10 ways to find your brand voice and tone for your marketing strategy

Key takeaways

• A brand voice is built through a repeatable process: internal clarity, customer language, an audit of what exists, then documented rules.
• Define personality on spectrums, not adjectives. Nielsen Norman Group’s four tone dimensions (funny to serious, formal to casual, respectful to irreverent, enthusiastic to matter-of-fact) are a useful starting grid.
• Borrow phrases from your best customers and from the places your audience talks online.
• A voice chart with “we sound like this” and “we don’t sound like this” examples does more for writers than any list of traits.
• Test the voice in hard scenarios, roll it out to every team and review it every six to twelve months.

Too many businesses sound safe, generic and forgettable. Finding a voice that stands out is a process you can follow. This Emulent guide covers ten ways to find and document your brand voice and tone so every team sounds like the same company.

1. How do your purpose and values shape your brand voice?

Purpose and values are the foundation of brand voice, so start there before writing any copy. Ask your leadership team and senior contributors to answer three questions separately, then compare: Why does this company exist? Who do we serve best? What do we believe that most competitors would disagree with?

Where the answers overlap, your voice starts to form. Where they differ is just as telling: if some see the company as a bold disruptor and others as a trusted advisor, that split will show up in your content until you resolve it.

• Write the plain-English reason the company exists, the version founders would say out loud, not the rehearsed mission statement.
• Name a belief competitors avoid saying. A clear position on a contested idea often produces your most memorable messaging.
• Pick three words you want people to use about your brand, and work backward from them.

2. Why interview your best customers instead of average ones?

Because loyal customers already describe your brand more honestly and vividly than your team can. Record short interviews with five to ten of them, with their permission. Ask why they chose you, what they tell others and how their situation changed.

• Note repeated phrases. If three customers call you “the one that actually follows through,” that line has earned a place in your messaging.
• Listen to how they describe the problem they had before you, which is often more compelling than how you describe the solution.
• Capture the plain words they use for your category. They are usually more relatable and closer to what people search for than industry jargon.

3. What does a voice audit of your existing content reveal?

Usually a consistency problem rather than a missing voice. Gather samples from your website, emails, social posts and sales materials and read them as if you were meeting the brand for the first time. Does it all sound like one company? Where does the tone swing between channels? Which phrases show up in your best-performing content?

• Score each piece from formal to casual. Outliers usually point to a process gap.
• Note sentence patterns, short and declarative or long and explanatory, and which perform best.
• Mark sentences that sound like your brand and sentences anyone could have written.

4. Why define your audience’s language before your own?

Because a voice built on how you want to sound often misses how your audience talks. A familiar voice beats a distant or overly technical one. Spend time where your audience discusses your category and note their words, complaints and jokes.

• Reddit and niche forums show unfiltered vocabulary.
• Google and Yelp reviews in your category, positive and negative, show what people care about and how they say it.
• Sales call recordings and transcripts show the exact words prospects use.

Blend that language into your voice while keeping it true to the brand. Meeting people where they are does not mean copying their slang.

5. How do you map brand personality on a traits spectrum?

Place your brand on scales instead of choosing adjectives. “Professional” is vague; “70% formal, 30% casual” gives writers something to use. Nielsen Norman Group identified four primary tone-of-voice dimensions: funny to serious, formal to casual, respectful to irreverent and enthusiastic to matter-of-fact. Add any that fit your category.

6. How can AI help you analyze competitor and aspirational voices?

AI speeds up pattern-finding that would take a person days. Pick five to eight brands: competitors, adjacent brands you admire and one known for a strong voice in any field. Paste public pages such as homepages, about pages and blog introductions into a tool like ChatGPT or Claude and ask for structured ratings.

• Use the same sections for every brand, since they reflect deliberate voice choices.
• Ask for scores on formality, boldness, empathy and vocabulary complexity so results are comparable.
• Plot competitors on a two-axis chart using the two dimensions that matter most in your category. Open space is your opportunity.
• Run the same analysis on brands outside your category and note what they share that your competitors lack.

AI will not define your voice, but seeing five competitors side by side, all sounding nearly identical, shows you where to go. Use public content only, and do not paste confidential material into tools your company has not approved.

7. What goes into a voice and tone chart?

Each trait, what it means for your brand and examples that get it right and wrong. Writers need to see what you sound like and what you do not. Off-brand examples are often the most useful because they show the mistakes people make under deadline. Mailchimp’s public content style guide is a well-known example of this format.

• The trait, named simply: “direct” beats “straightforwardly transparent.”
• One sentence on how the trait shows up in your brand.
• We sound like this: a real or constructed example that captures it.
• We don’t sound like this: the same idea written in the generic or off-brand way.

8. How do you test your voice across channels and scenarios?

Write the same brand into difficult formats and see if it holds. A voice that works only on the homepage is not a full voice. Try a product announcement, a reply to a negative review, a job posting, a short social caption and a long article introduction.

• A complaint reply: can you stay warm and direct without sounding defensive or robotic?
• A job posting: does the company sound like somewhere people want to work?
• A one-line caption: does the voice survive with almost no space?

Tone should flex by situation while the voice stays the same. You can be lighter on social and more careful in a service apology and still sound like one brand.

9. How do you align messaging across teams beyond marketing?

Share the voice guide with everyone who speaks for the company. If a prospect hears one promise on a sales call and reads another on your site, they notice. The guide should shape sales decks, proposals, email signatures and support scripts, keeping the value and personality consistent without scripting every conversation.

• Sales-to-marketing handoff: reconcile product language sales invented with marketing copy.
• Customer service: bring the voice into support replies, when customers pay close attention.
• Partners and agencies: give anyone creating content for you the same guide your team uses.

10. How often should you review your brand voice?

Every six to twelve months, plus whenever something significant changes. Your audience, market and company evolve, and a voice that fit two years ago may not fit now. Compare your highest-traffic pages, best emails and recent social posts against the guide and ask whether they still reflect the brand you want to be.

• A new product line, rebrand, leadership change or new market.
• A meaningful change in who your customers are.
• Falling engagement or conversion on content without a technical cause.

Keep the core fixed and let expression flex. Brands that rewrite their voice with every market shift end up sounding like no one.

How do you build a brand voice that holds up over time?

Treat it as an ongoing practice, not an afternoon checklist: do the internal work, test it with your audience, study the competition and keep every team aligned. A caveat: a distinctive voice will not rescue an unclear offer or a weak product. Voice amplifies what is already there, so get the message right first. Emulent helps companies from first discovery through voice guide creation and rollout across teams. Contact the Emulent team if your messaging feels inconsistent or generic.