Brand Voice fundamentals in small business copywriting: Part 1

Hello, hello.

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Welcome to the place for offbeat

health professionals who have

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bravely swapped their health care

hats for non clinical creative caps.

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I'm Caitlin, a psychologist

turned copywriter, and this

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is Healers with Hustles.

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Hey, hey healers.

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So today I'm, as always super excited to

be sharing, another episode, but today

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I'm talking about brand voice, which is

one of my favorite things in copywriting.

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I thought I'd start off by giving a

few examples of brand voice, because

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examples are always one of the best

things to understand something, right?

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So I rewrote that Welcoming sentence

in three different brand voices.

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So the first one is what up

healers buckle up because today I'm

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dishing the dirt on brand voice and

challenging a few myths along the way.

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I'll be tearing down the old rules

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are you with me?

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The second one, Namaste healers.

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Today, I'm profoundly excited

to share an episode on the

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true essence of brand voice.

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Let us bear witness to some lightening

exploration as always with joy and light.

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And the third one.

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Hello healers.

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Today we're covering brand voice.

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I'll break it down and make

it easier to understand.

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Let's get started.

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All right.

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So four totally different voices.

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But what is brand voice?

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Brand voice is made up of three things.

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The words we use, or

as I say, phraseology.

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So do we use complex words?

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We use simple words.

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We use made up words.

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And the second one is tone

or attitude as I call it.

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So that's the emotion

that's in the voice.

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What does the writing make people

feel and what emotion is the writer

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or the brand trying to evoke?

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And the cadence, or as I call it, beat.

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So the rhythm of the writing.

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Does the brand use very short,

sharp sentences or are they long,

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flowy sentences that lull the

reader into a bit of a trance

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and has a really soothing feel?

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And so altogether, I call that fab and

that's my brand voice framework and

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that's where I get my tagline from.

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So content as fab as you are,

we've identified what brand

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voice is, but what isn't it?

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So brand voice is sometimes

confused with brand personality.

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And they are two different things

because brand personality is

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the characteristics of trait.

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It's of a brand and brand voice

is how that brand expresses

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the personality in words.

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So someone will have a personal

brand or a company, two companies

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could have the same personality.

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So for instance, a lot of branding

uses, the Jungian archetypes,

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so a brand could have the same

personality or archetype, but express

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that in totally different ways.

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So for example, an example I always

use is, Yoda and the Cheshire cat is

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both a sage personality archetype,

but how they express that personality

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is wildly different, right?

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And next, why is brand voice important?

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Well, apart from the usual, well,

brand voice it's one of the easiest

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ways to stand out in an industry is

by sounding completely different.

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Or being recognized just

through your content.

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So for example, an exercise I like to show

people about the importance of brand voice

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is covering up all the visual elements

on a website and reading your content.

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Does it sound like anyone else's,

or does it sound like you?

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Could you easily put any of your

competitors logos up and you wouldn't

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be able to tell the difference?

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Or is how you write your content,

people will go, Oh my gosh,

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yeah, that's, that's Caitlin.

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That's for sure.

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That's her content.

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But another, important reason why I need

brand voice really ought to be documented

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for brands or particularly brands who

have other writers writing for them.

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So it's one thing for the founder

to be writing at the start and yeah,

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sure they'll write how they talk.

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And so it's a bit easier to

them to know because it might

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be exactly how they speak.

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That's not to say that fully documenting

the voice isn't helpful, but documenting

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the voice it's particularly helpful

when brands employ other writers to

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write for them because it takes a lot

of time and money to train people.

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And so documenting the voice

helps on boarding process.

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So saving oodles of time.

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And it also helps teams, when they

onboard new writers to be fully

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productive from the get go, rather than

maybe taking heaps of time to having

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to go back to the editor and then

the editor making changes or telling

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them that they need to make changes.

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It really speeds the process up.

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And then of course it helps with

productivity and consistency

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and makes hiring say freelancers

or contractors super easy.

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But moving on to the, the exciting

stuff, so what are the voices?

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So how I was trained in brand voice

was through brand voice Academy

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and we had the amazing Gill Hill

coming on in a few episodes time.

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And I'm also lined up, Justin

Blackman to have a bit of a chat

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with us as well, which I can't wait.

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There are nine brand voices and

people can be a combination of the

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voices, but really the nine voices

fall under in three categories.

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So there's the voices of authority who

lead with their expertise, the voices

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of accessibility, which really get down

on their readers or their audiences

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level, and then we've got the voices

of outlook, which lead with their

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outlook and how they view the world.

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And so one of the services that I offer,

probably one of my favorite services,

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because it's as close as therapy as

possible in the marketing world is,

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where we sort out different tones So

it's really focusing on the tone of

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voice, going through different tones

and working out how the brand wants to

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sound, how they don't want to sound.

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And then I do a little bit of what

I call voice math and work out what

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their primary, brand voices are.

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And often it's, an incredible workshop

because brands feel fully seen and they

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also have a lot of direction or clarity

in what type of content to make or

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what type of that content that audience

needs to hear from them, I thought

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I'd, give you something to think about

because I found this quite helpful.

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And this comes from, Justin Blackman

when you're thinking about what type of

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voice my brand should have think of your

audience, but then think of the brand

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voice being a mirror to your audience.

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And of course mirrors, it's

a reflection, right?

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So it should be the opposite of

how your audience is feeling.

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For instance, if your audience is feeling

really overwhelmed and doesn't know what

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they're doing or they're just totally

new to an area of having a voice that

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is very sure and authoritative and this

is the exact steps you need to take to

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get to this result will be very helpful.

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Or maybe your audience is really feeling

disillusioned and they're like, I can't

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stand what's happening in the industry.

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They're really down and out and they

just, they feel quite hopeless having a

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voice that maybe is the opposite of that.

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So something that's quite positive,

or potentially your audience might

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be feeling a little bit bored.

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or want something totally

different, or they want, really want

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something, someone that gets them.

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So maybe a voice that is all about that.

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It's about making content

relatable and funny and a bit

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silly, might be the way to go.

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So first think about what your audience

is experiencing and seeing if you

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can mirror that or opposite that.

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Beautiful.

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So today I hope that it's made you a

little bit curious and excited about

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brand voice, because I'll be talking

quite a bit about brand voice on this

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podcast, but that's a little bit of

a taster, but I have another part two

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of this where I'll run through all the

nine voice types and a little bit more

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detail and give some examples just so

you know what the heck I'm talking about.

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But thank you so much.

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Till next time.

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Alright, that's the

end of another episode.

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Thank you so much for tuning

in to Healers with Hustles.

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Okay, ta ta for now.