How do brands say hello? One brand might simply say “hello,” while another might say “howdy!” A third brand may say, “Bonjour, ciao, y hola!” You may be able to tell something (or even a lot) about a brand based on their form of greeting. Hello might not say much, but “howdy” can certainly tell you something about the brand and the market they wish to target, and saying hello in multiple languages usually conveys more than just a desire to serve a multi-lingual customer base.
Howdy or Bonjour?
Just as your own use of language, including your accent, choice of slang and even errors in speech, conveys a lot about yourself, your personal history and your personality. The way that a brand chooses to communicate and utilize language conveys a lot about its history, its personality and intended target market. These conscious choices constitute a verbal branding identity, and how you choose to utilize verbal branding in your marketing initiatives may make the difference between connecting with or alienating your target market.
Wait, What Is A Verbal Brand Identity?
It’s understandable if you’re still a bit confused as to what verbal branding actually is. After all, it’s not a primary component of your brand, like your brand colors or tagline. It’s also understandable if you’ve been branding or advertising your business for some time without establishing your verbal brand. However, your verbal brand identity can be incredibly important when it comes to distinguishing your brand from other brands that are directly competing with yours.
By making moderate or even fine changes to the way you communicate through your marketing and advertising initiatives, you can add flair to your “speech,” which can include everything from a short tweet or an advertising tagline to a lengthy blog post. This flair can make your brand more personable, more trustworthy and more memorable to your target market.
Establish Guidelines
As with other components of your brand, establishing your verbal brand involves both clearly establishing who you are and what distinguishes you from your competitors. Creating the broad outline of a verbal brand identity, such as establishing whether or not to be formal or informal or to add a regional or international flair, is easy, but establishing a system for maintaining a consistent verbal brand can prove to be much harder. While it’s impossible to micromanage every communication between your brand representatives and the public, creating written guidelines before marketing and advertising content should be created. Having multiple individuals review and monitor major content, such as blog posts and permanent brand verbiage, for consistency can help ensure that your verbal brand identity stays on an even keel.
Nuance And Restraint Are Key
Many classic games are described as easy to learn, but difficult to master. Establishing a framework for a verbal brand identity can be relatively easy, but adding personality to your communications in a way that is distinctive, effective and consistent can be incredibly challenging. Always ensure that your marketing and advertising content is professional, and dial back or replace any language or word choices that could be considered insulting or patronizing to the public at large.
How do you want your brand and business to be perceived? Creating a verbal brand identity is just one small step in establishing your brand promise, and the digital branding experts at Blue Zenith can help you brand or rebrand your business in a way that sets you apart from your competitors!
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