How to master your brand tone (and why you need to) | Ep. 47 Content Magic with Lindsay Smith

In today's solo episode, I'm giving you some tangible tips for determining your brand voice or brand tone.

I'm chatting about how your brand mission and values influence your brand voice, as well as your unique selling proposition (USP). It's also super important to maintain that same brand voice across all platforms and marketing.

Remember, if you're a personal brand, your brand voice is simply how you speak! I share a few ways to figure this out.

Finally, I share some news about the FREE Content Genius Bootcamp. We get started September 30th and it's going to be amazing!

04:42 Importance of defining brand values for businesses.
09:45 Empowering women to confidently take up space.
12:34 Embrace uniqueness; solve problems; differentiate from competition.
13:44 Discover your unique brand voice and qualities.
8:56 Consistency in communication across all platforms reduces stress.
21:00 Build brand voice in free 10-day training.

Lindsay [00:00:00]:
My two cent on this from a copy and content perspective, is that your brand tone?

Lindsay [00:00:09]:
I would strongly recommend I hate the.

Lindsay [00:00:12]:
Word should that it be insistent across all platforms.

Lindsay [00:00:18]:
If you have an online business, you're creating content. And the way you create content is more important than ever.

Lindsay [00:00:25]:
It's really noisy out there, and learning.

Lindsay [00:00:27]:
To stand out is the only way. Hey, I'm Lindsey and I'm the host of the content Magic podcast, all about being an entrepreneur and creating kick ass content to market yourself and your business. I have a not so secret superpower for copywriting, marketing and content, and I've helped hundreds of folks just like you show up with a ton of confidence in the online space. I've been doing this content thing for 20 years, and I believe the real magic is a combo of intuition, creativity, and strategy. You can create content for your business without losing your mind, I promise. So tune in every week for tangible content tips, inspiring guests, and some real spicy opinions. Probably mine.

Lindsay [00:01:11]:
Ready to dive in? Let's go. Well, hello, friends, and welcome back to content magic. I'm your host, Lindsay Smith, and today I want to chat with you about.

Lindsay [00:01:23]:
Brand voice or brand tone.

Lindsay [00:01:26]:
This is something that various people have asked me about, including my own clients.

Lindsay [00:01:35]:
Both.

Lindsay [00:01:38]:
To explain what it actually means and how to achieve it. So in my work as a copywriter, both working full time in advertising and the past ten years working for myself, one of the tougher parts or. Well, I mean, it's not hard for me anymore, but I think it, the most important part of my job is making sure that I assume the proper brand tone for whoever I'm working on behalf of. So when I was working full time, let's say, you know, my client was L'Oreal or Red Bull or, you know, adidas, anything I was writing on behalf of that client, whether it was a script or a yemenite, Facebook ad or web copy, whatever it is, I know what my own brand tone is. I know how I write.

Lindsay [00:02:34]:
However, doing it on behalf of somebody.

Lindsay [00:02:36]:
Else, you have to make sure you sound like that person. So it's one thing to do it for a big brand, and it's another thing to do it for my own personal copywriting clients. You know, one of the last projects.

Lindsay [00:02:49]:
I worked on was a sales page.

Lindsay [00:02:51]:
And so, and especially if it's a.

Lindsay [00:02:53]:
Personal brand, like usually small business owners.

Lindsay [00:02:56]:
When they come to me, it's like they're the face of their business, right? So determining what their brand tone is, making sure that whatever it is that I write for them, it has to sound like it's them speaking or them writing. So that's, so let's define what sort of, what brand, tone and voice is. It's essentially like, if you get my emails, you'll know, like, you know, it's from me. Well, one, I'm in the subject. Like it says, it's from Lindsay Smith. But also the way I write, it's very witty, it's very friendly, it's super approachable. Everything I write, especially in my emails.

Lindsay [00:03:41]:
For example, is very digestible.

Lindsay [00:03:43]:
Like, you kind of get in and get out. You know, if you look at my website, again, I use, like, words and.

Lindsay [00:03:50]:
Terms that I use in real life, because, again, I am a personal brand.

Lindsay [00:03:54]:
I represent Lindsey Smith creative. It's me. So I write how I speak, what I'm writing down in any part of my digital marketing, even, you know, even something I post on Instagram or in threads, I sound like myself. You know, if you go and look now at my Instagram also Lizzie Smith creative, you'll see a lot of my captions start out with listen or so, because I start a lot of my sentence with so. Right, like, that's how I speak.

Lindsay [00:04:29]:
So if I were to define my.

Lindsay [00:04:30]:
Brand tone, like, witty, friendly, approachable, definitely. And also I would add, like, digestible in there, which is not really like.

