Why should a company work on its verbal identity?

Emotional brands understand that relationships are built between people and that people want to be heard, understood, and made protagonists rather than being cast into the shadows, the corner, or the aseptic dimension of buying-buy. Verbal identity is an essential tool for developing an emotional brand. Because a thorough work on corporate identity allows a brand to speak directly to people, transmitting confidence, having a certain charisma and a precise character, and, most importantly, managing to generate a dialogue that can lead to close relationships with customers. Today, we have hundreds of products from various brands to choose from, and in 95% of cases, we choose a specific product because we are guided by our emotions.

"The tone of voice helps the company to have a personality"

Valentina Falcinelli expresses this as one of the most important concepts in her book titled "Testi che parlano. Il tono di voce nei testi aziendali” (“Texts that speak. The tone of voice in business texts”, ed). The tone of voice represents a company's true nature and is the only factor that allows people to imagine the company as a person.

The linguistic component that belongs to and characterizes a business organization is known as verbal identity or verbal brand identity. In a nutshell, it is the tone of voice with which the company describes itself and its products.

You might be wondering how you can improve your corporate tone of voice, and we're here to tell you what we've learned thanks to Valentina Falcinelli.

The key points for developing a verbal brand identity strategy 

• Study of the target: The corporate tone of voice must be developed beginning with an examination of the company's goal. A toy store's verbal brand identity will differ from that of a company that manufactures wooden frames, both because the products are different and because the target audience is different.
• Study of marketing objectives: Verbal brand identity is a marketing strategy that falls under the category of emotional marketing. As such, it must adhere to business marketing objectives and integrate within a consistent and well-thought-out marketing strategy. Improvisation is ineffective and may even be counterproductive.
• Choosing the right words and avoiding the wrong ones: Because one of the goals is to define a series of expressions that faithfully reflect the personality and values of the brand, the tone of voice is expressed through the use and abolition of formulas.

Identikit of the tone of voice that really works:

• Reflects the brand and corporate culture - The tone of voice that works for the company is the one that perfectly fits the company's identity and values. The tone of voice is not a sectoral instrument, meaning that we should not think that there is a specific tone of voice, for example, for clothing companies and that, as a result, all clothing companies should use the same tone of voice. Every company is unique, for this reason each of them will have its own specific tone.

• Humanizes the brand - More and more often we hear about H2H marketing (Human to human, the marketing that aims to humanize all the communication strategies of the company). The tone of voice is one of the tools to use, since it brings the brand closer to people and makes it more human. In 2018, the humanity that the company shows toward its customers is even more important than its experience.

• Enhances the customer experience - The right tone of voice can help to improve the experience that people have while interacting with a brand. Consider how useful the tone of voice can be in educational emails or case studies where the customer may feel alone with his doubts or problems.

• Helps to create and maintain a relationship with customers - Since the tone of voice points to the creation of a dialogue, it is an excellent tool for establishing a connection with potential customers and maintaining a serious and long-term relationship with those already acquired. A well-made product or service will help you sell once, but with the right tone of voice, you can create an emotional bond that will bring the customer back again and again.

• Makes the brand recognizable and unique - It plays a key role in brand positioning. Brands that can find and use the right tone of voice immediately give the audience a clear impression of who they are, what they do, and what differentiates them from competitors. The tone of voice shapes the corporate personality.

• Reduces stress - In front of a text that feels distant to him, the reader automatically enters a state of close-mindedness. He becomes increasingly stressed as realizes that the company is not truly speaking to him. When he comes across a text written by an emotional brand, a text that is truly edited and written thinking of him, a clear text that is useful and shows closeness, it's a whole different story.
   
• It is practical and coherent - Regardless of who is writing, the tone of voice always conveys the personality of the brand. This is why it is essential to create a manual of the tone of voice to be distributed in the company: it is the instrument that must lead corporate copies in the creation of texts consistent with the tone of voice chosen, channel after channel, situation after situation.
   
• It is a performance accelerator - It strengthens and stabilizes the brand identity, boosts brand loyalty, and makes the brand immediately emotional.

Companies' identity has always been dear to us, which is why we never stop reading, analyzing, and applying what we've learned to our job. Many ideas can be found in the projects section of our website, but if you need a more direct touch, email us at info@tonidigrigio.it; we will reply within three days!