How vs What: The Difference Between Brand Voice and Brand Messaging

With so many marketing terms floating around the online stratosphere, it’s hard to get them straight. What’s even harder? Many – if not most – carry some overlap, making it hard to pinpoint what service you may actually need when trying to grow your business.

As a brand voice strategist, there’s one in particular that many companies get mixed up – usually around the time they want to start rebranding or when rewriting major online real estate such as their website. 

These are: brand voice and brand messaging.

First, what is brand voice?

As I detail in this guide to brand voice, your voice is the way you speak to your customers through every form of communication, whether that’s on your website, social media posts, email, ads, and even internal communications. 

Brand voice is usually explained using tone words that evoke emotion: joyful, confident, playful, humorous, etc.

When I work with clients to define their brand voice, it’s important to go deeper than the typical “professional but friendly” or “casual and knowledgeable.” Even something like “funny” is vastly too broad. 

They’re good starting points, but the key to a great, descriptive brand voice always goes one to two floors down to truly understand the emotions you want to convey with your sound.

For example, the infamous Mailchimp would describe their tone of voice as plainspoken, genuine, translators, and dry humor.

Brand voice is also known as your verbal identity. Much like a visual identity is cemented by a color palette (yes, I’m indeed simplifying this), a verbal identity is determined by the words and grammar you use. 

For example, are you so casual you say “stuff” instead of “items”? Are you playful with grammar and love a good “LOL” or an elongated “heyyyyyy”? Are you humorous in a “look ma, no hidden fees” kinda way? Use the tone words, the grammar, and the vocabulary to guide you.

Why is brand voice so important?

When you’re a personal brand, your brand voice may come naturally (although, if you want to hire writers, you’ll still need to define it!). For B2B companies, it usually takes a bit of work to create one. Either way, brand voice is critical for many reasons.

1. Consistency: As you hand off tasks to different departments, you’ll want a strong brand voice to guide each piece of writing so the sound is consistent across all channels. This is what makes you seem authentic to your audience.

2. Relatability: When you speak your customer’s language, they can relate to your energy which creates stronger brand loyalty.

3. Distinction: A solid voice helps you stand out from the crowd, so consumers remember you over the competition. 

Next, what is messaging?

While brand voice is how you say things, brand messaging is what you say. Honing in on messages is part of the company’s communication strategy. They should be messages that convey your brand values to the world and help your ideal client understand the outcome of working with you.

A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is usually at the core of these messages. The UVP is a single sentence that explains what you do for your customer – how you bring them value. 

The messaging hierarchy is usually accompanied by a tagline or slogan (like Nike’s “Just Do It”) and message pillars or various unique selling points (USPs) to win over each individual buyer persona.

Mapping out your buyer’s persona and the buyer’s journey is a whole ‘nother ball game (sorry!) but it’s all about making sure the message is said to the right person at the right time. 

But ask different team members what you offer as a company, and you’ll hear different answers. That’s why it’s important to standardize these messages so it’s easy for everyone to talk confidently about your brand.

As a copywriter at the core, a well-fleshed messaging guide should provide examples of how those messages look when released in the world AKA consumer-facing texts. 

This stage of the process is really about:

• Honing the messages

• Writing them in your brand voice

• Matching the language of your audience 

Which could be set up as something like this:

Unique Selling Point #1

• Tagline or one-liner 

• Sample: [short copywriting]

Unique Selling Point #2

• Tagline or one-liner 

• Sample: [short copywriting]

Unique Selling Point #3

• Tagline or one-liner 

• Sample: [short copywriting]

Let’s take Captain America, for example, shall we? A patriotic soldier, he represents justice and freedom and his mission is to fight for his country and do what is right. His values are based on having a strong moral compass, championing the underdog, and uniting fellow man. 

Captain America almost speaks in one-liners, elevated and inspirational, like a political ad during an election year. 

Tagline: Avengers Assemble!

Sample: “A single individual who has the right heart and the right mind, that is consumed with a single purpose... that one man can win a war.”

Which one do you need?

The messaging strategy is the north star of your business communications. Many people have their brand identity decided – their mission, vision, and even unique value proposition – detailed somewhere on file. 

When you’re just starting out and even as you grow, that’s usually enough to represent the company. But as you grow into departments and communication spreads, you’ll want something more robust to guide every team member.

If you’ve read this and realized neither you nor your communications lead, content lead or copywriter has ever packaged your values into clear-cut messages for differing users, this is where you’ll want to start before moving on to brand voice.

Although, side note: Often, I’ll include a (very) condensed version of Tone of Voice (ToV) guidelines in the messaging strategy. It’s a small section so even non-writers understand how to tackle writing for the company but not enough to overwhelm them. 

If you are confident in how you represent your business and how you communicate your value to the world, you may just need a brand voice guide. 

That’s because you could have the correct messages but you’re conveying them in a way that feels flat, inauthentic, or run-of-the-mill. In that case, a custom brand voice guide can take your marketing messages and turn the volume up on them.

Again, a personal brand may have marketing messages that already sound authentic, energetic, and different but a B2B company, for example, may have messages that sound like, well, everyone else’s. 

Or, most commonly, you could be expanding your business and hiring freelance or in-house writers. In that case, an in-depth voice guide will help each and every writer get not just the content correct but the voice right.

This streamlines the onboarding of new hires and guarantees the voice is consistent and unforgettable – no matter who is writing at the moment. 

To get serious about a brand voice and/or brand messaging that sings purpose, personality, and profit, get in touch with me today.