Lindsay [00:04:41]:
A brand tone characteristic.

Lindsay [00:04:42]:
But I would say that, you know, from a copy perspective, that's what I aim for. And so to determine your own brand tone. So I think something we talk a lot about on this podcast is your brand values and your mission. So I think this is a missed step, especially with people who are newer to the online space or newer to the small business space, which, to be fair, listen, I freelanced for ages, so I was not like an official company or anything. I didn't have brand values. When I was freelancing, I had a random, put a random website up on Squarespace, and I threw up a bunch of random logos of all the clients I had. That was not something I thought about until I made an official company. So your brand values, and again, these are things like, the other term for.

Lindsay [00:05:41]:
This is like, what do you stand for?

Lindsay [00:05:44]:
And sometimes it takes a minute to figure this out. For example, I stand for transparency. I stand for authenticity, and I stand for approachability. Meaning like an accessibility, meaning like, what you see is what you get. Like Lindsey Smith Creative and Lindsay Smith.

Lindsay [00:06:06]:
Is the same thing. There's no disconnect between what you see.

Lindsay [00:06:10]:
Online and what, what is happening right here sitting at my desk every single day. And I think my mission has always been, since I sort of became an official company, the mission has always been to encourage women to use their voices in the online space. That's really what it comes down to. Yes, of course I do this through various different ways, but that has always been my mission. Like, you have a voice and it deserves to be heard. That's really what it comes down to. So if you have not yet determined.

Lindsay [00:06:48]:
Your brand values, it's going to be.

Lindsay [00:06:50]:
Very hard to figure out what your brand voice is. And sometimes brand values come about as you experience some sort of like resistance in your business somewhere. Like either you kind of, you have a client that did what? Like it? What didn't go well, the project didn't go well, or the service didn't go well, or it was just like a yucky exchange, and then you're like, huh? So sometimes you have to kind of experience some sort of resistance to lead you down to figure out like, okay, this is what I stand for and it's not this. So that has been my experience over.

Lindsay [00:07:32]:
The past ten years of working for myself.

Lindsay [00:07:34]:
Sometimes it takes like realizing or being put into a position that you're like, oh, how did I get to this spot? Whether it's a yucky experience with a client, a yucky experience with some sort of mentor or a contractor or whatever it is, sometimes it takes that yucky experience to push you in the other direction. And then you're like, huh?

Lindsay [00:08:04]:
Sometimes I think brand values have to.

Lindsay [00:08:06]:
Do with our, our boundaries. And your mission, of course, is like.

Lindsay [00:08:12]:
Why did you even start this business?

Lindsay [00:08:15]:
Why?

Lindsay [00:08:15]:
What is it that you want to do? And I'm going to guess you are.

Lindsay [00:08:21]:
Doing this because you have a smartitude of some kind and you want to help others with that smartitude.

Lindsay [00:08:30]:
This is why most of us start.

Lindsay [00:08:33]:
Any type of business. We saw something missing and we were like, wait, I have this smartitude or this training or this university degree, whatever it is, and I want to go out into the world and help people solve this issue. I know, that's why I started. I mean, the reason I started freelancing was because I was laid off from my job. I became a yoga teacher. Then I had kids, and going back to full time advertising was not sustainable with the costs of daycare. I was offered a full time job when my second child turned one years old. And doing the math and figuring out.

Lindsay [00:09:23]:
What my take home pay was was ridiculous.

Lindsay [00:09:27]:
So I was like, huh, I can.

Lindsay [00:09:28]:
Pretty sure I can do this on my own.

Lindsay [00:09:30]:
So that's what started me down that path. But when, you know, I really sat down with it, I was like, I looked back at all of my experience and put it together in a package, and I was like, you know what?

Lindsay [00:09:44]:
This is what I'm really good at.

Lindsay [00:09:45]:
This is, this is what I have real experience, real expertise in this. And if I were to start a business, it would be because I've met so many other people, so many other women who are, like, scared to take up space. So as somebody who is kind of loud, I want to give other women the permission to also be loud. So that's where it came from. And you probably have a different story of how you got to your mission and also your brand values and your mission can change. They can change and they can, you know, I don't think you're going to do a complete 180, but with more experience, you will start to, those things will become clearer. Also, don't do the work as you're listening to this, unless you're in the car, then don't take out your notebook, but don't do the work of. Just, like, thinking about it.

Lindsay [00:10:40]:
I want you to write down, what.

Lindsay [00:10:42]:
Do I stand for?

