Learn how creating a brand voice, conducting customer research, and crafting concise product messaging can help brands speak to their customers authentically.
Do your customers trust you? According to a recent study, customers ranked brand trust as a major consideration before making a purchase. In fact, authenticity ranked higher than positive reviews or a company’s reputation.
It can be difficult to speak authentically to customers, especially if no one on your team is part of their community. But with the right approach, you can create authentic messaging that comes from the heart and genuinely resonates with your customers. In this blog, we’ll share some of our tips for improving brand trust and communicating authentically to customers.
Customer Research and Personas
In order to speak authentically, you have to know whom you’re speaking to. That’s why it’s important to perform in-depth customer research and create customer personas for each of your different customer types.
Determine the market you want to focus on and identify their basic demographics and spending habits. When talking about personas, you may think of those standard 2D mockups you’re use to seeing. You know the type…
“This is Mike—he’s 32 and loves riding his one-wheel to the coffee shop.”
It’s important to recognize that in order for your persona to provide any real value, it has to be well researched and go beyond surface-value information. Create a list of websites these customers frequent and spend some time walking in their footsteps. The better you understand your customers, the more effective you become at helping them.
Thinking of your customers as real people instead of faceless archetypes enables you to communicate more authentically. Creating a mood board with relevant images is a great way to visualize your customer, which can help when refining your brand voice. To learn more about how Amplify has helped brands identify target markets and craft customer personas, check out this case study on Blue Microphones.
Develop a Brand Voice
In order to speak authentically, you have to know who you are. Developing a brand voice helps guide the style and tone of every piece of messaging you create. Consistent messaging can help make your brand feel more familiar to customers and improve brand trust.
To create a brand voice, you need to think of your brand as a person with their own unique personality. What’s their favorite color? Which movies would your brand quote? How do they feel about pineapple on pizza? Use this information to help you develop a style and tone.
Style has to do with how your copy is written, such as sentence structure and word choice. Is your style more professional with lots of technical terms and jargon, or more laid-back like you’re talking to a close friend? It’s important to consider the reader when choosing a style. Even though your team is very knowledgeable about the subject matter, your customers may prefer a more straightforward and simple approach.
Tone is less about what you say and more about how you say it. Tone is more personal and uses context to impart your brand’s personality on the message. Are you friendly and welcoming, or wry and witty? Tone is what separates your messaging from your competitors.
After refining your style and tone, create a phrase bank and brand vocabulary list of common terms. What specific words should you use to describe your products or services? What words should you never use? Make sure these terms are in line with your brand voice and resonate with your audience.
Perform in-depth customer research and create customer personas for each of your different customer types.
Value-Based Product Messaging
In order to speak authentically, you have to be honest—not just when speaking about your products or services, but also about how you can you help customers solve their problems. That’s why it’s important to create focused copy that clearly demonstrates how your brand can provide value to your customers.
Your messaging should focus on the unique value propositions of your product or service, and prove that you’re different from the competition. Instead of persuading customers to purchase your product, focus on providing value and demonstrate how you can alleviate their pain points.
But here’s the most important part—you have to deliver. If you make good on your promise to solve the customer’s problems, you’ll have demonstrated your trustworthiness. Plus, happy customers are typically pretty vocal, and there’s no better way to increase your brand’s reputation than word of mouth.
Social Validation
It can be hard to earn the trust of a customer—especially as a new brand or start-up. Even with laser-focused messaging, it can be difficult to reach the right people. Sometimes it’s not about what you say, but who is saying it.
According to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, 63% of consumers trust influencers’ opinions of products “much more” than what brands say about themselves. Additionally, 58% of people have bought a new product in the past six months because of an influencer’s recommendation.
By utilizing a targeted influencer marketing campaign, you can reinforce your message with support from someone your target audience knows and trusts. Plus, it gives you the opportunity to reach a whole new market by having the influencer share your content with their audience.
How To Speak To Customers Authentically
That’s a lot to take in—let’s have a quick recap. The key to creating authentic messaging is ensuring that your customers trust you. In order to build trust, you need to:
- Perform customer research and create in-depth personas for each customer type
- Develop a brand voice with a style and tone that resonated with your target audience
- Write value-based product messaging that demonstrates how your brand helps customers
- Use influencer marketing to reinforce your message with social validation
By following these steps, you can help create genuine relationships with your customers, have real conversations and begin to build trust.
Amplify is here to help.
Looking for support on how to develop your brand voice? Need any assistance with customer research? We are happy to help—reach out to us for a free consultation today.
