Are You Speaking In Your Customer’s Voice?
With all the data available today, how you talk to your customers can make a big difference in how successful your brand is. As hyperconnected as customers are today, they can easily tell us what they want, when they want it and where they want it. Even with today’s privacy concerns, customization and personalization are still key elements of many successful brand strategies.
If you’re using your data right, you know what to say to who to motivate them to buy your products, use your services, support your causes… whatever your brand’s intent. However, the actual language you use to talk to them is often a part of the customization/personalization process that gets overlooked.
Speak to your customer in their own voice
Today, it’s easy use your data to segment customers by demographics and psychographics. But that’s only part of the picture. How does each group actually talk? What type of words, tones and slang used in their own everyday lives can be used in your communications to put your customers at ease and help build trust in your brand. It also builds stronger connections. We all want to relate to brands that sound like us.
According to an article in Martech Today on the hyperconnected customer experience, “Personalization goes beyond brand awareness, and organizations should think deeply about how they approach persona marketing. Segmentation is a good start, but it’s not enough.” It goes on to say, “Test different marketing messages to different groups of customers and put yourself in your customer’s shoes.” I would add, put yourself in their ears, too.
Create a customized message and tone
How do you begin to talk your customers’ talk? For instance, I had a retail furniture client with stores in vastly different markets. In one market, the unemployment rate was high, income was down and the biggest concern they had with making a major purchase was whether they could get financed and were able to afford the monthly payments. When creating messaging that connects to this customer, I needed to sound assuring that we had a finance offer that is a good deal and we had financing options that will work with those who have trouble getting traditional financing. In this case, a message about low monthly payments would be more effective than one about a low overall price.
So that was the message, but how do you deliver it in a tone that resonates with this customer? Research showed that a strong hard-hitting retail tone helps give them the confidence they were getting a good deal and should act now. Yet, we also needed to sound understanding when delivering the finance options message – to talk in a manner that let them know we understand their situation, will help them deal with it and don’t look down on them for needing an alternative finance plan.
Conversely, in a different market that was a college town, with a much more upscale and fashion-conscience customer base, the main concern was whether we provide the latest fashion trends and had the right products to match their taste level. Price and financing were secondary to this group. So the language we used and the tone of the messaging to this group needed to be different and talk in terms of understanding fashion and style – connecting with them on a more intellectual level.
Dialect is important too
People want messages from brands that sound like them. This can be as simple as using the right tone for their area of the country. People in different parts of the country have different accents and use different words for things. Take soft drinks. Here in Michigan we call it a pop. Other parts of the country call it a soda. Parts of the South call it a “Coke” regardless of what brand it is – knowing the right words that your customers use helps you be more authentic. Same goes for regional voices – if your messaging is spoken with a Midwestern nasal tone, that isn’t going to play well for a company in the South, for instance.
Dialect differences are just as important when doing non-English languages too. For instance, if your customer base has a lot of Spanish-speaking customers, it’s a good idea to create messaging in Spanish. A Media Post article on Marketing to Spanish Speakers sites a Facebook IQ study by the Latinum Network that says, “Latino customers don’t want English-to-Spanish translations online. They want native Spanish messages that reflect their culture, and they want them delivered by native Spanish speakers.”
Using native Spanish speakers is just the beginning. You also need to make sure you are using the right dialect here, too. We were doing Spanish speaking marketing for a company in Chicago. The client had found a spokeswoman they really liked. The problem? She was from Puerto Rico and the majority of Hispanics in Chicago are of Mexican decent. The dialects are different. They could tell the dialect of the spokesperson was not the right dialect and we had to work with her to make sure she spoke in the right dialect for the market.
Getting it Right
There are many other factors in making sure you talk to your customers in an authentic voice they can relate to. The age of your customer, the education, the region they’re from, the experiences they have and a whole lot more. This goes for how your write online and print communications too. It’s especially important when doing social media posts – as they tend to be more colloquial in general.
Once you’re identified the customer base you’re talking to, monitor their online chatter or talk to them in person, if you can, so you can get a feel for how they speak. Getting the right tone will make your connection stronger and improve your business overall. So, whether it’s for your marketing messages or your content development – talking the right talk is just good brand strategy.
Mike McClure, in my own dialect
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