How to Define Brand Voice for Your Business (With Examples)
If your brand doesn’t have a voice, it doesn’t have a shot.
You can pour money into ads, tweak your logo, or follow every trend on LinkedIn. If your brand sounds like everyone else, you’re forgettable.
At a time when 81% of consumers need to trust a brand before buying from it, sounding generic is a liability.
And yet, most brands skip the hard part. They confuse voice with tone. Or worse, they settle for “professional” and end up sounding like corporate oatmeal.
This guide is here to fix that.
You’ll walk away knowing:
- How to define your brand’s voice in 3 simple steps
- What real-world examples like Mailchimp and IBM get right
- And how to make your voice consistent, clear, and unforgettable (no matter where it shows up!)
Let’s get into it.
How to Define Brand Voice for Your Business? A 3-Step Process
Not every brand starts with a creative partner in the room.
But even before you hire an agency or bring in a strategist, there are ways to start shaping your brand voice with intention.
You need three things: your audience, your personality, and a handful of the right words.
1. Start With Your Audience
Before you write like you, understand who you’re talking to.
Is your audience Gen Z founders who text more than they email? Or enterprise buyers who skim LinkedIn posts between back-to-back meetings?
What they care about and how they speak should shape how you speak. Your voice should mirror their mindset instead of merely mimicking their slang.
Not sure where to begin? Start with these 10 questions to define your target audience:
- Who are they? (Age, role, industry, location)
- What do they care about on a daily basis?
- What challenges or frustrations keep coming up in their life or work?
- What goals are they trying to achieve?
- Where do they spend their time online? (LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, newsletters?)
- What brands do they already love and trust?
- What kind of language do they naturally use? (Formal, conversational, technical?)
- What makes them hesitate before buying something?
- What would instantly make them feel, “This brand gets me”?
- What do they never want to hear again from a brand?
These questions ensure your brand is less “we hope this works” and more “we know who we’re talking to.”
63% of customers are more willing to buy from familiar brands. So get familiar. Mirror their language, speak their values, and try to connect, not impress.
2. If Your Brand Were a Person, Who Would It Be?
If your brand was a person, how would it behave at a dinner party?
Would it crack a joke? Share a data-backed opinion? Sit quietly and observe?
Your brand personality is the backbone of your voice. Without it, you’re just talking.
Pick 2–3 traits that define your brand. (No, “professional” doesn’t count unless you pair it with something like “warm” or “bold.”)
That’s your foundation. Then layer on specifics like “witty,” “direct,” or “gentle.
You can use Carl Jung’s 12 Brand Archetypes as a starting point:
- Are you the Hero? (Nike)
- The Sage? (Google)
- The Rebel? (Harley-Davidson)
- The Caregiver? (Amul)
Each archetype carries distinct traits, tones, and emotional hooks.
Consistent personality drives growth. In fact, 68% of companies said consistent branding increased their revenue by 10–20%.
So pick your traits. Then own them. Everywhere!
3. Build a Word Bank
Now that you’ve got the vibe, build the vocabulary.
Use a simple “Voice Grid” to guide your content team:
- Words you use (e.g. bold, effortless, human)
- Words you avoid (e.g. “synergy,” “cutting-edge,” “disruptive”… unless you’re ironic)
Add go-to phrases, metaphors, or taglines. This “word bank” becomes your filter. Every headline, CTA, or tweet runs through it.
This list will save you hours. It’ll keep your interns, freelancers, and founders on the same page, even if you’ve never met.
Brand Voice in Action
Now look, I get it. Talking about “voice” in theory is like explaining the color blue to someone who’s never seen it.
Learning how to define brand voice need not be all academic. Let’s try something more realistic.
Here’s how two very different brands absolutely nail their voice.
1. Mailchimp
Mailchimp’s voice is plainspoken, genuine, and built on empathy. The brand writes like a supportive business partner who has been through it all and wants to help you succeed without sounding robotic or overly salesy.
Here’s what defines their voice:
- Plainspoken: No fluff, no jargon. Just clarity.
- Genuine: They speak like actual people who understand the grind of small business.
- Helpful: Their tone shifts depending on your emotional state: whether you’re launching your first email or fixing a campaign that flopped.
- Wry Humor: Their humor is subtle, dry, and never forced. Winks, not punchlines.
2. IBM
IBM speaks to developers and enterprise pros. People who value time, precision, and clarity over hype.
So IBM’s voice is efficient. Focused. All signal, no noise.
Here’s how:
- Conversational, not casual: Developers don’t hate marketing. They hate bad marketing. IBM keeps it real.
- Direct and declarative: Phrases like “Build smart. Build secure.” get to the point fast.
- Collaborative tone: IBM’s voice shows up as a partner. It’s with you, not above you.
- Content > Hype: They deliver tools, not empty promises.
Mailchimp doesn’t sound like IBM. And IBM doesn’t want to sound like Mailchimp.
That’s the point.
A strong brand voice sounds like you, in a way your audience actually wants to hear.
Creating a Consistent Brand Voice (and Keep It That Way!)
So you’ve found your voice. Great.
Now comes the hard part, i.e. sounding like yourself every time, everywhere. Because inconsistency is where most brands fall apart. One email sounds quirky. The next sounds like the legal department wrote it.
Here’s how to avoid the brand equivalent of an identity crisis:
1. Create a Brand Voice Style Guide
You don’t need a 50-page brand book to get started.
But till you do a more detailed exercise with your creative partner or agency, create a one-pager your team can actually use.
It should include:
- Brand personality traits
- Example phrases to use (and avoid)
- Do’s and don’ts from your content
- Formatting and grammar preferences (Oxford comma, emoji use, etc.)
Tip: Add real examples from past content that hit the mark. Bring it to life.
2. Train Your Team (and Your Creative Partners)
Your brand voice mustn’t live inside one marketer’s head. Everyone, from the intern writing captions to the founder writing a LinkedIn post, should speak the same language.
Walk your team through the voice. Share examples. Give feedback. Revisit it every quarter to see if it still holds.
3. Use Tools That Keep You On-Voice
Yes, AI tools can help (if you feed them right):
- Grammarly’s tone checker: to hit the right mood
- Writer or Hemingway: to simplify and clarify
- ChatGPT or Claude AI: to centralise your style guide and ensure you’re hitting the mark every time
Use templates for recurring content like emails, newsletters, or product pages. They act like bumpers that keep you from veering off-brand.
Define It. Own It. Speak It Everywhere.
Let’s call it like it is: if your brand doesn’t sound like anyone, no one’s going to remember it.
In a market where 71% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands they recognise, your voice is a differentiator.
It shows up in your WhatsApp replies, your LinkedIn comments, your Instagram bios, your cold outreach emails, and even your product packaging.
From a casual DM to a keynote deck, it all adds up.
You don’t need to be loud. You don’t need to be clever. You just need to be clear and consistent.
So, how to define brand voice for your business? Let’s recap:
- Know your audience
- Speak their language
- Define your personality traits
- Build a word bank
- Learn from other successful brands, but write your own rules
- Create a simple style guide and revisit it often
That’s how you go from bland to bold, from generic to unmistakable.
So, what’s your brand saying right now?
And more importantly, does it sound like you?