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We've all heard the term time and time again. The dreaded term that makes everyone think that their business, idea, course, etc. will fail automatically because of this one thing.
Market (or Industry) Saturation.
I think market saturation is a myth. And I absolutely think it’s a myth when it comes to service providers. For example, there are so many talented designers out there in the world which would technically make the design industry saturated.
However, we all seem to coexist with each other just fine. Clients are making choices based on a multitude of things and some come to me and some go to other designers.
So what is separating you from your competitors when you both offer the same goods and services? The good news is that it isn’t just one thing! Which means that you have multiple options of leaning into what makes your brand unique to better position you to connect with the right people.
In this Brand Ecosystem article, there’s a high overview of every component of your brand ecosystem (and yes you do have one, even if you think it’s an unorganized mess). In this post, we’re going to explore what brand tone, voice and personality is through an example and how you can use your brand values to help you.
What do brand voice, tone and personality mean?
Let’s break this down.
Your brand voice is made up of the words that you use to speak to your audience and are a reflection of your brand’s personality and values. Just like how you as a person wouldn’t (generally) say things that go against your values or are outside of your character.
Your brand tone is the way that you say those words. This is also a reflection of your brand personality. If your brand’s personality is upbeat, informal, and fun - you wouldn't speak in a robotic and stuffy tone in your marketing or on your website.
As you can see, your brand’s personality is at the heart of all of this and is a culmination of your voice and tone.
Developing your brand personality “can be” easier to establish if you’re the sole person in your business because they would be a reflection of your own to keep your marketing easy, maintainable and to give your audience an additional way of connecting/relating with you.
(It’s still important that you set some rules for the way that you’re going to speak to your audience however).
For brands and organizations with multiple members/departments, it’s even more crucial to actually decide and write down the tone descriptions, dos and don’ts, and the personality traits the brand wants to speak to its audience through, so everyone involved in communicating that message to the public is clear on what the brand should sound like.
One way to decide what your tone, voice and personality should look and sound like is to think of them through the lens of your values.
By doing this, you’re able to keep your brand inline with its purpose, ensuring that you’re speaking to the right people and communicating the messages that matter most to you.
Developing the tone of a grassroots tech agency brand through its values
To illustrate how a brand can take its values and communicate them through a specific tone and personality, let’s work through an example.
I’d like you to meet Equality Bytes.
Here’s a bit of context about the brand:
Equality Bytes was started by Maya Rodriguez, Alex Winters, and Darius Washington after meeting (and getting slightly tipsy) at an after party for a DEI in Tech conference in San Francisco. Combining Maya's nonprofit communications experience, Alex's web development and LGBTQ+ advocacy background, and Darius's data analysis skills in racial equity, they created a digital agency to empower social justice organizations.
Driven by the belief that through the use of digital tools we can accelerate social change, Equality Bytes aims to equip grassroots movements with resources to challenge systemic inequalities effectively. They stand for intersectionality, digital accessibility, intergenerational knowledge, and cross disciplinary integration.
(P.S. Equality Bytes is not a real brand, they’re a concept brand/passion project I use as examples throughout my blog when I’m talking about brand strategy and ecosystems. I would LOVE to work with a brand similar to this, so if that’s you - shoot me an email!)
Let’s work through two values for Equality Bytes, and break them down to explore how they can be conveyed via tone:
Value: Intergenerational Knowledge
The brand’s definition: We (Equality Bytes) believe in supporting meaningful exchanges between seasoned activists and young tech enthusiasts, ensuring that wisdom from past social movements informs current digital strategies while also embracing fresh and innovative approaches from younger generations.
Tone descriptors: Reverent, connective, and pioneering:
- Reverent: deep appreciation and honor for wisdom and experiences across generations. Conveying a sense of admiration and recognition of the value in different perspectives from people of all ages.
- Connective: active acknowledging and connecting different generational perspectives and experiences.
- Pioneering: forward-thinking approach that breaks new ground. More than just progress, but leading the way in creating new paradigms for intergenerational collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Together those descriptors create a more distinctive tone that:
- Honors different experiences without being divisive or demeaning
- Actively works to bridge the gap between different age groups
- Pushes boundaries in how knowledge is applied in the present and passed down in the future.
Value: Cross-disciplinary Integration
The brand’s definition: the brand is committed to breaking down silos between technology, social sciences, and grassroots organizing, creating holistic solutions that draw from diverse fields of expertise to address complex social justice issues.
Tone descriptors: Synergistic, wise, and boundary-dissolving
- Synergistic: actively discovering how different disciplines can work together to create outcomes greater than the sum of their parts.
- Wise: conveying a vast arsenal of knowledge and the ability to draw from multiple disciplines.
- Boundary-dissolving: going beyond connecting disciplines to actively challenging and breaking down the barriers between them.
Together those descriptors create a more distinctive tone that:
- Consistently highlights the value of combining multiple fields of knowledge.
- Confidently navigates various fields, demonstrating deep understanding rather than just adaptability.
- Questions traditional categorizations and encourages thinking beyond established knowledge or subject-matter limits.
How could they use this tone in their communications?
Based on their tone descriptors and their values, there are a few dos and don’ts the brand should follow when communicating with their audience:
Do’s:
- Use language that’s inclusive and doesn’t lean too heavily into the slang of one generation or another.
- Highlight the commonalities between different disciplines
- Speak with respect about traditional and innovative approaches
- Use metaphors that emphasize connection and integration
- Encourage thinking beyond conventional boundaries
Don’ts:
- Use language that could be seen as dismissive of any generation or discipline
- Oversimplify complex issues or hint that other people are making “simple” issues more complex.
- Sound preachy or self-righteous
- Lose sight of the human element in favor of technical language
How can you craft or discover your brand’s tone and voice?
