Brand Voice fundamentals in small business copywriting: Part 1

Today, I’m talking about brand voice, which is one of my favourite things in copywriting. 

Before we dive in, I’ll start by giving a few examples of Brand Voice because…

… examples are always one of the best things to understand something, right?

Below, I rewrote that welcoming sentence in three different brand voices. 

Voice 1 rewrite is:

 “What up, healers? Buckle up because today I’m dishing the dirt on brand voice and challenging a few myths along the way. I’ll be tearing down the old rules. Are you with me?”

Voice 2 rewrite: 

“Namaste, healers. Today, I’m profoundly excited to share an episode on the true essence of brand voice. Let us bear witness to some enlightening exploration as always with joy and light.”  

Voice 3 rewrite:

“Hello, healers. Today, we’re covering brand voice. I’ll break it down and make it easier to understand.”

So, altogether, that’s four different voices. 

Four different ways of conveying the same message.

But what is Brand Voice? 

Brand voice is made up of three things. 

1. The words we use, or as I say, phraseology. 

For example: Do we use complex words, do we use simple words, do we use made up words?

1. Tone or attitude as I call it. 

That’s the emotion that’s in the voice.
For example, what does the writing make people feel and what emotion is the writer or the brand trying to evoke? 

1. And lastly, the cadence, or as I call it, beat. So the rhythm of the writing.

Does the brand use very short, sharp sentences? Or are they long, flowy sentences that lull the reader into a bit of a trance and have a really soothing feeling?  

Altogether, I call that components that make up voice: F.A.B 

That’s my brand voice framework.

That’s where I get my tagline from. 

Content as FAB as you are.

We’ve identified what it is, but what isn’t it?

Brand Voice is sometimes confused with Brand Personality. 

They are two different things.

Brand personality is the characteristics or traits of a brand. Brand voice is how that brand expresses the personality in words.

Two companies could have the same personality. (But express their personality in two different ways using voice.)

So, for instance, a lot of branding uses Jungian archetypes. 

Two brands could have the same personality or archetype, but express that in two totally different ways.

For example, the Yoda and the Cheshire Cat are both a sage personality archetype. But how they express that personality is wildly different. Right?

Why is Brand Voice important? 

Brand voice is one of the easiest ways to stand out in an industry. So, sounding completely different or being recognised just through how your content sounds.

For example, an exercise I like to show people about the importance of brand voice is:

• Cover up all the visual elements on a website and read your content.
• Does it sound like anyone else’s, or does it sound like you? 
• Could you easily put any of your competitors’ logos up and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference? 
• Or how you write your content, will it make people go “Oh my gosh, that’s Caitlin. That’s for sure her content.” 

Another important reason why brand voice really ought to be documented?

Brands who have other writers writing for them…

…it’s one thing for the founder to be writing at the start, as they’ll write how they talk. It’s a bit easier for them to know because it might be exactly how they speak. 

Documenting brand voice is particularly helpful when brands employ other writers to write for them because it takes a lot of time and money to train people. And so documenting the voice helps the onboarding process. 

It also helps teams to be fully productive from the get-go, rather than taking heaps of time to have to go back to the editor and then the editor making changes or telling them that they need to make changes.

And then, of course, it helps with productivity and consistency and makes hiring freelancers or contractors super easy. 

Moving on to the exciting stuff–so what are the voices?

I was trained in brand voice through Brand Voice Academy, and we have the amazing Gill Hill coming on in a few episodes’ time. (I’ve also lined up Justin Blackman to chat with us, which I can’t wait for.)

There are nine brand voices, and yes, people can be a combination of these voices.

The nine voices fall into three categories:

Voices of Authority – Lead with their expertise.

Voices of Accessibility – Get down on their readers’ or audience’s level.

Voices of Outlook – Lead with their outlook and how they view the world

How to find a brand’s brand voice?

One of the services that I offer, probably one of my favourite services, because it’s as close to therapy as possible in the marketing world, is where we sort out different tones.

Focusing on the tone of voice, going through different tones, and working out how the brand wants to sound, and also how they don’t want to sound.

I then do a little bit of what I call voice maths and work out what their primary brand voices. 

Often it’s an incredible workshop because brands feel fully seen and they also have a lot of direction or clarity in what type of content to make or what type of content the audience needs to hear from them.

What can you do today to identify your brand voice?

I thought I’d give you something to think about because I found this quite helpful when I heard it. This comes from Justin Blackman. 

• When you’re thinking about what type of voice your brand should have, think of your audience, but then think of the brand voice being a mirror to your audience. 

Mirrors reflect, right?

Voice (in most cases) should be the opposite of how your audience is feeling.

For instance, if your audience feels overwhelmed and unsure, having a voice that is very sure and authoritative will be helpful.

If your audience feels disillusioned and hopeless, a positive and optimistic voice might be the way to go.

If your audience is bored or wants something different, a relatable, funny, and slightly silly voice might be ideal.

Think about what your audience is experiencing and see if you can mirror that or provide the opposite.

I hope this episode has made you curious and excited about brand voice.

In part two, I’ll run through all nine voice types in more detail and give some examples to clarify what I’m talking about.

Thank you so much.

‘Till next time.