Mastering brand voice in healthcare marketing
Introduction: Understanding the power of brand voice in healthcare marketing
In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare marketing, your brand's voice plays a critical role as the heartbeat of your message. Whether it's shaping the narrative for therapists, fine-tuning the branding for dentists, or elevating marketing strategies for wellness centers, the right brand voice has the power to transcend the ordinary and create lasting connections. When we think about the heart of healthcare and holistic health, every word matters and every message should resonate.
This blog post is designed to help you develop your brand voice in a hands-on way. So, join us as we share the questions to ask yourself and real world examples in action. We want you to be empowered with the tools necessary to develop a brand voice that deeply speaks to your audience and sets your brand apart in the bustling world of healthcare and wellness.
Section 1: The two routes to discovering your brand voice
Explore the agency vs. customer-centric approaches in brand voice strategy
1.1 The agency approach
Often adopted by high-powered agencies to define the voice of well-known brands, the agency approach revolves around introspection and strategic questioning. This method focuses on answering key questions to crystallize your brand’s essence, personality, and message.
1.2 Customer-centric approach
Alternatively, there's the customer-centric approach, which involves starting with your customer's narrative and working backward to your brand. Although we're more focused on the agency method today, understanding your audience's story is invaluable in aligning your brand voice with their needs and expectations.
In this blog, I’ll talk about the essentials of brand voice, as well as optional sections that will strengthen your brand voice if you’re able to dive into them. Each subsection will lay out the key question you need to answer to complete the work, a description of what the thing is and share some examples.
By the end, you should have a working understanding of what it will take for you to build your own brand voice.
Section 2: The essentials of brand voice in healthcare marketing
2.1 Crafting a brand promise
Question: What is our one-sentence contribution to the world?
Embodying excellence: The Ritz Carlton's brand promise as a benchmark in defining your own
What it is: A brand promise is a short, repeatable statement known by everyone in your organization. Done well, it shouldn’t be about any one product or service you sell. It should feel emotive and aspirational to read.
Examples: The Ritz Carlton pledges, “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen,” and the men’s warehouse promises, “You’re going to like the way you look.”
If you’d like to go deeper on brand promise examples, Power Review offers some good ones.
It’s also worth pointing out that people sometimes use brand promises as tag-lines. There are a lot of uses for these but in the event you’re interested in tag-lines because you’re hoping to engage in pay-per-click advertising, we wrote a blog about tips on that marketing modality: “Cutting-edge PPC strategies for holistic health businesses in 2024.”
2.2 Establishing brand values
Question: What are our guiding principles?
What it is: Brand values are a series of statements that define your ethos. If you’re running your business solo, this exercise may be easy for you. Theoretically these values drove you to create your business in the first place. If you have a staff, I’ve found moving your team through this exercise is very valuable in helping everyone get on the same page.
Inspire and innovate: Lego's brand values as a model for defining your own ethos.
Examples:
Brand values can be succinct like Lego:
Imagination
Creativity
Fun
Learning
Caring
Quality
Dynamic values, dynamic brand: Pepsi's principles guide its market success.
Or slightly longer statements, like Pepsi:
Care for our customers, our consumers and the world we live in.
Sell only products we can be proud of.
Speak with truth and candor.
Win with diversity and inclusion.
Balance short-term and long-term.
Respect others and succeed together.
Branding Reference has additional examples if you’re curious for more.
2.3 Creating brand tone of voice
Bold and distinct: Harley Davidson's tone of voice as an inspiration for brand identity.
Question: “What is our personality?”
What it is: A list of adjectives that describe the brand tone of voice. Beyond values, this describes how your voice will sound to an audience in any form whether it’s written, verbal, etc. It should, theoretically, be consistent across most of your materials as well as your client’s experiences with your business just like your personality. Words like, “Delightful, whimsical, etc.” I’ve heard four words is a good number to aim for to adequately describe your voice and it can sometimes be helpful not only to come up with the words but also a description of what it means exactly to you and how you might use it in practice. Bonus if you can also define what it means you won’t do.
