When you want to know how to communicate as a brand, it’s a good idea to refresh your thinking around inbound marketing.

A great definition of inbound marketing that we like is this one because there are clues built right in about how to communicate as a brand successfully:

Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing forms connections they are looking for and solves problems they already have.

Still one of the top marketing trends of 2023 and beyond, inbound content marketing can help businesses like yours to:

• Answer people’s questions.
• Give people relevant solutions.
• Deliver personalized experiences.
• Create brand awareness and authority.
• Develop better brand presence.
• Build trust in a digital world.
• Nurture relationships.
• Drive prospects to seek out your content.
• Get traction on social media.
• Improve conversions, generate leads, and drive sales.

This best practice centers around high-quality, engaging content that’s consistent – published regularly, as well as delivering easily consumable brand messaging. Marketing research shows over and over again that this power combo influences consumer decision-making more than any other strategy.

Create a Voice and Tone Guide To Help Drive Consistent Content

Knowing how you want to communicate as a brand is an effective way to improve the quality of your inbound marketing content. Establishing guidelines for your brand voice and tone will help get you started with creating consistent, recognizable content every time – messaging that will affect all the ways people can interact with your business, such as your website, blog, social media, email, video, ebooks and other assets, mobile, and customer service.

Your brand voice should:

• Express your personality so your audience will easily recognize that it’s you.
• Help your audience make personal connections with you that will last.
• Communicate the uniqueness that separates you from your competitors.

Here are six steps to developing a killer voice and tone guide.

Step 1: Get to know your target audience

There are specific people you want to connect with and influence through your products, services, and marketing. Once you know everything there is to know about them, the easier it will be to create a brand voice that speaks to them directly and to recognize what messaging will resonate with them best. Get the details and be specific: Where do they live? How old are they? What interests do they have? Where do they like to connect with others? What can you do to help them live their best lives?

Step 2: Set messaging goals

Get clear on the purpose behind your brand messaging, which can inspire what to say and how to say it. Determine a set of communication goals for you and your team to work from, such as getting across your company’s exceptional workmanship, best-in-class product quality, thought leadership, innovative design, huge inventory, expert authority, remarkable customer service, something for everyone, and more. Align your guidelines with your goals and create a blueprint for how each piece of content will fit.

Step 3: Decide on core values with which you want to align 

According to the 2023 State of Marketing Report, today’s consumers care about social responsibility, ethics, and transparency, which strongly impacts their purchasing decisions. Half of Generation Z and 40% of Millennials want to know where companies stand on social issues like racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, gender inequality, and climate change. That could be why 89% of marketers plan to increase their investment in social responsibility content. By identifying the values that are true to your brand and company culture, your brand voice will feel authentic to your audience.

Step 4: Standardize the way you want to communicate

Your voice and tone guide is a reference for what to do and not to do when communicating as your brand. It’s a good idea to include the specifics. For instance, list words you want to use and avoid when writing about your brand, products, services, and customers. Establish a tone for your content: quirky or casual, hip and in the know, helpful and thankful, whatever feels natural for your brand.

Step 5: Use your guidelines everywhere

Make sure to explain your brand guidelines to your entire staff, so they can start using them immediately and on everything: across all touchpoints and communications channels, in every message created.

Step 6: Update guidelines regularly

As your brand evolves and your business grows, your communication style will likely evolve as well. When it does, make sure to note when and how in your guide.

11outof11 Knows Brand Marketing

When you’re ready to create consistent, high-quality content and need voice and tone guidelines that define how to communicate as a brand, connect with 11outof11. Request a complimentary call with an 11outof11 expert. Contact us to learn more.