Written by Phillip Atwood
Your brand voice is a core part of how people recognize and trust your shed business—and strong brand personalities don’t develop by accident.
Think of a few of the world’s most famous brands—Google, Apple, Nike. They’re instantly recognizable because they’ve honed their brand identity and built up their audience’s trust in them over time. How? By ensuring consistency in their communication and visual elements.
That’s the kind of branding you can create for your shed business. Developing a cohesive brand identity across all of your content will differentiate you from competitors, establish trust in your audience, and help convert your leads into customers.
In this article, we’ll explore why brand language matters and how to create and refine a consistent brand language for your business.
WHY DOES BRAND LANGUAGE MATTER?
Your brand language works a lot like the language you use every day—it’s the tone, words, phrasing, and style that you use to speak to your audience. It can shape someone’s first impression of your brand and affect the way they interact with your business.
As a huge part of your brand identity, a strong, consistent brand voice can be the difference between someone taking an interest in your brand message or passing you up for another option. In fact, 77% of consumers buy an item based on the brand’s identity rather than the product name. Whether your brand is bold and conversational, warm and welcoming, or more formal, your brand voice should reflect the way you want to connect with your audience—and consistency is crucial.
CREATING A CONSISTENT BRAND LANGUAGE
It’s important to be consistent with your brand language in all your communications. Your newsletters, social media posts, blogs, website copy, and any other marketing materials should all have a cohesive tone and phrasing that your audience will immediately recognize.
But consistency takes time and planning. Here are a few ways you can hone and implement a clear, memorable brand language.
1. Using SEO for Brand Consistency
Building a strong, successful brand without a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is like building a shed without a flat, firm foundation. Without knowing what language your target audience is using to search for a business like yours, you won’t be able to use that same language to appear in the search results to help them find you.
So, where to begin? Keyword research. Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or SE Ranking can help you pinpoint the terms and phrases your potential customers are searching for, what your competitors are ranking for, and any gaps in your field that you might be able to fill.
Once you have the right keywords, you can bake them into your brand language—use them strategically, working them naturally into your website meta titles and descriptions, your page URLs, content, headings, and image alt text.
Tip: More isn’t always better! Keyword stuffing will turn off your audience and hurt your SEO ranking. Your brand’s voice should sound natural and human, no matter the tone.
2. Your Brand Promise
Your brand promise is about more than the shed products or building services you offer. It’s the value and experience that your customers can expect from you every time they interact with your business. It’s a vital part of your overall brand language and should capture your company’s core values. Consistency in brand language goes beyond a social media post or a tagline, it should also be reflected in your brand promise.
The more you can consistently deliver on this promise, the more trust and loyalty your customers will place in you.
This promise is important for a few reasons:
• It makes your business stand out from competitors.
• It sets customer expectations.
• It reflects your core brand values.
• It can create an emotional connection between your business and your audience.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. A brand promise can simply be knowing who you are, what your customers want from you, and what sets you apart from others.
3. Create a Style Guide
To keep your brand language and identity consistent, it needs to be clear enough that every member of your team can use it effectively. That’s where a style guide comes in.
Think of your brand guidelines as a clearly defined set of rules and standards that will guide how you represent your business to the world.
Lay out the tone of voice, language, vocabulary, and writing style to be used in all written communications. If your brand personality is quirky and informal on social media, but your website is dry and serious in tone, your audience will sense a disconnect—and they may lose trust in your business as a result.
Remember, consistency is key, but that doesn’t mean your style can never change. Be sure to revisit your style guide from time to time to ensure it’s still relevant and in line with your brand values and identity.
4. Visual Brand Language
They say a picture speaks a thousand words—and that’s definitely true when it comes to your brand language. The words and phrases you use are crucial to creating consistent branding, but your visual brand language is a powerful part of communicating with your customers.
Your visual identity includes everything from your brand logo and typography to your color palette and imagery. Each of these visual elements conveys a sensory message to your audience—strengthening or weakening your overall brand identity depending on your approach.
No matter what your brand’s visual language looks like—sleek and modern, warm and traditional, bold and innovative—make sure it aligns with your messaging to achieve brand consistency.
5. Make Use of Social Media Platforms
Every brand has—or should have—a social media presence nowadays. It’s often the first port of call for users checking out your business. In fact, around 75% of internet users use social media to research brands before they make a purchase.
You don’t need to use every social media channel available. Instead, find out which social media platforms your target audience uses most often and focus your efforts there, keeping your profiles active and up to date with fresh content.
Consistency is a balancing act on social media. Different types of content work better on different platforms. For example, a picture or infographic might get great engagement on Instagram, but not perform so well on text-based platforms like LinkedIn. The lengthy text post you share on Facebook might attract great leads, but you’ll have to cut down the word count quite a bit for X (formerly Twitter).
Figuring out what works for each platform will help you get the most out of your content—but remember, while the form of the content should be flexible, the language and tone you use should always stay the same!
REFINING YOUR BRAND
Perfecting your brand language and identity doesn’t have to be difficult! These tips will help you guarantee your branding efforts don’t go to waste.
Communication Is Key
You can’t achieve brand consistency across all your marketing channels unless every member of your team understands the brand inside out. Make sure each person has access to your brand guidelines, approved designs, fonts, and imagery. If you make any updates or changes, let your team know.
And let them contribute! Bouncing ideas off of other team members can help shape your brand’s voice. If you’re not sure what color scheme would suit your brand best or can’t decide on typography, a brainstorming session can be hugely beneficial.
Don’t Be Afraid to Tweak
Businesses with strong brand recognition regularly review their content and messaging to keep everything cohesive. Carrying out a content audit once or twice a year can help you decide what’s working and what isn’t.
Not only will this help you see what type of content engages your target audience the most, but it also helps you ensure that your copy and design accurately reflect your shed business’s brand personality—even as it grows and changes over time.
A CONSISTENT BRAND VOICE DRIVES CONSISTENT BUSINESS
A strong brand language and consistent visual identity do more than make your shed business look good—they show the world who you are, what you do, and how committed you are to delivering on your promises. By maintaining a consistent tone, style, and personality across all of your communications, you’ll attract more customers and increase both brand recognition and customer loyalty.
Phillip Atwood is principal at Vessel with over 20 years of experience in marketing, sales, and technology.