Elegance in expression: Tiffany & Co.'s tone of voice sets a benchmark in brand sophistication.
Examples: Harley Davidson: aggressive, masculine, confident strong. Contrast that with Tiffany & Co: sophisticated, elegant, beautiful, classic.
Brafton has a great blog post on this with more examples. <>
People often find themselves needing to develop their tone of voice when they engage in new marketing mediums or hire staff. Perhaps you intuitively knew what your voice was as you write, but now you’ve decided to begin a podcast (we offer tips on that called, “Start a podcast and grow your wellness practice today!” by the way). So, if this isn’t something you started with, no problem, but it certainly is recommended to help define your business and help advance your marketing.
Section 3: Beyond the essentials
3.1 Your brand story
Crafting narratives that matter: Warby Parker's story as a guide to impactful brand storytelling.
Question: Why does our company exist?
What it is: This is the narrative you share on your 'About Us' page, often centered around a pivotal moment that led to the creation of your company, or inspiration behind your brand.
Example: One of the more famous examples in recent history is Warby Parker. They state: “Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective: to offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially conscious businesses….”
3.2 The elevator pitch
Precision in brevity: Elevator pitches that capture your brand's essence in seconds.
Question: What does our company do?
What it is: An elevator pitch is a brief, compelling description of your brand, crafted to engage a listener quickly and effectively. It's a tool every team member should master, reflecting your brand's core in a nutshell.
More on this: If you’ve ever worked with sales people, telling an elevator pitch is probably second nature to them. You can picture yourself giving one: there you find yourself in an elevator ride with a prospect who wants to know what you do. So, you deliver your 30 second or less elevator pitch - a crisp, concise answer that gets them excited to work with you, all before the elevator dings and the doors open. This isn’t always written written anywhere in an actual brand book, but writing it is a great forcing function to understand your value and hone your message.
Section 4: Advanced elements of brand voice
Blank canvas for your brand: Crafting personas and language principles that resonate.
4.1 Defining brand persona
Question: How do we see ourselves?
What it is: A brand persona is a character that embodies your brand, aiding your marketing team in maintaining a consistent voice. Building this will help you and your team get into the right head space to write and market from your brand, giving it a personal authenticity it might not otherwise have.
Example: a wellness brand might adopt the persona of “your best friend with healing hands.”
4.2 Language principles
Question: What is our style of writing?
What it is: This is about the nitty-gritty of your brand's communication style, including the use of emojis, abbreviations, and capitalizations.
More on this: While this tends to be essential for larger teams to ensure consistency across various channels, if you are the solo writer for your business, or haven’t had consistency issues in the past across your staff in terms of writing style, this one probably won’t apply to you.
Section 5: Customer profiles in healthcare marketing
Question: “Who are talking to?”
Understanding who your audience is - and isn’t - critical in healthcare marketing. Whether it’s marketing for wellness, dentists, or therapists, having a clear picture of who you’re communicating with helps tailor your brand voice to meet their specific needs and expectations.
More on this: one important thing to note is that it’s okay to not be for everyone.
Conclusion: Elevating your brand in healthcare
A distinctive brand voice is vital in the healthcare and holistic health industry. Whether it's for dentists, therapists, massage therapists, yoga centers or any other healing place, the way you communicate defines your brand's essence and connects deeply with your audience. Finding your brand enables more than marketing – it will help you forge genuine relationships with your clients (and staff, if applicable) and tell stories that resonate.
Your journey in shaping this voice involves understanding and reflecting the values and needs of those you serve. It’s in the nuances of your message, the authenticity of your promise, and the clarity of your vision. I should also mention this blog would pair well with our blog about logo design if you’re just starting out defining your brand (or want to re-define it). Don’t hesitate to check out, “Design a logo that will make your holistic practice shine!”
I hope you’re able to take these insights, blend them with your unique perspective, and step forward with a brand voice that truly represents the heart of your healthcare mission. Here's to creating a voice that speaks volumes in the world of healthcare!