Who is your target audience – are they young? Married? Preoccupied with social issues, or worried about their finances? 

Or, if you’ve already gone live with your business and have an audience that knows you, this would be a good time to get an idea of what they think of you. Like you did in your content audit, it’s important to evaluate the parts of your brand they connect with and the parts of your brand personality they could do without.

The best way to find out? Ask them!

Create a poll on social media, send one out to your email list, or check for comments on your blog. Try to ask things like: 

– Describe our brand in three words.

– If our brand were a person, who would it be?

– Do you think our tone fits with our product/service?

You can turn this into a contest, or offer a discount on a product of yours for the first 50 people to respond. 

Once you get responses, note how much of what they’ve said about your brand overlaps with what you’ve said about yourself. If you’re both in the same ballpark, then you know your brand voice is already on the right track! 

Note that your audience’s ideal brand voice might not be the voice you would expect them to want to hear. 

A game company that created a product full of sass and snark, Cards Against Humanity prides themselves on being offensive. But, rather than alienating their customer base, their chutzpah is exactly what attracts people to their brand. People know that they can rely on the brand to consistently toe the line (frequently crossing into the realm of the politically incorrect), promising a good joke in the process.  

What’s important to note is that CAH commits to their voice, no matter if they’re running a holiday campaign or putting out a new product. They even played on their brand personality to stage their own form of political protest, rallying people to join their cause through sarcasm and satire.