#11 in Our 20 for 20 Series
The Importance of Brand Voice in Email Marketing
What is a brand voice and why is it important in email marketing?
Welcome to 20 for 20, where we share our 20 best tips for email marketing and business to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
First, what is a brand voice? Brand voice is the personality and emotion infused into a company’s communication. It helps the customer imagine what you look like and sound like when personified, and how they should feel when thinking about your brand.
Why is having a defined brand voice important?
Having a brand voice is like having a distinct personality—it can help customers immediately recognize your brand, no matter what type of communication they’re receiving or seeing. By the way, if your personality or messaging changes frequently, you’re making it hard for your audience to get to know what you’re all about. And if an audience has to think too hard, you’ll likely lose them. Big loss.
Businesses that use a consistent brand voice build the brand recognition needed to build brand loyalty, trust and resonance. Think about big brands like McDonald’s: Wholesome, family-friendly, and cheerful come to mind. You probably feel like you “know” them…because they’re the gold standard when it comes to portraying a consistent personality.
Another example is Apple. Its brand voice of clean, simple, and confident comes through in every communication. You don’t even need to see an Apple logo to recognize the brand and its personality. Another gold standard brand.
Budweiser is also a well-known brand because of its consistent and well-defined brand voice. It feels very young, fun, humorous, familiar, and an American mainstay in homes everywhere. The Super Bowl commercials created every year really bring this brand’s personality to life. Remember the Wassup ads? Bud isn’t afraid to have some fun, and they stay true to their brand throughout all their advertising.
From TV commercials and print ads, and from websites to email marketing, your brand voice should consistently come through—even if you don’t have billions of dollars for your ad campaigns like the two brands I mentioned.
In email marketing, a brand’s voice needs to come through in the design of an email and the copy. Your brand’s voice should influence your strategy—including your frequency, your subject lines, your content, both copy and imagery, all the way down to the little details like “What do we say when somebody unsubscribes?”
How do you get started?
Grab a notepad and answer these questions that we ask our clients:
- Is your brand… warm or detached, normal or quirky, corporate or casual, conversational or formal, spontaneous or thoughtful, modern or traditional, chatty or to-the-point, exclusive or accessible to all, funny or serious, laid back or lively, humble or confident?
- What kind of funny are you? No humor, dry and sarcastic, childlike, flirty, high energy, sexy, zany, or clever?
- Who are you to your clients? A friend, best friend, mentor, service provider, product, necessary evil, luxury, guilty pleasure, everyday necessity, expectation, or trusted confidant?
- How do you greet them? “Hey,” “Hello,” “Dear,” “Yo,” or “Greetings”? First name or Mr./Mrs.?
When you answer these questions, you’ll not only define your brand voice, but also the tone of voice you want to use with your clients and prospective customers. They’ll know exactly who you are every time because of your consistent communication style and tone.
Hopefully this little exercise has already given you some ideas as to what your brand voice is. Your assignment is to gather your team and write down the elements of your brand—what you stand for, how you want to be seen, how you communicate, your sense of humor—and then document the results. Make sure that you adopt that brand as you write your email campaign and other marketing materials. Once you know your brand’s voice, it will help you with all of your messaging. And regardless of who is writing the copy, they’ll have a roadmap to follow.
To represent our brand voice and to thank our audience for their attention, we give away a little prize with every 20 for 20. Today’s winner is Chris at Economy Data, and he’s won this candle to help keep calm during the countless Zoom meetings we’ve all been on. Contact us for details on how to claim your prize, and thanks for joining us.
If you’re interested in discussing how we can help you define your brand voice, the first step is to book a free 20-minute consultation to see if we might be a good fit for you.
Stay tuned for next time, when I talk about what makes great content in email marketing. This is the guts of your communication, so don’t miss it.
In the meantime, be sure to sign up for our 20 for 20 campaign if you haven’t done so already.