Lindsay [00:10:44]:
And then answer that question with, like, three or four things. Okay. So the other thing that will help you determine your brand tone is your unique selling proposition or your USP. So. And the way I talk about this is, like, what makes you a little bit weird? Because I would say any small business owner or online entrepreneur, we all started.

Lindsay [00:11:10]:
This thing because we're a little bit.

Lindsay [00:11:12]:
Weird and we rejected the status quo. And so even if, you know, you have a full time job or your part time job or your small business is a side gig right now, or it's combined with a part time job.

Lindsay [00:11:30]:
I'm going to guess that.

Lindsay [00:11:33]:
You just can't give it up now that you have started it. You can't, you just can't stop. And I've said this before, like, even if I wanted to go back to full time advertising, one, I no longer have a portfolio. The one I do is very old. And two, I don't know that I would, I mean, listen, if I was forced to go back to work full time, yes, I would do it and I would be good at it. It just would be a very different, it would be very tricky to work for somebody else.

Lindsay [00:12:06]:
I'd have a very hard time with that.

Lindsay [00:12:08]:
Even at, you know, like, I remember I developed a bit of an attitude towards the end of my full time advertising career. And I think, you know, I guess I think I was young, and I thought I knew everything. So I don't know, maybe if I did go back, you know, I've been working on my own long enough that I've sort of removed that ego portion. So, I don't know, maybe if I.

Lindsay [00:12:31]:
Did go back to work full time, it would be. Be fine.

Lindsay [00:12:34]:
Anyways, all that to say, like, now that I know what I know about working for myself, it would be very tricky to go back to working full time. Yeah. So that's the question. What makes you a little bit weird and, like, all of us, essentially what starting business is, is that we're always solving problems. We see a problem and we're like, okay, I see this issue, and I have the smartitude to provide the solution. So these are the questions I want you to answer. Why and how are you a little bit weird? I want you to answer, what makes you different from the other people doing the same thing as you? And why would someone choose you over the competition? And that will.

Lindsay [00:13:26]:
So your unique selling proposition is essentially.

Lindsay [00:13:29]:
What makes you stand out. It doesn't have to be like. It's like a sentence. It does not have to. Like, none of us are out here, you know, with medical degrees. Well, I don't know, maybe you do.

Lindsay [00:13:43]:
Have a medical degree.

Lindsay [00:13:44]:
Like, none of us are out here hearing leukemia, unless you are. And then you're amazing. So you don't have to put so much pressure on yourself. You just have to figure out why you are different from everybody else. And then another thing I want to talk about is determining your brand voice, whatever it is. And I want you to use at least three terms to define your brand voice. You know, like me, for example. Like what I said, I'm approachable, I'm witty, I'm friendly.

Lindsay [00:14:19]:
My tone is friendly. But if you look at, like, you.

Lindsay [00:14:22]:
Know, Porsche or Louis Vuitton or something.

Lindsay [00:14:24]:
Like, their tone is not that. Their tone is, like, fancy exclusive. And what's another word for, like, a poor or, like, you know, haute gam? How do you say that in English? Like high volutin or whatever.

Lindsay [00:14:41]:
So their brand tone is completely different.

Lindsay [00:14:43]:
Than Lindsay Smith creative brand tone, or even other copywriters.

Lindsay [00:14:49]:
Like, their brand tone is completely different.

Lindsay [00:14:51]:
Than mine, which has been an interesting experiment, actually. Just sort of realizing that even in my industry, even in the copywriting and content space, the way people talk is completely different than me. Right? I saw somebody yesterday, and she another writer and content person. She wanted to name a program, something after the Spice Girls.

Lindsay [00:15:16]:
I was like, cool, good for her.

Lindsay [00:15:18]:
That is not something ever I would do, but awesome. And maybe that something having to do with the Spice Girls would attract her ideal client. It would not attract my ideal client, but for her, it would. So that's just an example. That's not something I would do, but that's something she would do. And even though we do the same thing, we're completely different. So in that sense of. I don't believe in this over saturation thing.

Lindsay [00:15:50]:
If you think about it, a mechanic, a hairstylist where you buy your clothes. I don't know. Why do you choose the mechanic that you do? Why do you choose the hairstylist that you do? Why do you, I don't know, go to the eyebrow lady that you do? So I don't believe in the. And because they all offer something completely.

Lindsay [00:16:13]:
Different, the customer experience is also completely.

Lindsay [00:16:15]:
Different, or you relate to that person better than you do to the other person down the street. So even if you think there's too.

Lindsay [00:16:28]:
Much competition, there's not.

Lindsay [00:16:29]:
Cause nobody offers it the way you do and nobody does it the way that you do. Okay. Oh, yeah. This is what I wanted to talk about. That was a bit of a tangent. Okay. Something that came up recently on my community call is this idea of consistent brand voice across all of your platforms.

