7-steps with clear examples you can implement right now
In an era where attention is the new currency, finding your brand voice isn’t just another marketing gimmick or luxury—it’s the difference between being ignored, and connecting with your ideal customers. It’s a competitive edge. And one of your most important investments.
I’m a strategic copywriter and in this brief guide, we’ll walk through:
✦ why developing a distinct brand voice matters, especially for startups and small businesses
✦ the elements that make up “brand voice”
✦ 7 essential steps to nail your brand voice—on the first try
Whether you’re new to finding your brand voice or correcting course to fix a problem, consider this your first step to building an unignorable communication strategy.
What is brand voice?
In the simplest terms, brand voice is your company’s personality.
✔️ It’s how your brand presents itself—the way you think, feel, speak, behave—across communication platforms. That includes your website, social media posts, brochures, ads, videos, emails, and in-store signage.
✔️ It’s what helps you cut through the noise, make people lean in, and create a recognizable identity that sticks in people’s minds—even in a crowded market.
✔️ It’s the secret sauce that makes you equal parts likeable, allowing you to form a genuine connection with your audience. For the record, that connection leads to greater engagement and more loyal customers.
What personality does for individuals, brand voice does for businesses: It builds relationships, trust, and recognition. Which is why finding your brand voice is actually really important, especially for startups and small businesses.
Elements that make up brand voice
Brand voice is made up of three core components:
✦ Traits: the fundamental essence of your personality that makes your brand authentically, unapologetically you.
For example:
- Red Bull is bold and fearless.
- Volvo is sincere and reliable.
- Tushy is fun and playful.
✦ Language: your choice of vocabulary (the words, terms, phrases, jargon you’ll use or NOT use) and writing style (sentence structure, punctuation preferences, and the use or non-use of emojis).
For example:
- Brand A: Conversational, quirky, strategic use of humor
- Uses phrases like “Boom!” and “Heck yeah!”
- Avoids corporate jargon
- Writes in short, punchy sentences
- Brand B: Professional, authoritative, expertise-driven
- Uses industry-specific terminology
- Formal sentence structures
- Minimal emojis, focus on data and insights
- Brand C: Sarcastic, direct, playful
- Uses meme language
- Engages in witty Twitter banter
- Calls out competitors directly
✦ Tone: the emotional element of your communication that changes depending on the context.
For example:
- Customer service → Friendly and supportive
- Product launches → Energetic and celebratory
- Educational content → Helpful and informative
Just like a chef masterfully combines ingredients to create a signature dish, you’ll bring these three elements together to create a communication style that’s distinctly yours. Speaking of bringing these things together, let’s get to…
How to find your brand voice: The easiest step-by-step guide for small businesses (with clear examples)
Knowing the components of brand voice is one thing. Actually developing a voice that resonates? That’s where most businesses get stuck. If that’s where you find yourself right now, let these seven steps to finding your brand voice be your roadmap.
Step 1: Start with some strategic introspection
In other words, get to know yourself.
This provides the foundational understanding of who you are as a brand, including your characteristics.
But where to begin this soul-searching task?
I like to start by reviewing the company’s purpose, vision, mission, and values. (They are your North Star—and the starting point of everything you do as a brand, including finding your brand voice.)
- Purpose: Why do we exist? What is our reason for being in this business?
- Vision: What kind of future are we trying to build?
- Mission: How will we create or achieve that future?
- Values: What kind of company do we want to be? (Who are we and how do we work?)
Your answers reveal the heart and soul of your brand; why and how you’re different from your peers.
Now it’s time to personify your brand with human attributes and emotions. Think about the following:
- What’s the best way to describe our brand?
- How do we want customers to describe us?
- What should customers feel?
What to do:
Note down adjectives, keywords, or phrases that describe the brand you’re trying to build. Stick with three to five descriptors max!
For example: Let’s consider an imaginary ice cream brand, “Radiant Scoop”.
Radiant Scoop makes cravings-satisfying ice cream using only 100% natural ingredients—no artificial colors or flavors, no additives and no preservatives.
Radiant Scoop is also passionate about bringing fresh and exciting new flavors to market. In fact, they take pride in imaginative flavor profiles that customers are unlikely to have encountered before, like “coco-nut,” a coconut + peanut blend flavor, and “elderflower and rum”
In this case, our fictitious ice cream brand might opt for descriptors like “passionate,” “real,” “playful,” and “innovative”.
Step 2: Identify your target audience
This step ensures your brand voice resonates with the right people, those you’re actively courting and trying to sell to. So, who are they?
To answer that question, you’ll consider:
- Demographics: Gender, age, marital status, occupation, income, education
- Psychographics: Lifestyle, interests, hobbies, values, opinions/attitudes/beliefs
- Needs and wants: Preferably related to your product/service
- Communication style: What kind of language do they use?
The tone and style you choose for your brand isn’t just determined by your personality—it must also take those you’re communicating with into consideration.
What to do:
Research your customer base; learn as much as you can about them (preferences, how they behave, key characteristics) then create customer profiles. If you’re a large company with the resources, you can go further and build buyer personas.
