Ep. 80 WTF Is Brand Voice & How Does It Relate To Your Visuals?

Jun 23

Brand voice is one of those business terms that gets thrown around constantly but rarely gets explained well. Coaches will say things like "you need a stronger brand voice" or "your messaging needs to feel more aligned," and you nod along while secretly wondering what that actually means in practice.

Here's the thing: most people assume brand voice is just about copywriting or word choices. It's actually about how your brand feels. Today I want to unpack what brand voice really is, how it connects to your visuals, why some brands feel cohesive and memorable while others don't, and how to start uncovering the brand voice that probably already exists naturally within your business.

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Brand Voice Is How You Say It, Not Just What You Say

Your brand voice is partly what you say, but more than anything, it's how you say it. Multiple brands can communicate the literal exact same information and feel completely different.

Take the call to action "book a discovery call." Three brands, same action, completely different experience:

Brand one: "Let's chat about your goals and see if we're a good fit." Warm, approachable, low pressure, supportive.

Brand two: "Ready to elevate your business? Apply to work together now." Polished, premium, direct, action-oriented.

Brand three: "Okay bestie, enough spiraling about your business. Let's fix things." Playful, punchy, casual, personality-heavy, and a little disarming.

All three are asking you to book a call. But that one line of copy creates a completely different emotional experience depending on the brand. That is brand voice. And your audience picks up on those differences and internalizes them pretty quickly, even if they never consciously notice it.

The Good News: Your Brand Voice Already Exists

One of my favorite people to follow online is Sarah from Between the Lines Copy, and her take on brand voice is that you should just use your own voice. I mostly agree with that, and I think you'll find it reassuring.

For personal brands and small businesses, your brand voice is going to sound a lot like your actual voice. Take mine as an example. I speak conversationally. I say "like" and "and" constantly. I make jokes, I swear occasionally, I use contractions a lot. I'm not from Texas, I don't say "y'all," I don't say "hey bestie," I'm not overly cute or corporate. So if my brand suddenly sounded super formal or started making comic book references or adopted some girlboss energy that has nothing to do with me, it would feel immediately wrong. Because that's not how I actually communicate.

Most of the time, your brand voice isn't something you need to create from scratch. It already exists. Your job is mostly just identifying it, refining it, and using it consistently.

Why You Need to Document Your Brand Voice Even If You're the Only One Talking

You might be thinking: if I'm the face of my brand and I'm doing all the talking, why does any of this need to be documented? Can't I just keep speaking in my own voice and move on?

Short answer: yes. Better answer: no.

At some point, you're going to bring other people into your business to create content for you. Maybe not talking head videos, but emails, social captions, sales pages, website copy. If you have a documented brand voice, you can hand that off to a contractor and they can write in your voice. If you don't, there's going to be a noticeable disconnect between how you sound on a reel and how the sales page reads. Your audience may not be able to articulate what feels off, but they'll feel it.

Brand Voice and Visuals Have to Work Together

Here's the part that surprises people: brand voice has a lot to do with your visual identity, and vice versa. Both your words and your visuals are doing heavy lifting when it comes to communicating your personality. When they don't match, people get confused.

Imagine a brand with bright, bold neon colors, palm trees, beach balls, and trendy typography. But the captions are stiff, formal, emotionally flat, and corporate. That's a confusing experience.

Now imagine the opposite: a soft luxury brand with elegant typography, neutral tones, and photos that feel polished and refined. But the Instagram content is chaotic meme humor and the owner drops f-bombs in her Instagram Lives. Also confusing.

Your audience will probably never say "the visual and verbal identity of this brand are misaligned." But they will feel the friction. They'll bounce. They'll forget you. Really strong, memorable brands feel cohesive because every piece is intentionally crafted to reinforce the same personality.

I think about it the same way I think about people I know. We say things like "that's so on brand for her" all the time in real life. Your super put-together friend who always has her nails done and texts in complete sentences would never suddenly post rage bait at 2am. You'd call to check on her. Your chaotic, funny, life-of-the-party friend who signs up for a stand-up comedy class? That tracks completely. Branding works the same way. Your visuals are like your outfit, your home, your body language. Your brand voice is how you speak, the energy you carry, the personality underneath.

Where Brand Voice Actually Comes From

Your brand voice comes from a combination of your personality, your values, your audience, your positioning, your lived experience, and the emotional experience you want people to have when they interact with your brand. Which is exactly why brand strategy matters so much. If you don't have clarity on who you are, who you serve, why you're doing this, and how you want your brand to feel, it's very hard to create a cohesive voice.

This is also why brand voice tends to evolve over time. I would not have gotten in front of a microphone and told people directly "you need to make your fonts bigger" or "if you're not doing this, you're leaving money on the table" when I first started my business. I wasn't comfortable being that direct yet. Eight years in, I've built enough confidence and enough proof that I know what I'm talking about to give people that tough love clearly and without second-guessing myself. That's the voice evolving. It happens naturally as your business matures.

That said, it's really hard to evolve your voice if you're not using it. You probably already have a recognizable brand voice. You might just not fully trust it yet, or you haven't identified it clearly enough to use it consistently.

Signs Your Voice and Visuals Might Be Misaligned

Here are some red flags worth paying attention to:

Your social captions sound nothing like how you'd actually say something in real life. Your website copy sounds completely different from your Instagram copy, which sounds completely different from your emails. Your visuals are attracting one type of client but your messaging is speaking to another. Your brand looks great but isn't memorable. Someone could land on your website, spend ten minutes reading, go pick up their kid, and not be able to remember what you do by the time they get back to their desk. That's a problem.

And this one is the biggest: creating content feels performative, like you're putting on a costume every time. If you've been at this for a while and it still feels like a performance rather than a conversation, that's a sign your voice and your brand aren't fully aligned yet.

When your brand voice and visuals are working together, things feel simpler. Not always easy, there are always parts of business that feel hard. But simpler. I rarely ask myself "does this sound like me?" anymore, because I know my voice and I trust it. I rarely ask "does this look like my brand?" because I have clear brand guidelines I follow. That consistency makes every content and design decision faster and easier, because I'm not trying to perform a personality that isn't mine.

That's the point most business owners eventually reach where their business really starts to click. When they stop trying to copy what some internet celebrity coach is doing and just start showing up as themselves, consistently and on purpose.

How to Start Identifying Your Brand Voice

Notice I said identifying, not creating or defining. The best thing you can do is pay attention to yourself.

Listen to how you talk to clients. Notice the voice notes you send your friends. Pay attention to phrases you repeat constantly. My friend Sam Burmeister from Nomad Copy Agency is literally always telling people in her copy reviews to "stop telling people what it's not." That phrase is so deeply on brand for her that we've made stickers of it.

Go back through your intake forms and recordings of discovery calls. What words does your audience use to describe you? What do they compliment you on? What emotional themes show up consistently in your content?

Then ask yourself: how do I want people to feel when they interact with my brand? Empowered? Calm? Supported? Energized? Understood? Your visuals and your voice both need to reinforce that feeling. That's why brand voice is less about creating a business persona and more about uncovering and clarifying the personality that already exists.

Bringing It All Together

Your brand voice isn't just your captions. It's not the little script you write before you record a video. And it's definitely not the list of adjectives sitting in your brand guide. It's the verbal expression of your brand's personality, and it works in direct relationship with your visuals, your positioning, and the energy you bring.

When your messaging and your visuals are working together, your brand starts to feel cohesive and memorable. People recognize your content before they even see your name. They feel like they know you. And that's when the right clients start showing up and saying "I feel like you were speaking directly to me."