Introduction
You know that feeling when you’re reading a company’s website and you could swap their name with any competitor and nobody would notice? That’s a brand voice problem. And it’s costing you customers.
Your brand voice isn’t about sounding professional or impressive. It’s about sounding like you. The real you. The version that explains things clearly to a friend, not the version trying to impress strangers at a conference.
What Brand Voice Actually Is
Brand voice is how you sound in everything you write. Your website, your emails, your social media posts, even your invoice notes. It’s the personality people hear when they read your words. And right now, if you sound like everyone else in your industry, you’re invisible.
Think about the brands you actually remember. They don’t sound corporate. They sound human. They have opinions. They explain things the way a real person would, not the way a marketing textbook says you should.
That’s what you’re building. Not a style guide full of buzzwords. A consistent way of talking that makes people think “yeah, this sounds like them.”
Why Most Brand Voices Fall Flat
Most companies create a brand voice by accident. Someone writes the website copy. Someone else handles social media. Another person writes the emails. And none of them sound like they work at the same place.
Or worse, everyone’s trying so hard to sound professional that they strip out anything interesting. You end up with sentences like “we leverage strategic initiatives to optimize outcomes.” Translation: we do things. Congrats, so does everyone else.
The problem isn’t that you need fancier words. It’s that you’re hiding behind words instead of using them to actually communicate something.
The Three Things Your Brand Voice Needs
Your brand voice needs to do three things, and only three things. Everything else is extra.
First, it needs to sound like one person. Not a committee. Not a corporation. One consistent personality that people recognize across everything you do. When someone reads your Instagram post and then reads your email newsletter, they should think “yep, that’s the same company.”
Second, it needs to be clear. If people have to read your sentence twice to understand it, your brand voice is broken. This doesn’t mean dumbing things down. It means respecting that your reader is busy, distracted, and will bail if you make them work too hard.
Third, it needs to make people feel something. Not necessarily excitement or inspiration. Sometimes it’s relief that someone finally explained something clearly. Sometimes it’s trust because you’re being honest about what you can’t do. But if your words could be replaced by anyone and nobody would care, that’s not a brand voice. That’s filler.
How to Find Your Actual Voice
Stop trying to sound like what you think a business should sound like. That’s where everyone goes wrong. They look at big companies with boring corporate speak and think “I guess that’s how you’re supposed to do it.”
Here’s a better approach. Record yourself explaining your business to a friend. Actually do this. Pull out your phone and talk for three minutes about what you do and why it matters. Then listen back.
That’s your brand voice. Not the polished version you write. Not the professional version you rehearse. The real version where you’re just explaining something to someone who doesn’t know yet. All the ums and likes and half finished thoughts, those get cleaned up. But the way you actually talk? That stays.
What Authentic Actually Means
Everyone says “be authentic” but nobody explains what that means in practice. Here’s what it means. If you would never say something out loud to a customer, don’t write it on your website.
“Leveraging synergistic solutions” is not authentic. You would never walk into a meeting and say that. “We’ll set up your tools so they actually work together” is authentic. Because that’s how you’d actually explain it.
Authentic doesn’t mean casual. It doesn’t mean using slang or trying to sound cool. It means using words you would actually use in real life when explaining something you care about.
Building Trust Through How You Sound
Trust isn’t built by sounding smart. It’s built by sounding honest. And honesty in writing means saying what you mean without hiding behind jargon.
When something’s complicated, say it’s complicated. Don’t pretend it’s simple and then deliver something confusing. When you don’t know something, say you don’t know. Don’t make up an answer that sounds good but means nothing.
People trust brands that sound like humans because humans admit when things are hard. Corporations pretend everything is seamless and optimized and transformational. Humans say “yeah, this part’s annoying but here’s how we handle it.”
Staying Consistent Without Sounding Robotic
Consistency doesn’t mean every piece of content sounds identical. It means the personality is recognizable. Think about people you know. They don’t say the same things every time you talk to them, but you always know it’s them.
Your brand voice works the same way. The tone might shift depending on context. An email about a problem is more serious than a social media post about a win. But the underlying personality, the way you explain things, the words you choose, those stay consistent.
This is why “write like you’re talking to a friend” only works if you know which friend. The friend who needs everything explained simply? The friend who appreciates technical details? Pick one and stick with them.
Making Your Voice Work Across Channels
Your website can be more detailed than your social media. Your emails can be more personal than your blog posts. That’s fine. But the core voice needs to be the same person.
If your Instagram sounds bubbly and your website sounds corporate, people won’t connect the two. They’ll think maybe you hired a social media person who gets it, but the company itself is still boring.
Every channel is a different conversation, but it’s still you having the conversation. Your website is you explaining your services in detail. Your social media is you sharing quick thoughts. Your emails are you following up personally. Same voice, different formats.
Getting Your Team on the Same Page
If you’re the only person writing anything, this is easy. If you have a team, you need a way to make sure everyone sounds like the same company.
This doesn’t mean a 47 page brand guidelines document. It means clear examples of what you do and don’t sound like. Show the before and after. “We used to write X, now we write Y.” Give people templates that are 80% done so they’re just filling in specifics, not creating from scratch.
The fastest way to teach brand voice is to edit things together. Rewrite someone’s draft in the right voice while they watch. Do this three times and they’ll get it. Make them read a style guide and they’ll forget it by tomorrow.
When to Break Your Own Rules
Brand voice isn’t a prison. Sometimes you need to sound different because the situation demands it. A serious problem needs a serious tone. A legal requirement needs legal language. That’s fine.
But even in those moments, you can stay true to your core personality. A serious message from a normally casual brand doesn’t mean suddenly writing like a lawyer. It means being casual about something serious. “We messed up. Here’s what happened and what we’re doing about it.” Still you, just handling a tough moment.
Measuring If Your Voice Is Working
You’ll know your brand voice is working when people start talking about how you explain things. “I love how clearly you write.” “Your emails actually make sense.” “You don’t sound like every other company.”
Watch your engagement. Not just likes and clicks, but replies and questions. When people respond to your content like they’re talking to a person, not a company, that’s your sign. When they reference something you said in a way that shows they actually remembered it, that’s your sign.
And watch your sales conversations. If people say “I read your stuff and it just clicked,” your voice is working. If they’re confused about what you actually do, your voice is failing.
The Long Game of Brand Voice
Your brand voice will evolve. As you figure out what resonates and what doesn’t, as you get clearer on who you are and who you’re talking to, your voice will shift. That’s normal.
What shouldn’t shift is the core personality. You might get better at explaining things. You might drop phrases that don’t work. You might find new ways to connect. But the fundamental “you-ness” of it needs to stay consistent.
This is why copying someone else’s voice doesn’t work. You can learn from how other brands communicate, but if you’re trying to sound like them, you’ll always be off. Because their voice came from their personality, their values, their way of seeing the world. Yours needs to come from yours.
Getting Started Right Now
Pick one piece of content you’ve already published. Your homepage, a recent email, whatever. Read it out loud. If you stumble over phrases or feel weird saying them, those need to change.
Then rewrite one section. Not all of it, just one paragraph. Write it the way you’d actually say it if someone asked you to explain it. Compare the two versions. The second one probably feels more like you.
Do that with everything. One piece at a time. You don’t need to overhaul your entire brand voice overnight. You need to start sounding more like yourself and less like what you think you’re supposed to sound like.
Your brand voice is the most powerful tool you have for standing out. Not because it’s clever or creative, but because it’s genuinely yours. And in a world where everyone sounds the same, being genuinely yourself is the only way to be heard.
