Your Brand’s Voice and ToneIs your brand serious, competent, daring, adventurous, fun, rebellious, or intelligent? Is your brand sophisticated, outdoorsy, or reliable? Knowing your brand’s personality—and how that persona resonates with your prospects and customers—will help you define and direct your marketing and communications efforts. And when that personality is conveyed consistently across your products, services, logo, tagline, packaging, and communications, your marketing will be “on strategy” and therefore, more effective. MyEmma.com presents an ideal example of how to leverage brand persona. Emma® is an email marketing service that helps “organizations everywhere bring style and sophistication to their email marketing and communications...with custom-designed templates, real-time response tracking, and features designed to help you grow your audience the right way.” From their personified logo to their witty sales copy to their playful customer service, the brand that is Emma is leveraged across all customer touch points.
According to Clint Smith, one of Emma’s cofounders, “The greatest feeling in the world is when you’re standing around at a party and someone asks what you do and you say, ‘I’m with Emma,’ and they say, ‘Wow, I know Emma. I LOVE Emma!’ It doesn’t happen that often, because we’re still a small company and we don’t get invited to many parties, which is sad. But that’s the goal—to create this warm, positive vibe that makes people feel like they know you and want to talk about you at parties. And I think we do that with quirky writing, and funny ads, and personality, and hey, let’s not forget actually making sure your software does a bang-up job. That’s fairly important, too.” Often a prospect’s first encounter with Emma is through its advertising. The tone and attitude of the ad supports the brand personality. As a potential Emma customer, I’m not surprised or confused when I click on the ad and arrive at the MyEmma site. The entry point to the brand has delivered on its promise of playful wit and fun. 
A mistake many businesses make is to express what can only be described as schizophrenia across various marketing and communications channels. A brochure might be serious in tone...while a direct mail piece might try a sophisticated approach...while the company logo expresses a conservative, corporate feel. These multiple personalities can cause a prospect—or even a customer—to run screaming to the competition.What is your
brand persona?
What archetype was revealed in your discussion? How did that personality resonate with your company’s culture,
mission, and vision?
Now for the vital question: Have you adopted that personality and integrated it throughout your marketing and communications efforts? Use your voice and tone to begin building a relationship with your prospects and customers.
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