Let’s start with the obvious: You’re not Pepsi, and you’re not Apple. While you can certainly learn a lot about branding from the world’s most well-known companies that have been perfecting their approach for decades, at the end of the day, you’re still you.

When it comes to building a brand, you need to start with defining exactly what your brand represents and who you’re going to be before rushing out to engage with the masses. This process begins by establishing a clear brand voice you’ll use to communicate with your audience.

As the size of your team grows, you’ll naturally have more employees interfacing with customers, answering emails, picking up the phone, writing for your blog and sharing on your social media channels. Over time, you can quickly accumulate a variety of different voices and tones across all the content and conversations taking place in your marketing efforts if you’re not careful. Here are three tips with inspiration from well-known companies that can help you successfully develop your brand voice:

1. Think about who you want to be.

Your brand voice is about being consistent with your conversation style, online interactions and the tone your company uses with the rest of the world. Do you want your brand to be remembered as thoughtful and thorough? Sophisticated and straight to the point? You need to first understand your target audience and their preferences. Are they looking for an authoritative voice or a casual conversation? Are there industry or cultural influences that come into play?

For instance, Taiwanese consumers value cleverness over straightforwardness according to Millward Brown’s “Why Brand Personality Matters” study. The goal of having a clearly defined brand voice is to build trust and position yourself as a recognizable authority within your industry.

While Intel’s Twitter account provides educational and thought-provoking updates around the impact of technology, Target is more playful and sociable, engaging customers with relatable anecdotes.

Ask yourself these questions to start cultivating your brand voice:

• Do you want your brand to be witty and use humor? How often?

• Is your communication style formal, friendly or somewhere in between?

• Do you go for in-depth conversations or favor brevity?

• Will you use a wide vocabulary or keep it simple?

2. Be different.

Emphasizing a unique brand voice can differentiate your brand, strengthening or undermining your competitive position. That’s why you need to define a brand voice that provides a consistent image of who your company is, what you stand for and the conversation style you use—all the way through to using uniform language and phrases.

In an industry that was constantly cutting amenities and increasing fees, JetBlue made airline travel fun with the simple pleasures of extra legroom and free snacks. What really set them apart, however, was their whimsical brand voice that humanized the brand.  

Apple simplified technology with their user-friendly interface and exceptional customer service. Their approachable brand voice extends to their employees who are very technically literate and well-trained at communicating sometimes complex issues to anyone. Plus, when you take a broken product into an Apple store, they’re quick to offer you a loaner while they assess the issue or replace your broken device without asking too many questions.

Ask yourself these questions to identify areas to stand out:

• In which areas do my competitors excel and where do they fall flat?

• What are my customers most satisfied with and how are their needs unmet?

• Is there a different way for customers to experience my product or service?

• Can I specialize or break the traditional mold in any way?

Once you’ve solidified a clear picture of the brand voice and tone you want to convey, you need to make sure your team understands your communication goals and can translate them into real-world action.

3. Get everyone on the same page.

Help your team by creating a series of guideline statements that describe your brand’s reaction to situations your employees will encounter while acting as your brand. A recent survey by SDL Group revealed that 60 percent of millennials expect a consistent voice across a brand’s website, in-store and on the phone.

For example, the statement, “Be proactive, take a contrarian standpoint, but remain respectful of the challenge they’re facing,” would help your customer service or sales team stay on brand during their interactions with customers who are experiencing problems with your product or service.

You may also instruct your team to play up or play down the voice depending on the scenario. Zappos’ brand voice is infused with humor. When you call their customer service, you can even “press five for the joke of the day.” However, when helping callers with customer service issues, employees are helpful and personable instead of trying too hard to make customers laugh.

Ask yourself these questions to standardize your brand voice:

• Do we have brand voice guidelines in place?

• Have we communicated these guidelines to everyone?

• Do we need to update our existing marketing materials?

• Do we have a future-looking plan to improve our brand voice?

Finding your brand voice should be a fun, collaborative process with your team. And of course, keep an open mind—over time, your brand voice will adapt, grow and change along with your company.

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Ryan Robinson is an entrepreneur, content marketing consultant and writer for Vistaprint.com. His work has been published in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider and his own blog, ryrob.com, where you can learn how to start a profitable side business. For more advice to help you stand out from the competition and other marketing insights, visit Vistaprint’s Ideas & Advice hub. Connect with Ryan on Twitter @TheRyanRobinson