How do you balance creativity and consistency in your brand voice and tone?

When it comes to defining your brand voice and tone, the key is to start with identifying your core values. Incorporate these values into all of your messaging, so that you remain consistent across all media platforms. Then, be creative! Push yourself to come up with new ideas or styles, while always making sure you stay true to your company’s mission.

I love this topic. I often work with clients who falsely believe that features and benefits of their products are the primary factors in posturing a marketing message. Our lives are bombarded daily with these types of messages. This is why the voice and tone of your brands identity are crucial. Yes people are using technology often to finalize a purchase but what gives them confidence and trust is the most important factor in decisions to buy your products over a competitors. Contrary to popular belief, price is rarely the top factor listed in surveys when asked why they decided to make a specific purchase.

When explaining brand to clients I tell them to think of brand as if it were a person. Keeping this in mind you can then picture this person (the brand) being friendly and casual yet adjusting their tone from humorous and playful to serious and empathetic depending on the audience or company around them.

Your brand voice is influenced by your brand personality: If Company X were a person, who would they be? You have two coffee shops next door to one another in city. One coffee shop self-identifies as a creative hipster. Their messaging promotes enjoyment, indulgences, relaxation. For this brand, it makes sense for their voice to be calming. “Enjoy the aroma of a freshly brewed coffee.” The other coffee shop self-identifies as the busy executive. Their messaging promotes speed of service, high-quality and premium beverages. Their voice is motivating. “Incorporate our latest decaffeinated coffee blend from Colombia into your morning ritual.” See the difference?

Your brand voice and tone should be directly impacted by your target audience and who you are trying to sell to. A luxury buyer isn't going to be swayed by a brand that comes across as cheap or low price. The opposite is true as well: if you're trying to communicate with a middle class consumer, your branding can't be too extravagant or else they will disqualify themselves based on how their perception of your brand voice. Be very intentional about how you choose to communicate your brand and your ideal customer profile should be the primary driver.

An inconsistent brand voice can be really confusing for consumers. You want to present a consistent sentiment because it takes multiple exposures to a brand before people start to recognize it. If your brand changes every time they see it, then you'll confuse your audience. Just like you wouldn't change your brand colors, you wouldn't change your brand tone with every unique piece of content. It's important to help writers or authors learn the brand tone so everything they write is relatively close to the brand guidelines.

Many organizations don’t have all the resources or the teams needed to implement complex brands (only the largest corporations do). We've found success in condensing the full identity into a one-sheet document & checklist as a Brand Filter, which is designed for staff, volunteers, or agencies to use when making brand decisions or creating any brand pieces. This single sheet has become the key to successful brand executions because it takes all the memorization out of the branding process and begins, through repetition, to affect each person’s ability to consistently articulate & embody the brand. The brand's voice can flow and adapt while maintaining the brand strategy because the Brand Filter simplifies everything.

It is just so important to adopt a process that allows for continuity, simplicity in sharing the process across the team, momentum and agility - your brand tone and character needs to transcend through your outputs, just like any character, you are allowed to be expressive, have different objectives as the key thing is having a genuine brand, this builds trust

I agree with my colleagues here. Consistency equals reliability equal perception of value equals confidence to make a purchase. Make your plan through the eyes of your customers journey and deliver a consistent theme.

I agree with the author as well as with Richard DiPilla below. In addition, your content strategy should follow the components of your brand strategy. Content should be tailored to your target audience and possess the voice and tone of your brand. Whether it's informative or humorous the implementation of your content should be consistent and frequent.

Consistency should never be confused with sameness. Just as you mirror the tone and posture of in person exchanges, each delivery format and channel has appropriate decorum that does not look and feel out of place. Always utilize a period of testing in your brand messaging on each channel. Slight adaptions can often show you which types of messages work best without ever changing your brand voice and tone.

Consistency, frequency, testing, analyzing, and adjusting your content on a regular basis will be key in order to gauging the effectiveness of your content implementation.

Be authentic to the platform and create content that resonates with the audience on each platform. Find ways to stay true to your brand voice while still showing up authentically on each platform. For example, LinkedIn content is more professional while TikTok is raw and real. If you're promoting a consulting service - LinkedIn to share client case studies and the impact created TikTok to share cool ways to problem solve that others can learn Instagram to highlight the amazing team and culture at work Twitter to engage with peers about what you're learning

This is where a brand style guide can often become outdated by the time it is complete. We build flexible toolkits instead that are designed to adapt and shift as the brand evolves in real-time while maintaining your core brand strategy. The key to consistency while accommodating growth and flexibility is all in how you create systems that allow for it or not.

Always understand your customers. Watch your customers. Love your customers. Pivot and adapt as they do so but never lose sight of your brand.

As far more experienced professionals have already said, understand and know your audience. To truly show personality, one has to show variability. In my opinion, expressing voice includes taking the time to make similar content sound truly distinct. Of course, all testing comes with some measure of risk. Whether or not something is well received is blatantly obvious by levels of engagement and reach, regardless of channel. Remember to optimize your voice for every platform, the professionalism of linkedIn might not fit in the humor-centric Tiktok and Instagram, but cracking a joke on LinkedIn might be a welcome respite for your audience. Brand self-awareness and an understanding of your audience are vital to vocal and tonal optimizing.

Advertising and marketing are sciences. Your marketing team or what you do as an individual proprietor makes you the scientist. You can never place ads and let them go without gathering performance research. Always tests multiple ways to present and feature your business and products. Visuals and videos should be tested along with keywords. Allow each test a full 30 cycle at a minimum and then compare the performance of each ad. The brand voice and tonality are the constants but the presentations are altered to optimize the ones that work best.

Communication is key. Platforms change. Find communication paths that work and meet your expectations. Then execute. Create many touchpoints and create a lasting experience.

Not enough people experiment with their brand's voice and tone. It's waaay safer to do the same thing over and over and over. Think about it — what makes a brand truly unforgettable? It's often a unique voice and tone. Let's take Wendy's as an example. They're famous for their sassy and sarcastic social media presence, which has earned them tons of attention and engagement. But they didn't just stumble into it — they deliberately shifted their brand's voice and tone to be edgier and more provocative. I'm absolutely not saying to throw out your brand personality and values, which will confuse your audience. But I do think it's important to test new and exciting ways to express yourself.

By definition, standing out requires risk. I’ve worked on dozens of “brand voice” projects over the years and most clients hand you the same list: friendly, approachable, authentic, fun but not “too funny.” ?? If you want to blend in, follow the same playbook. If you want to speak with a truly unique voice, be bold.

Ive never met anyone who I can’t learn from. I consider it a best practice to look at what others in your industry who are successful are doing. I don’t believe you should copy from others, I do believe you can learn from them and keep your own brand and tonality.

Never stop seeking knowledge and learning from others. Progression is key. #bustoutofstagnation and always #bustintosomethinggreat.