The sound makes the music – as in the concert hall, so also in marketing. Because the tonality of your company largely determines how it is perceived by your target group.
This perception is immensely important when it comes to issues such as brand awareness, image, customer loyalty, and simple sales.
It is accordingly important that you actively deal with the topic of tonality. This is the only way to ensure that your company really addresses the target group. We explain to you what you have to pay attention to.
What does tonality mean?
The term tonality actually comes from music. Duden describes “any relationship between tones, sounds, and chords”. A few years ago, the term was also adapted by marketing.
Here it refers to the interaction between mood, speech, and corporate identity. Overall, it’s about how the company speaks and sounds publicly.
Since in times of online shopping the read words on websites & Co. – and thus the tonality – are often the only impression of a company, it is particularly important to develop this with the appropriate care.
Under no circumstances should you just let your tonality happen. Instead, you have to think about it and invest time. Because this topic can be an important lever for conversion optimization and the entire image of your company if played out correctly.
7 questions to design your tonality
1. Who is your target group?
Every form of corporate communication is targeted. Whether you publish a press release, a product text, or an advice article – you always want to address people.
Therefore, before developing the tonality, you always have to get to know your target group first. Ideally, you have already carried out a target group analysis in the course of product or service development.
You can now build on this analysis. If you have not yet conducted a survey about your target group, now is the time at the latest. Because you can only express yourself appropriately if you know who you are writing for.
Here is also a common misconception: Many companies still communicate from above and impose their language on the target group. However, such an approach is no longer up-to-date.
Instead, you should understand that any form of corporate communication must be based on the target group. This is the only way for you to really reach, convince and retain this target group.
2. What kind of product or service do you offer?
We humans expect different behavior from different industries. A manufacturer of vegan smoothies can e.g. B. speak casually. However, when a financial adviser or funeral director tries to reach us in the same language, we feel uncomfortable.
This is simply because of the Expectations. Your target group associates certain attributes with your product or your industry. Accordingly, it makes sense to be aware of it.
To analyze which values and attributes people associate with your product or service or industry. You can do this e.g. B. through market research and surveys.
Then you have the choice: Do you fit into these expectations? Or do you consciously dare a break, at the risk of possibly causing irritation?
Because these expectations are not a rule. You don’t have to act exactly as the target group expects. That would be boring in the long run and can lead to your company being lost in the crowd.
Nevertheless, it is important to be aware of these expectations and the limits and rules associated with them. This is the only way you can weigh up whether you want to risk potentially exceeding your tonality.
3. What kind of person would your company be?
Role-playing and mind games can often help to develop tonality. In the course of a workshop, you should therefore ask yourself the question: What kind of person would your company be?
From this question, develop a Characteristic. Similar to a persona, you put together all the relevant dimensions of your company:
Demography & Socioeconomics: personal key data (age, origin, gender), life situation (education, job, income, place of residence)…
Beings & Life: values, preferences, hobbies, lifestyle, psychological patterns
If you wish, you can also find a relevant photo or paint a portrait to further illustrate the person to visualize. It is important that you develop a clear idea of who your company is.
Because this big picture is the perfect basis for developing how your company would speak. After all, experts can derive factors such as socialization, education, and consumption from our language alone. You just go the other way around.
Example: The company that has characterized you as an honest artisan would never use the same vocabulary and language as a company that has portrayed you as an intellectual professor.
Of course, this does not mean that one of the two companies is better or worse. It’s just about being honest about who your company is and how it might speak.
4. What makes your company special?
Every company is unique. Because even if products and services may be the same, behind every company there are different people with different motivations, emotions, and values.
The Golden Circle can help you work your way deeper and deeper into your business. In doing so, they break through the layers of what and how to get to the core – the why.
This is why is essential to develop your tonality. After all, this is the core of the company, which should resonate in any form of communication.
Based on this way, you can then word cloud or Develop a mind map. Here you integrate all terms and values that you and your employees associate with your company.
In the end, there is a large collection of terms that make up your company – and thus shape your tonality.
5. How do you classify your company?
Another way to develop the tonality is the Rating dimensions on which you classify your company. To do this, you and other decision-makers note where you see your company on the following scales from 1-10:
- relaxed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 serious
- emotional 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 rational
- exciting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 safe
- picturesque 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 sober
- pictorial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Clear
An important question nowadays is e.g. B. the gender. Here you have to think about how you want to position yourself as a company and which form you want to use (e.g. generic masculine, alias, internal I, gender asterisk, colon, underscore …).
You have to clarify and record all of these linguistic peculiarities. Only in this way is it possible for your entire communication to appear as if it were made of one piece.
7. How do you adapt to different channels?
Different channels each have their own logic. Especially with social media, the tonality often differs greatly from that of websites, newsletters, or advertising media.
Accordingly, when developing your tonality, you have to think about the extent to which you want to customize the different channels.
So it can e.g. For example, it makes sense to switch to a casual you on channels such as Instagram or Facebook and generally be more relaxed when addressing yourself.
Ultimately, you simply have to weigh up which channels you want to use, who you can reach and how you can convey your message to these people in the best possible way.
Tonality found? Then create your Corporate Manual
Documentation is the be-all and end-all. With a summarizing Corporate Manual, you can bundle all findings and decisions and thus make them easily accessible.
This is often The topic of tonality is also bundled with other topics such as imagery in a large pamphlet on corporate identity. As a result, you have compiled all the relevant information for your external presentation in one place.
Such a corporate manual not only helps to enable comparison with the desired speech. At the same time, it also supports new employees with their entry.
In short: The Corporate Manual is the final product that results from all your considerations. Don’t have one yet? Then it is high time that you determine your tonality precisely. It’s best to start right away…
