WHAT is my brand?
“I’ll be your dream, I’ll be your wish, I’ll be your fantasy. I’ll be your hope, I’ll be your love, be everything that you need.”
Who are you? What do you do?
What do you stand for? Why?
All very good questions – so have you answered them yet? And answered them honestly?
The whole world is busy, and a lot of the time we get so caught up in delivering the day-to-day, we forget to step back and define what we’re doing and why.
Your brand is your most valuable asset because it’s the reason people buy from you and not someone else. And in terms of your company’s actual financial value, brand equity sits there as a line item. So, if you want your company to be worth something, you need to build your brand.
But where to start?
Your brand comprises several elements – from the visual look and feel, to the content and the way you
interact with your clients. Here, we’re going to focus on tone of voice for your messaging – get this right, and it flows through every communication.
Organising idea
Start by thinking about your organising idea – the one thing your business is recognised for. This becomes your guiding principle because when you’re questioning whether or not to do something, you just ask yourself, ‘Does this align with my organising idea?’ and if the answer is ‘yes’ you do it, if the answer is ‘no’ you don’t.
Target audience
When it comes to your brand, the thing that’s really important to identify is your audience’s aspirational identity – who do they really want to be?
If you can promise and deliver this, you’ve got a customer for life. (And he’s called Doug).
Value proposition
What is the story that you’re offering people? How is it different to the competition? Why does that difference matter? What’s the value in buying from you?
To craft your value proposition, you first need to ask yourself three things:
- What: the products/services you offer to your customers
- How: the things that differentiate you from the competition
- Why: the reason you are passionate and why you exist
Traditionally, marketers refer to the value proposition as the ‘elevator pitch’ because you’re meant to be able to deliver it in the time it takes for a lift to reach the top
floor. In reality, a couple of paragraphs should suffice…
And once you’ve got this down, cut it to a sentence that sums up what you do. Imagine you walk into a networking event and someone asks the question:
“What do you do?”
This power sentence becomes your carefully crafted response – think of it like the logline to your movie.
Tone of voice
Are you corporate? Or are you my best friend?
Are you professional? Or are you going to drop the F- bomb whenever possible?
Are you funny? Or are you factual?
There is no right or wrong answer because tone of voice is individual to your company. And in reality, your company might have one tone of voice, and the spokespeople you offer up for PR opportunities and speaking engagements present a different tone of voice
– that’s ok.
To decide on where to pitch your tone, it’s useful to ask how you want the experience of working with you to make people feel. For example, in my business, I want people to feel safe, happy and like they want to smile.
If you know how you want people to feel, it guides the sort of content you want/need to create, and the words you use. For example, through my content I want to teach people about copywriting by sharing my skills, knowledge and experience so they can learn how to write great copy for themselves.