For example: Let’s get to know Radiant Scoop’s present and future customers a bit better. (I’ve kept things short and sweet since this is just an imaginary example, but you should try to be as complete as possible. The clearer the image of your ideal customers, the easier it will be to craft your brand’s unique voice.)
Sample customer profile
| Demographics | • Primarily female, young professionals • Age 23 – 35 • Single or married but without kids • Have an income of $80.000 and up |
| Psychographics | • Identify as ‘foodies’ • Take pride in discovering and trying new foods • Like to share food photos on social media • Consider an evening in with homemade food & quality snacks “a great night” • Place much importance on natural ingredients |
| Needs | • A satisfying sweet treat for consumption at home |
| Wants | • Exciting and satisfying flavors that they can also show off about • It should be as healthy as possible, i.e. no unnecessary additives |
| Communication style | • Casual, approachable, authentic • Like to use emojis/memes |
Step 3: Analyze the competition
This will help you find small and big ways to differentiate your brand, so you can carve out your unique space in the market.
Don’t copy the competition—no matter how big, famous, or successful they are. You are you and trust me when I say, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by trying to sound like another brand in your field.
What to do:
Take a deep dive into what your peers are doing, saying, and how they’re presenting themselves. (Look at competitors’ packaging copy, check out their website, and how they’re communicating on social.) Find where you’ve got a clear advantage.
For example: Let’s examine two of Radiant Scoop’s direct competitors, Frost and Classix. My analysis might look something like this:
Frost
- Positioning: Premium, artisanal ice cream; minimalist luxury for discerning customers.
- Product & business cues: Small-batch, single-origin dairy, boutique storefronts, premium price points.
- Communication style: Elegant, restrained, refined. Short, polished sentences; sparse Instagram feed with high-end photography; packaging uses muted colors and serif typography.
- Messaging focus: Craftsmanship, heritage, exclusivity (“small-batch”, “hand-churned”, “curated flavors”).
- Where Radiant Scoop has the advantage: Radiant Scoop is more playful and adventurous with flavors and language. While Frost signals “treat it like a luxury purchase,” Radiant Scoop is more playful and adventurous with flavors and language. We can own imaginative flavor innovation and authenticity without feeling pretentious, appealing to younger foodies who want novelty plus real ingredients.
Classix
- Positioning: Mass-appeal, nostalgic, the “ice cream from your childhood.”
- Product & business cues: Wide retail distribution, budget-friendly lines, classic flavors, sometimes uses artificial flavors.
- Communication style: Friendly, accessible, not niche. Bright, colorful visuals; conversational captions that use humor and emojis sparingly; designed for broad shareability across retail and social platforms.
- Messaging focus: Broad, “everyman” appeal that makes them easily approachable; no extra thought needed. Emphasizes value and moment-driven buys (“grab one at checkout”) rather than premium craftsmanship.
- Where Radiant Scoop has the advantage: Radiant Scoop can out-position Classix on ingredient integrity and tasteful innovation with limited-edition flavors and a clean-label promise.
⚡Not gonna lie: This is a time-consuming step that’s heavy on analysis. Most solo entrepreneurs and small businesses just don’t have the extra hours to do this step properly. If that’s your situation right now, it’s okay to outsource your brand voice development needs to an experienced copywriter.
Step 4: Decide what your brand isn’t
Reflecting on what your brand ISN’T is as important as knowing what it IS because negative definitions create practical boundaries you’re going to use every day when writing, designing, and deciding where to invest attention.
Hear me out on why you shouldn’t skip this step:
- Eliminate uncertainty: Saying what you won’t be removes ambiguity. If you know you are “not stuffy,” your marketers won’t default to formal corporate language when they’re unsure.
- Keep audience alignment tight: Excluding attitudes and words that repel your target customer reduces mixed signals that may confuse or alienate them.
- Guides product and marketing strategy: “Not X” helps prioritize product features, partnerships, and campaigns that reinforce your brand instead of diluting it.
What to do:
List all the things (characteristics, features, behaviors) that don’t align with your brand then show what an on-brand swap would be.
For example: Here’s what I might come up with as I reflect on Radiant Scoop.
What we are NOT:
❌ Not elitist or pretentious: we welcome curious food lovers, not just connoisseurs.
❌ Not clinical or sterile: we’re human (people who LOVE good ice cream), flavorful, and joyful, not laboratory-like.
❌ Not gimmicky for the sake of going viral: no flavor fads that contradict ingredient integrity.
❌ Not artificial: we don’t use artificial colors or flavors as a shortcut.
❌ Not a mass-value commodity brand: we’re not competing on cheapest price; quality matters, we want to be proud of every product we put out in the world.
❌ Not stagnant: we won’t repeat the same flavors every season.
❌ Not opaque about ingredients: we won’t hide sourcing or processing details.
❌ Not dismissive of customer feedback: we listen and iterate.
❌ Not slow to innovate: we won’t shy away from thoughtful experimentation.
