Environmental Brand Voice & Tone

Brand tone of voice describes the way a business communicates. That may include written content, video content, live interviews, product packaging, and any other potential area of interaction with customers. Diction, or word choice, is one facet of a brand’s tone of voice that affects buyers at a subconscious level and may influence their brand loyalty and buying tendencies.

Brand tone of voice is generally described using the same terms as a person’s individual tone of voice. Brands refer to their tone using emotive words, such as trustworthy, professional, upbeat, casual, calm, stable, and aggressive, to describe the sort of emotions they want to evoke in their customers.

Regardless of the brand’s tone of voice, the underlying business must meet the expectations that their voice sets. Otherwise buyers are far more likely to feel dissonance and, as a result, far less likely to transact with the brand.

The way brands convey their concepts can hugely affect their reputation, their ability to achieve positive results with their marketing and sales campaigns, and ultimately their sales. Tone of voice is among the foundational elements for all successful brands. This is why companies invest so heavily into their brand tone of voice and ensuring that it’s consistent across all of their assets, including owned channels, such as social media.

At a higher level, above brand tone of voice, lies brand storytelling. This is the way a brand tells their customers and prospects about what the business does, where it comes from, and how it works. Great brand storytelling starts with demonstrating why the customer should care and provides effective framing for the information.

If a brand lacks a solid framework in which to place their information, customers are likely to struggle with understanding it at best and to misunderstand it at worst. If that sounds like a minor issue, consider that framing doesn’t just serve to structure the information provided; it also allows brands to externally regulate the way their marketing comes across.

Brand storytellers need four core skills: framing, attention to detail, critical thinking, and writing expertise. With these four skills, brand storytellers are able to:

• regulate the audience’s perception of the information they release (framing)
• identify trends and consider next steps accordingly (attention to detail, critical thinking)
• convey a brand message effectively (writing expertise, framing, attention to detail)
• provide a fully functional brand storytelling campaign (all four skills, and others may be included such as graphic design or video production)

Freelancers on Upwork provide brand voice and tone services alongside brand storytelling services to clients as small as start-ups and as large as Fortune 1000 companies.