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Find Your Brand Voice: Five Exercises You Can Do This Week
Five practical exercises to find and write down your brand voice, from the dinner-party test to rewriting your own emails. No jargon, no workshop needed.
A brand voice is how your business sounds in writing and speech. Most small businesses never define it, so their emails, website and social posts sound like different people. These five exercises will help you find yours in an afternoon.
In this article
1. The dinner-party test
Imagine your brand as a person at a dinner party. How do they speak? Are they funny, calm, direct, warm, expert, playful? Write down five adjectives. Then write five that they are not. “Friendly but never silly” is more useful than “friendly”.
2. Rewrite one real email
Take a recent customer email and rewrite it three ways: formal, chatty and in your imagined brand voice. Read all three out loud. The one that sounds most like the person you want to be is a good clue.
3. Collect words you love and words you hate
Make two lists. Words and phrases you want to use, and ones you never want to see, such as “synergy”, “leverage” or “reach out”. Ask your team to add to them. This list quickly becomes a practical style guide.
4. Read your competitors
Open their websites and read a page aloud. What do they all say? Which clichés repeat? That’s the voice you want to avoid. See our competitor analysis guide for a method.
5. Write the “we say, we do not say” table
Pick five situations, such as a greeting, an apology, a price, a delay and a thank-you. Write how you would say each, and how you wouldn’t.
| Situation | We say | We don’t say |
|---|---|---|
| Delay | “It’s running late, and here is why.” | “We apologise for any inconvenience.” |
| Price | “It costs £X because…” | “Competitive pricing” |
Put it to work
Turn your results into half a page: your adjectives, your word lists and your table. Save it with your logo and colours, perhaps as part of a one-page brand sheet. Share it with everyone who writes for you, including freelancers.
Check it regularly
Every month, read three recent pieces of writing and ask whether they sound like you. If not, adjust the guide or the writing. Our full brand tone of voice guide goes deeper, and our brand messaging framework shows how voice fits with what you say.
Why it matters
A clear voice makes you easier to recognise, builds trust and saves time, because people stop debating how to word things. It’s one of the cheapest ways to make a brand feel professional.
If you would like help defining your voice, book a free brand consultation or see our small business branding agency page.