❌ Not jargon-heavy or overly technical: we won’t use terms that normal people wouldn’t use
❌ Not grandiose or exaggerated: avoid hyperbole (“world’s best scoop”) that undermines our authenticity without proof.
❌ Not sarcastic or mean-spirited: keep playfulness warm, never at someone else’s expense—even competing brands.
Here’s how that would translate to our marketing copy:
❌ “The most epic scoop on earth!”
✅ “Taste the unexpected!”
Step 5: If you already have marketing materials, check if you’ve been consistent so far
When every channel sounds like the same brand, your marketing multiplies rather than fragments. Inspect current copy across all platforms—they’re the single richest source of truth about how your brand actually sounds, how it’s perceived, and where you may be lacking.
What to do:
Audit your web copy, blog posts (if any), social media posts, packaging, how you’ve been responding to e-mails for reality vs intent, inconsistencies, what’s been working so far, and harmful or confusing signals.
For example: I review Radiant Scoop’s marketing materials and discover:
- My website copy occasionally leans toward “artisan” luxury language that clashes with the playful social voice.
- My marketing emails have been very transactional and used “hard sell” language, which doesn’t jive with who we are as a brand.
- Short and playful Instagram captions garner the highest engagement. I want to keep that style going forward!
Step 6: Define your brand voice and create your official brand voice guidelines
Piece everything you’ve discovered so far together to create your small business brand voice guidelines document. Share this with your team. You want everyone—whether they’re in customer service, managing your social media accounts, or in sales—to have a clear reference, so that they’re always “on brand.”
What to do:
Prepare a PDF explaining how your brand will communicate and present itself in print and online. You can go for something basic, like a brand voice chart (if you’re just starting out), or something more detailed with concrete examples for all marketing channels.
For example: Our fictional Radiant Scoop ice cream brand might create a basic brand voice chart that looks like this:
| Characteristic | Description | What we will do | What we won’t do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passionate | We’re passionate about creating the most exciting, flavorful, and indulgent ice creams on the market. | • Be energetic • Show enthusiasm; get people excited • Use strong verbs | • Be boring or uninspired • Use vague language • Use passive voice |
| Real | Just like we place great importance on good quality and natural ingredients, we’re also all about being real. | • Be honest and direct • Use casual, easy-to-understand and friendly language | • Be too matter-of-fact • Sound fake or pretentious • Use marketing jargon |
| Innovative | We want to give our community adventurous new flavors to love. | • Awaken curiosity • Inspire • Make people think, “I never thought those flavor profiles would work!” | •Be complacent • Be arrogant • Talk down to our audience |
And then I might include the “we are NOT” statements from step 4 to make sure everyone knows what NOT to do as well as examples of acceptable vs unacceptable vocabulary.
Step 7: Refine your brand voice as needed
While brand voice should be consistent, it can also change (although ideally not drastically) as you grow, gain real customer insights and feedback, or as times and the market change. Listen, you have to be willing to course-correct—or risk failing—if what you initially envisioned isn’t working. But there are a few caveats.
- Don’t flip-flop: Frequent, unexplained changes confuse customers.
- Avoid abandoning authenticity for trends: Temporary buzz can cost long-term trust.
- Communicate changes internally: misalignment leads to a weak brand.
The bottom line is, evolve when evidence and strategy demand it, but evolve deliberately so you retain your identity and customer trust.
The effect of brand voice on customer perception
Before I leave you to go find your brand voice, I must remind you: brand voice can dramatically shift perception and attract different market segments—even within the same industry. Don’t believe me? Take a look at what happens to Radiant Scoop.
Original brand voice:
Taste the unexpected!
Bold flavors. Crafted to surprise. Never artificial.
Indulge in small-batch tubs of surprising flavors you never imagined possible.
Perception: Adventurous but honest; they’re playful, but it doesn’t feel gimmicky.
Mass appeal & nostalgic:
Classic scoops, feel-good flavors.
Comforting flavors inspired by the good old days. Think creamy, familiar, and shareable, made with real ingredients that take you home.
Perception: Comfort-first positioning, presented as wholesome and reassuring; this brand offers safe, feel-good indulgence
Bold & irreverent:
No rules, just rad flavors!
Bold flavors, real ingredients, zero apologies. For people who choose personality over polite vanilla.
Perception: Confident, edgy, fun and intentionally divisive. They’re not afraid to step on a few toes.
Serious & trustworthy
Naturally uncompromising.
Radiant Scoop delivers thoughtfully crafted ice cream made from 100% natural ingredients. Proudly Australian.
Perception: Ingredient-conscious, quality-focused brand that’s professional and has reliable product standards.
If there’s one major takeaway for you, whether you’re starting from scratch or fixing a muddled voice, don’t leave your brand voice to chance.
Spending weeks trying to pin down your brand voice?
Most founders spend 40+ hours on competitors audits, customer research, and tone experiments only to get a vague, unusable guide that causes more muddle than momentum.
You don’t need that. I help small teams skip the busywork and deliver a sharp, usable brand voice playbook with clear “do”/“don’t” rules, example copy, and a one-page checklist your team can use right away to stay on brand and communicate with confidence.
Ask me how.