Ok! With the Equality Bytes example in hand, here’s how you can discover and craft your brand’s tone, voice and personality by using your values as a guide/lens.
Remember that a consistent and authentic brand voice should:
- Build trust and credibility with your audience
- Differentiate you from competitors in a meaningful way that’s genuine to you or the brand’s overall purpose.
- Create a positive emotional connection with customers/clients/viewers/etc.
Eight questions to ask yourself to help define your brand values:
- What principles guide your brand?
- What does each of our values mean in practice?
- How would someone embodying those values speak and act?
- What emotions do those values evoke?
- How do your values translate into day-to-day interactions with clients or customers?
- In what ways do your values challenge industry norms or expectations?
- How can your communication style reflect the change you want to see in your industry or society?
- What stories or examples best illustrate your values in action?
A key mistake people make when establishing their brand values
This mistake is something that 99.99999% of people do and it’s very understandable as to why they do it. When working with brand’s on their building their brand ecosystems and their overall brand strategy, they default to listing values such as honesty, transparency, and efficiency as their values.
And that’s great! But that doesn’t actually say anything about your brand, the impact that you want to make through your work, or what you want people to know/feel/understand about your brand.
Because you know what the opposite of honesty is? Dishonesty. The opposite of efficiency? Disorganization.
No one wants to be dishonest. No one wants to build their company or their brand on that. Or disorganization. When you’re creating your values, think of what the OPPOSITE of those values are and if those are things that other people would actually encounter in a positive or neutral way.
Take Equality Bytes’ value of intergenerational knowledge. What could be the opposite of that? Well there could be organizations that put their focus more on newer generations of activists with the belief that these newer generations are the voices to lead society into a specific direction.
Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. But it’s not a complete negative nor is it something that no company or brand would want to focus or build their brand on (like dishonesty).
Twelve questions to ask to help define your target audience:
Now that you have a better grasp on what you stand for and what you DON’T stand for, you can nail down the types of people that you want to receive that message:
- What age range does our product/service primarily serve?
- Which gender(s) are most likely to benefit from or be interested in our offerings?
- In which geographic locations does our target audience primarily reside?
- What level of education does our typical customer have?
- What is the income range of our target audience?
- What is the typical occupation or industry of our customers?
- Are there any specific cultural or ethnic groups that our product/service particularly appeals to?
- What are their core values and beliefs?
- What are their interests and hobbies?
- What are their goals and aspirations?
- What challenges or pain points do they face?
- What motivates them to take action?
Developing Your Brand Tone
Once you have those values front of mind as well as the overall shape of what your target audience looks like and what they need to hear from you, you can start to nail down some specifics. Let’s get into that a bit:
Use Descriptive Adjectives
Brainstorm about 5-10 adjectives that best describe your brand’s tone then narrow them down to the top 3-6.
You’ll want to make sure that these adjectives are intuitive aka easy for you to lean into and communicate throughout all of your brand touchpoints and that they reflect your values.
Here are some examples of some tone descriptors:
- Synthesizing
- Catalytic
- Enlightening
- Galvanizing
- Sagacious
- Transformative
- Holistic
- Illuminating
- Evocative
- Integrative
- Resonant
- Perceptive
- Visionary
- Empowering
- Inclusive
- Adaptive
- Collaborative
- Insightful
- Progressive
- Harmonizing
- Trailblazing
Developing your brand’s voice:
Remember, your brand voice is made up of the actual words that your brand uses to communicate to its audience. Based on the target audience questions above, you'll start to nail down some specific ways of communicating (verbally and visually) to them. Here are some questions to help you dig deeper:
- How does your target audience typically communicate? What kind of language do they use in their everyday lives?
- What level of formality does your audience expect or respond to best in your industry?
- Are there specific phrases or terms that your audience uses frequently that could be incorporated into your brand voice?
- How does your audience's preferred communication style align with or not align with your brand's values?
- What emotional responses do you want to evoke in your audience, and how can your voice reflect that?
- What type of humor, if any, does your audience appreciate, and how can that be incorporated into your voice?
- How can your brand voice reflect the level of expertise your audience expects while not adding in a bunch of jargon?
- Are there cultural references or idioms that resonate with your audience that could be respectfully and naturally incorporated into your brand voice?
- How does your audience prefer to consume information (e.g., detailed explanations, quick tips), and how can your voice adapt to these preferences?
- What aspirational elements of your brand might appeal to your audience, and how can your voice emphasize these?
- How can your brand voice differentiate you from competitors while still meeting their expectations?
Pulling your brand’s tone and voice together into your brand’s personality
With the tone and voice of your brand established, you can start to see some common threads appearing that make up your brand’s personality.
The Equality Bytes Personality
Below are some personality traits that if Equality Bytes was a person, here’s how it would act out in the world:
- Intellectually Curious: Always eager to learn from diverse sources and explore new ideas across various disciplines.
- Empathetic: Deeply understanding of different lived experiences and committed to making technology accessible to all.
- Innovative: Constantly seeking new ways to approach challenges, especially at the intersection of technology and social justice.
- Bridge-Builder: Skilled at connecting people from different generations, backgrounds, and disciplines.
- Pragmatic Idealist: Balances ambitious goals with practical, sustainable approaches to achieving them.
- Inclusive: Consistently considers and advocates for the needs of marginalized or underrepresented groups.
- Tenacious: Persistent in pursuing solutions, even when faced with complex, systemic challenges.
The final thing to remember is this:
Crafting your brand voice is an ongoing process. As your brand evolves, so will your voice, personality and maybe your tone. And that’s ok. As long as you use your values as a guide to steer those shifts, you’ll be able to maintain the loyalty you’ve built with your audience and keep your relationship with them strong.
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