Your verbal identity is the way your organisation speaks, both in writing and in person. Your slogans, website copy, brochure copy, emails, signage, phone greetings, even your organisation’s name… all those words come together to create a sense of who you are. 

In fact, your verbal identity is one of the 3 main pillars of your brand, together with your visuals and your culture. 

Your verbal identity includes what you say: the story you’re telling the world about what you stand for and the difference you make. But it also includes how you say it. Do you sound funny or serious? Careful or surprising? Intellectual or true blue Aussie? All these choices affect what kind of customers you attract (or deter), and what they expect of you.

Sondo’s a creative branding agency who has developed standout verbal identities for market leaders. We’ll craft the perfect messages and tone of voice to shape a distinct, resonant identity for your business. We’ll help you tell a story that sets you apart from competitors and grows a deeper emotional connection with your customers.

As part of the branding project, we can give you all the essentials you need for a compelling verbal identity you can roll into your marketing immediately, and which you can maintain on brand long after the branding project is completed. 

The exact elements for your business will depend on your need and budget. We’ll talk it all over with you well before you make any commitments. But some common verbal brand elements we create include:

• Business or product names;
• Brand story or manifesto;
• Slogan or master line;
• Key messages;
• Short and long “About Us” descriptions; and
• Tone of voice guidelines.

Of course, most businesses write a huge amount of content across the organisation. Emails, phone scripts, brochures, websites, signage… the list goes on and on. And you’ll keep writing new content long after the branding project is completed. So when we create the brand, it’s not possible for us to draft every single piece of content you need.

But we do the next best thing.

As part of the brand deliverables, Sondo gives you a messaging kit that sets out the preferred way your business explains the most essential elements of your business proposition: what kind of organisation you are, what problem you solve for customers, and how you do it differently from your competitors.

We call these your “key messages”. 

These key messages can be used on their own, or mixed and matched with each other (or with new content) to say different things about your business, depending on your need. Think of them like premium cooking ingredients. You can blend them in different ways, to create different dishes.

We’ll usually create 6-12 key messages for a brand, depending on budget. And we’ll create a short and long “About Us” description of your business, using some of those key messages.     

Of course, if you do want us to write other assets for you, like your refreshed website or brochures, we’re happy to do that too!

The Key Messages we give you during the brand project will give you great reference and inspiration for how to write other brand content in the future. But we can give you extra help to do this, by creating “Tone of Voice Guidelines” for you.

These are simple tips for how to write in the “voice” of your brand. They generally include things like:

• A reminder of your brand’s personality attributes;
• A list of words you do and don’t use;
• A description of the kind of mood your brand tries to maintain in its communications;
• Simple vocab and grammar tips – like does your brand use contractions for a casual feel? 
• Guidance of how your brand voice might be different in different circumstances – eg how you talk on Instagram might be different from how you talk in a catalogue or how you respond to a complaint.

We can even include example collateral, such as a sample social media post and EDM, for extra clarification.

By sharing your Tone of Voice Guidelines with anyone who writes for your business, you make it simple for everyone to stay on brand.

Absolutely. We have a flexible creative structure and can integrate your team into our process to develop the brand together. 

Of course, for your brand to be most effective, it’s essential your brand messages are consistent with the brand personality and brand story that we develop to steer our design of your brand visuals and culture. But we can provide these foundational documents to your writers to guide their work. 

We’re also happy to review initial drafts of internally-created messages and provide feedback, to ensure they are on brand and telling the right story.