Lindsay [00:16:52]:
And so somebody said to me recently.

Lindsay [00:16:54]:
She was like, yeah, I kind of feel like over here I'm like, more.

Lindsay [00:16:58]:
Professional, and then over here I'm more.

Lindsay [00:17:00]:
Friendly, and then over here I'm more silly. So my two cent on this, from a copy and content perspective, is that your brand tone?

Lindsay [00:17:16]:
I would strongly recommend.

Lindsay [00:17:17]:
I hate the word should, that it be insistent across all platforms and everywhere you interact online. So, like LinkedIn, for example, I've always been intimidated by LinkedIn because I'm just like, oh, my God, I have to sound businessy over there. No, you don't. No, you don't. You can sound however you want, you know? So if your website brand tone is different than how you are on LinkedIn, for example, from how you show up in your email list, from how you write your blog post to how you.

Lindsay [00:18:01]:
Sound on your podcast or how you.

Lindsay [00:18:03]:
Do, like, nig live, there's going to be a disconnect. And one of the worst things when it comes to your brand is misrepresentation. So you want people to go to your website, for example, and know exactly.

Lindsay [00:18:24]:
Who you are and what they're getting.

Lindsay [00:18:26]:
And how you sound. So I think just. And also from, like, an ease of use perspective, like being, like, making it just easier on your brain picking one brand tone, which PS is probably the way you speak if you're representing a personal brand, if you have like a.

Lindsay [00:18:48]:
Brick and mortar business, it's a bit different.

Lindsay [00:18:50]:
Or if you like, you know, have a product based business, sometimes it's a bit different.

Lindsay [00:18:54]:
But if you're a small business offering.

Lindsay [00:18:56]:
Services, the way you speak is your brain tone. So you just have to define it, be consistent with it. And sometimes, like, it takes a minute to figure it out and then I forget, I don't remember what I was going to say anyways. So being consistent across all platforms, I think it's just easier on you rather than this stress that I've put on myself that I have to sound different on LinkedIn than I do on threads, for example, when really it can be the same. It can be the same. Especially because, you know, and I've seen this too, and I've seen this, you know, the way somebody is represent themself online and then if you meet them or you watch some sort of video.

Lindsay [00:19:44]:
From them and then it's.

Lindsay [00:19:46]:
And then those things don't match, then you're like, oh, so you want everything to match. Now I'm thinking about outfits.

Lindsay [00:19:55]:
So you want your brand tone to.

Lindsay [00:19:56]:
Match across all of, all platforms. So to recap, to figure out your brand voice or your brand tone. One, it's probably just how you speak if you have a personal brand. Two, go back to your brand values and the mission, your mission of like why you even started your business and.

Lindsay [00:20:20]:
Ask yourself, what do I stand for?

Lindsay [00:20:23]:
And then three, your USP. In other words, aka what makes you a little bit weird, what makes you different than your competition? And why would someone choose you over someone else? And then four, being consistent across all your platforms type of content is just going to make it easier on you rather than thinking about showing up differently.

Lindsay [00:20:57]:
In your email versus your social media.

Lindsay [00:21:00]:
Versus your website versus your LinkedIn or what have you. So I want you to think about all these things when you're showing up in the online space and you're like, I don't know how to talk. And I'm going into more detail about brand voice and brand tone in the noisy online space in my upcoming free content genius bootcamp. So we get started on September 30 is the first day. It's a ten day training, and I filled it to the max with probably the best trainings I've ever given. And you can sign up for free at lindsaysmithcreative CA contentgenius and you'll get.

Lindsay [00:21:46]:
All the info of when we're starting, when the trainings are.

Lindsay [00:21:51]:
This is completely free. And honestly, I think it's the best stuff that I've put together. The best trainings I've put together in a really long time. So don't forget to join us. It's going to be pretty awesome. Honestly, it's going to be really awesome. And so with that, my friends, we.

Lindsay [00:22:12]:
Will see you next time.

Lindsay [00:22:14]:
All right, toodaloo, everybody.

Lindsay [00:22:17]:
Thank you so much for listening.

Lindsay [00:22:18]:
If you loved what you heard, don't.

Lindsay [00:22:19]:
Forget to subscribe, leave a review, or.

Lindsay [00:22:22]:
Share this episode on social media. And don't forget to tag me on Instagram.

Lindsay [00:22:26]:
Lindsaysmithcreative and if you do all three.

Lindsay [00:22:28]:
I'll be your best friend forever and invite you to all my birthday parties.

Lindsay [00:22:33]:
That's it for today, and I'll see you next time.

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