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Letter #72: How to stick with your brand voice
Expert tips on getting your team to create content in a cohesive voice
Hey, you!
I’m going to have to ask you to imagine a couple of folks today.
First: Bubbles from the Power Puff Girls (does her voice and way of talking play in your head?)
Second: Joe Goldberg from You
And third: Wednesday Addams
(If you’re not familiar with any of these — go ahead and picture your favorite characters over the years).
Know what comes to mind instantly? Their unique voice.
In fact, if I could send you a recording of their voices without telling them their names, you’d recognize them anywhere, isn’t it?
That is the type of (highly recognized and distinct) voice that your SaaS brand needs as well 🎯
But creating a brand voice guideline is only one part of the problem. The other: getting everyone to stick to that brand voice.
Tough one, I admit. But that’s exactly why we have Marketing Consultant, Erika Heald, with us today.
As is the alternate Tuesday usual, I asked our expert the following 3 questions:
A mistake Erika made when encouraging teams to stick with a cohesive brand voice
An actionable tip to get you one step closer to consistently using your brand voice
And a secret tip to effectively get everyone to stick with the damn voice (!)
But first: define your brand voice characteristics (if you already haven’t).
Erika shares:
“I recommend brand leaders start by looking at their brand identity and their brand values and identify 3-5 related words that describe how that brand personality shows up in content creation. It’s important not to attempt to document more characteristics than that because you want a consistent, cohesive voice.”
“If you have conflicting opinions on what characteristics to follow, it helps to identify one or two leaders — such as the head of marketing or the content lead — to have the final say.
“Once you have the characteristics defined, document what that attribute means when it comes to content, and then your do’s and don’ts [in a brand voice chart].”
Here’s an example brand voice chart:
More on creating a brand voice: Expert tips on documenting your brand voice.
Now for the tips:
👉 Learn from Erika’s mistake: Don’t just tell, show what the right voice is.”
“[…] Define how a specific brand attribute shows itself in the voice application.” Erika shares she’s mastered this over time.
“One of my first brand voice charts had a voice characteristic — irreverent — that was aspirational at best. Most people struggle to take an irreverent approach that doesn’t devolve into snarkiness. And most of the time, content that had an irreverent voice got kicked back for a rewrite.”
The problem there? “It really shouldn’t have gotten in there without an example of when and how it could be applied.”
👉 Do this today: Share examples of content that captures the voice correctly.
“If you are documenting an existing brand’s voice, link out to those fantastic examples from your own content that embody that voice characteristic. It makes the writer’s job much easier to see first-hand some content that reflects the voice characteristic in the way you intend.”
👉 The secret tip to hiring better content folks: Compare examples of content correctly embodying your brand voice with those that don’t.
“After you have the session where you define and document the voice chart, it’s important to have a meeting where you share it with all the people who create content in the organization and go through examples of content that reflects the desired voice and compare those examples with others that do not.”
“It’s also critical to get the voice chart added to your content style guide, brand guide, creative briefs, writing templates, etc., so it is always top of mind,” Erika adds.
So today’s takeaways:
Limit your brand voice characteristics to 3-5 to make them stickable
Be specific about what your brand voice is with examples
Compare examples of content that captures your voice with those that don't
That’s all for this week fellas.
Cheers,
Masooma
P.S. Noticed over 90+ new sign-ups in the past few days so a quick (goofy-excited) hii 👋 And a short intro: I’m Masooma, an avid reader and freelance content marketer for B2B SaaS brands like Shopify, Calendly, and Zapier.
My newsletter made it to FORBES’ must-read marketing newsletter list so it’s safe to say: you’re in a good place 🥳 Hit reply and tell me about yourself!
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At times Homer Simpson shares some surprising insights. Almost anything in that voice makes an impression. Darth Vader is another. Lucy Lawless rounds out my top 3.