13 Best Tips for Humanizing Your Voice on How to Humanize a Brand
What do business owners, their partners, partners' employees, and even customers have in common? They are all human, after all, at the most fundamental level. Why then is it sometimes so difficult for firms to advertise this in their efforts?
It's possible that some people don't want to display any biases since they could turn off potential leads. Some people might wish to come across as completely professional. Others can be completely unconcerned with tone and would rather concentrate on selecting the most appropriate keywords to use across their platforms. Some people might not even be aware of how impersonal their brand's voice actually is.
In any case, the fact remains that humanizing your brand is now a requirement rather than an option. People enjoy forming relationships. They enjoy putting their trust in those they know are on their side and with whom they can connect. Therefore, no matter what industry you're in, it's in the best interest of any organization to find a means to connect with their consumers and leads through humanization in today's fiercely competitive market.
Why is it vital to humanize your brand?
Customers are humans, not brands. It's crucial to establish a relationship with customers before you can sell, enhance conversions, increase engagement, and foster brand loyalty. Similar to partnerships with new acquaintances, brands must develop a rapport with their customers and earn their trust in order for these interactions to be fruitful.
Customers will connect with your brand more if you humanize it and add some personalization. The messaging on your website and in all of your marketing campaigns should be designed to connect with your audience. Without it, you risk being viewed as a cold, soulless corporation that breeds indifference among customers rather than loyalty.
How to Humanize Your Brand
Here are some useful hints for beginning to give your brand's voice more authenticity:
1. Get started internally.
In other words, focus first on developing a positive workplace culture. Your company's high management and CEOs have the power to spread that culture like wildfire throughout the organization, empowering your employees to serve as the genuine brand ambassadors you desire.
Post about it after that! Post a picture of your staff smiling as they cross the finish line on Instagram if your firm participated in a 5K. Post a video tour of your company's workplace if it has been festively adorned using the colors and theme of your brand. Or, mention it on LinkedIn if your team has recently earned an award or achieved a certification.
Going beyond simply having the fundamentals and showcasing your team members on your website and social media networks. Additionally, people will be more inclined to accept your professional judgment if they can see how wonderful it is to work for your organization from the perspective of your followers, website viewers, etc.
2. Make your brand's voice friendly, engaging, and personable.
For many companies, presenting themselves as leaders in their field is crucial for attracting leads and building credibility. And while it is unquestionably an important component of the puzzle, the need for a human aspect is still present. The truth is that you may still have highly technical, professional information with a lighthearted, sympathetic, or engaging tone.
Consider Dollar Shave Club (or any of the companies listed in Kim Speier's blog post "7 Boring Big Brands That Used Humor to Amp Up Their Marketing").
The firm is renowned for its clever and humorous advertisements. But above all, they are intelligent. They created a customarily "boring" product and created an approachable, amusing, and human brand voice. These three qualities help foster credibility, brand loyalty, and trust. Later, Unilever bought the business in an effort to benefit from the popularity of the brand.
3. Speak in the language of your audience.
Your consumer base may consist of several different demographics. However, none of those audiences wants to read, hear, or see corporate jargon, sales talk, or language that is unduly stilted.
If your business is B2B, make sure you inform and educate your audience. If your business is B2C, appeal to the heart. You will come off to your customers as more personable and "human" the better you are at picking up on their language.
Simply. Speak. Clearly. Business and industry-specific jargon is just another method to speak people's language, and while you may believe you seem knowledgeable and important, all you're doing is making yourself seem distant. Do you ever speak to people in that manner in real life? No way. Unless you want no friends at all. Speak in a personable manner, and your brand will come off as more relatable.
4. Create a truly excellent "About Us" page.
One of the most commonly mistaken pages on the internet is the "About Us" page. Which is unfortunate because a page devoted to introducing yourself to visitors would be a great approach to humanize your brand.
Who do you want to be, then? a nameless company? Or do you want to introduce yourself, describe who you are, and explain why you believe they might find what you do interesting? I looked for a case study to use as evidence here. That's a remarkable illustration of how someone can humanize their business through their "About Us" page, and I was able to find one for you due to Blog Tyrant.
I first advise you to visit SEOmoz. Their page has multiple parts outlining what they do and why they're valuable, as well as a timeline explaining how their business came to be, all of which are written in a humorous yet expert manner. The history of the company's founding provides readers with insight into the founders' goals and is presented in a way that demonstrates the value SEOmoz offers its clients.
5. Add a little humor to your writing.
B2C businesses can easily produce amusing content, therefore you should too! Everyone enjoys laughing. B2B brands can participate even though B2C businesses benefit most from this tactic. Consider this tweet from Zendesk that describes a sales funnel.
The tweet presents an advertisement that describes how the business's services may help you enhance your sales funnel while using approachable language and emoticons to make the brand more familiar to its audience.
