Your brand voice
When a potential customer discovers you for the first time they'll experience your brand and its voice, from here you are instantly judged, for better or worse.
As we're taught to not 'judge a book by its cover' this opening line may seem counterintuitive or inaccurate, however, allow me to elaborate. The reason is that the judgement is made instantly and subconsciously, there are many factors for this and the scope of this post is not to delve into deep psychology, but it is useful to know that this is based on their past experiences and belief
Now does this put you in a place or instant love, immediate hate or somewhere on that ficticious fence they are said to be on?
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness
How your brand is heard or understood
The prospect will be looking at everything within your brand voice to make their assessment so it's important to make sure you are heard for what it is you value, stand for and can help them with.
Doing this can make your message, brand and flavour come across in the wrong way, seeming inauthentic, being misinterpreted or so far off the mark from where you want to be the confusion can alienate your ideal prospects. Leaving them feeling let down, lost and potentially wandering into the hands of your competitors.
Now, we don't want that do we?!
Not when you've worked on your ideas, concepts and how you're able to help people
Establishing your voice
Ok so how exactly do we find what your brand voice is?
An element of experimentation does come into play here, whether that's down to you sifting through the thesaurus at home along with some brainstorming and working through the possible combinations until you strike on one that hits the spot perfectly.
Or you could pay someone, such as myself, to work through the creative ideas and distill them down to teh perfct message, tone and voice that resonates with your ethos, ideas and visions.
Each creative will have their own 'secret sauce;' and methodology when it comes to this.
Don't be afraid to test & refine your brand message
Settlign on the first idea out of your head can be counterproductive here, sure it might be an excellent one that drifted into your peripheral whilst cold showering for 15 minutes at 5 am.
But let's be honest here, in life, there is always room for improvement and teh next level.
If you're the type of person that likes settling, then this first draft may well suit you down to a tee.
No judgement if that is YOU, but most likely you should probably save your time reading this as the information probably won't be taken on board anyways.
Continual testing and looking for ways to improve should be on your radar, not settling till you are happy, and then asking others who are suitably qualified to then provide constructive criticism.
When do you know you've nailed the brand voice?
Feedback is essential here, both direct and non-direct.
Remember most people aren't necessarily that vocal, especially to your face, so will often hold in their true thoughts or feelings for fear of upsetting you.
If you have customers flocking to you in their droves, that is one sure way to tell that something has gone right here.
also hearing people say things such as ' it's like you knew exactly what i needed' or 'that the message resonated with me so perfectly'