeholders. Your brand voice performance should be monitored and measured regularly to ensure that it meets your objectives and expectations. To monitor and measure your brand voice performance, use metrics and tools such as sentiment analysis, social media listening, feedback surveys, and content audits. Your metrics and tools should help you evaluate your brand voice effectiveness and identify areas for improvement or innovation.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?