Clear, succinct, and direct content can help you make your argument very effectively. It's alright. But if you can occasionally inject comedy into your material, you can make your point, humanize your company, and even please readers. To be honest, no one anticipates that from B2B brands. And if your company is one of the few doing it, it makes you appear really fantastic. Do it now. Make an effort to get someone to smile. What could be more human than spontaneous laughter?
6. Give more attention to providing resources than to closing deals.
If you aren't already familiar with inbound marketing, you should be aware that the aforementioned statement essentially captures its essence. Without using a sales pitch, give your audience something of value, and they will come back for more. This entire process is about developing connections based on trust that is established via the delivery of valuable, reliable resources. This might be something as straightforward as a case study or how-to blog post on a related industry topic.
Speaking the same language as your audience is related to inbound marketing. Offer these tools, but make sure to do so in a style that most appeals to your target audience. Additionally, you should make sure to provide the products that people will truly want to consume.
No matter what your inbound marketing strategies entail, make sure to keep the end-user, not your business, in mind.
7. Continue to update the blog on your website.
This is a simple and crucial technique to allow your audience to see the human side of you. Maintaining an active blog not only helps you improve your SEO, stay current with issues in your sector, and become more purpose-driven in your activities, but it also helps you demonstrate your human side.
It gives you greater credibility since it enables readers to see that you are current, engaged, and knowledgeable. Additionally, as we discussed in the preceding advice, it supports your inbound marketing by giving readers access to information or well-informed viewpoints on subjects they are interested in. Everyone benefits, thus it's a win-win situation.
8. Highlight the community manager.
If your firm employs a community manager or someone with a comparable position, let them steal the show by presenting them across all of your web channels.
In order for readers to contact them easily with questions or concerns, please include their Twitter or email address. People will feel more at ease with your brand as a whole and will develop a strong relationship with you both when you can put a face to your community manager.
9. Encourage staff to engage in social media on your behalf.
Several things happen when employees update social media on behalf of or in relation to their employer:
It demonstrates to others that a person cares deeply about the organization for which they work.
It enables individuals to learn about the people, names, and personalities who make up an organization.
It greatly expands the audience for the company's content.
Most organizations would benefit from encouraging staff to utilize their social media accounts to publish workplace material, even if certain businesses may need to keep a tighter rein on their social media networks due to the nature of their sector. They ought to be able to do that even during working hours, yeah! The world is changing, as they say.
10. Express regret and gratitude when appropriate.
Every person has defects and makes mistakes; this is a fact of life. But when it comes to our enterprises, we frequently go to great lengths to preserve our reputations, even when it is our companies that are at fault. We also can't lose sight of the reality that people work in our companies.
Therefore, if you somehow missed the mark, present your audience with a real apology and a possible fix. Instead of coming to you with their complaints, people would appreciate it if you deal with the matter head-on.
But more than that, you ought to express gratitude to your supporters frequently. Even something as straightforward as an Instagram post thanking your 5,000 followers in particular for supporting you in attaining that goal and celebrating your achievement can have a big impact.
Alternately, you may write an email (perhaps around Thanksgiving) thanking your former and present clients for their patronage. Another method to show your audience that you care about them as people and are not just a money-hungry business that doesn't care about developing relationships is by doing this.
11. Availability
This advice applies to both your customer care department and upper management. It applies to each individual on your team as well as every aspect of your brand's online presence.
Without real people available to do it, humanizing a brand is impossible. If someone from your company routinely publishes to your social media channels, for instance, that person should also be accessible to answer questions, comments, and other feedback. Businesses routinely schedule their social media posts for the entire month without considering the value of regular engagement.
This is an excellent chance to demonstrate the human aspect of your company and your willingness to assist these people in finding information, exchanging ideas, and feeling good about promoting your brand.
12. Add your name as a signature to emails. such as your name.
not the name of your company. An organization cannot send an email. But someone at your company can. What does your email marketing signature, for instance, look like? To make the email more personable, think about adding a genuine person's name, their position at your organization, and even even a short headshot to your email signature.
You may also try a "From" field that is more personal, with the sender's real name in addition to the name of your business. We advise running your own test because ours may differ from yours, but the outcomes were excellent when we A/B tested the use of an employee's name next to our company name.
13. Periodically remove your marketer's cap.
In the end, the goal of whatever you're doing is to increase traffic, leads, and sales. We are aware of that. However, it may be beneficial to approach your efforts with more of a... human perspective as opposed to a rigorous marketer one.
When you think your audience might enjoy it, it's acceptable to include it without including a link to your site, a lead-capture form, or a call to action. This will come more readily to you as you grow to know your buyer personas better via daily interactions; the content will virtually flow out of your mouth! Your relationship with your community will feel more like that of two buddies hanging out once you've developed this natural rapport, which results in consumers with higher lifetime value (aaaand the marketer hat is back on).
