I\u2019ll never forget the time I presented a well-researched monthly social media package to a new beauty client. He took a look at the first few posts for Twitter, scrunched up his nose, and said, \u201cLet\u2019s avoid exclamation marks. We\u2019re all adults here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n First off\u2014what does that even mean? Second, how ridiculous! This client wanted his beauty brand\u2019s tone of voice to match what he was accustomed to (he used to work as an investor on Wall Street).<\/span><\/p>\n But he <\/span>failed<\/span><\/i> to understand a fundamental truth of branding: you market to the customer, not yourself. His target market was beauty, but he didn\u2019t know how to speak with their voice. He just didn\u2019t get it.<\/span><\/p>\n When you first started your business, you probably heard the word \u201cbranding\u201d more times than you care to remember. People like to say: \u201cThe brand is the most important part of a business.\u201d Turns out they\u2019re right.<\/span><\/p>\n Your company\u2019s brand is what races to a person\u2019s mind when they hear your name. How important is it? <\/span>Coca-Cola\u2019s annual branding budget is more than Apple\u2019s and Microsoft\u2019s combined.<\/span><\/a> These Fortune 500s aren\u2019t skimping on their branding budget, so you shouldn\u2019t either.<\/span><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s your business voice, the most crucial component of your brand. <\/span>Your company\u2019s voice is how you speak to your customers.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Why is finding the right brand voice so crucial? Think about it this way: in an ideal world, you\u2019d get to meet every person who visits your website and charm them with your perfectly tailored sales pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n Except this isn\u2019t a perfect world. In reality, <\/span>most people use the Internet as their primary source of information<\/b>. In fact, <\/span>81 percent of customers conduct online research before making a purchase.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n What this means is that <\/span>you need to project your voice onto your website.<\/span><\/i> Your site needs to sound like you\u2019re talking to someone right in front of you. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s important that you\u2019re creating the right brand\u00a0voice, but what\u2019s even more important is that you\u2019re creating the <\/span>right voice for your customers<\/span><\/i>. For most brands, the two do not always align.<\/span><\/p>\n Taco Bell is a perfect example of a shift towards the right brand voice. In the early 2000\u2019s, Yum! (which owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut) shares hovered below $10 a share<\/span>.<\/b> Taco Bell tried to brand itself as \u201cauthentic\u201d Mexican food, even going so far as to have a Chihuahua as its mascot.<\/span><\/p>\n Fast forward to May 2015. <\/span>Yum! Brands stock<\/span><\/a> hits an all-time high close to $94.<\/span> What changed? Taco Bell found its brand voice. It started talking to the right people, in the right way, <\/span>and the right people answered.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Instead of going for fast, \u201cauthentic\u201d Mexican food for families, they started talking to Millennials. They developed the concept of \u201cFourth Meal\u201d and created the <\/span>Doritos Locos Taco<\/span><\/a>. They created a wonderfully human <\/span>Twitter profile<\/span><\/a> and branded their sauce packets with clever sayings.<\/span><\/p>\n Taco Bell rose from the dead to become better than ever by adopting a new voice that was right for its customers.<\/span><\/p>\n So, how do <\/span>you<\/span><\/i> find your brand voice? Start by asking yourself the following questions:<\/span><\/p>\n Once you can answer these questions, the path to finding your brand voice gets a lot clearer.<\/span><\/p>\n To summarize, keep the following ideas in mind:<\/p>\n Stay human<\/b>. Too many people think as soon as their fingers hit the keyboard, they\u2019re someone else. This shouldn\u2019t be the case. In fact, customers are more likely to buy when they can relate.<\/span><\/p>\n Know your audience<\/b>. Will your customers be irritated by emojis or delighted by them? Will your tagline be perceived as aggressive or confident? It depends on what you\u2019re selling, who you\u2019re selling it to, and where you\u2019re selling. <\/span><\/p>\n Nitpick<\/b>. Be thorough. When you tweet, will you use \u201cwe\u201d or \u201cI\u201d? How do you feel about contractions? Acronyms? Is LOL okay? Your identity is your business and vise-versa.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ll never forget the time I presented a well-researched monthly social media package to a new beauty client. He took a look at the first few posts for Twitter, scrunched up his nose, and said, \u201cLet\u2019s avoid exclamation marks. We\u2019re all adults here.\u201d First off\u2014what does that even mean? Second, how ridiculous! This client wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,40,72],"tags":[124,144,181,191,223,272,287],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1707"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/demo.thewebsitedev.com\/tailoredink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Difference Between Voice and Brand<\/span><\/h3>\n
What\u2019s In A Voice?<\/span><\/h3>\n
The Value of the Right Brand Voice<\/span><\/h3>\n
Finding The Right Brand Voice<\/span><\/h3>\n
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