I’ll be honest with you, Reader.
I don’t have the mental capacity to digest long form content right now. Do you?
That’s my State of the Union. 🫠
So, rather than telling you how the other day I took myself clothes shopping and discovered every store I went into had a self-checkout, including a self-service security tag remover, thus leading to the realization that 100 people must have lost their job thanks to this technology…
…and then trying to connect this to brand messaging and copywriting in some roundabout way…
I will instead tell you one cool thing I’m doing in my business that might help you in yours.
Then, I’ll give you a quick dopamine hit by dazzling you with a picture of me living my temporary expat life in the UK.
Sound good?
K, I create killer Brand Voice & Messaging decks for my clients, right?
If you follow me on LinkedIn, you may have seen me post that the #1 most requested brand voice attribute by clients in 2024 was “witty”.
Given that I market myself as a “conversational copywriter, " I get it. I'm the right contractor for their needs.
But what does “witty” mean for an executive coach vs. a healthtech startup vs. a multi-national co-working corporation vs. a global textile manufacturer selling sun shades?
You see what I mean?
There is a lot of nuance and cultural connotations behind a word. (Especially when it comes to humor.)
But a word without context has no soul and no power.
→ That’s why I never give my clients a list of brand personality traits or a bulleted list of voice characteristics without describing what that word means to their brand.
→ And why I recently, I started taking this exercise a step further…
I’ve added a slide to my messaging decks that “personifies” the brand.
If brand X were a person, they’d be the type of person who…:
- Looks forward to...
- Cares about...
- Prioritizes...
- Notices...
- Is intrigued by...
- Loves to...
- Relishes in...
- Is turned off by...
- Creates...
- Believes...
I take these prompts and write my answers in a paragraph format, like I'm telling a story in the brand's tone of voice.
What I love about this is it roots the idea of a brand into something tangible.
The whole idea of a brand is to be a reflection of your target audience (or your audience’s most aspirational version of themselves.)
Remember when you were a kid and you and your friends would try to determine if you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?
It’s like that, except you’re saying the quiet parts out loud. You’re a fox/cat/narwhal because XYZ.
This is something I’ve started doing to make it easier for my clients or their teams to absorb this information and apply their newly articulated brand voice to their content & copy going forward.
Try this out with your brand or the clients you write for and feel free to send me what you got! I would LOVE to see how this works in others' practice.
UK photos incoming,