C is for Consistency
V.O.I.C.E Guide Breakdown: What happens when writers come & go?
Today I’m going to flesh out the “C” in my acronym, for Consistency.
I’ve got a little horror story about this one. Here’s what happened:
A former coach & client of mine (who I absolutely respect and admire) has a big problem.
As his business grows, his time & attention has become focused on all the growing…and not on the writing/marketing. Which is fine, that’s what people like me are for!
The problem is, during my tenure, I saw about 5 different writers come & go…
And not a single one of them had the same voice, style, or philosophy. The messaging was an incohesive mess, to say the least.
Notice I didn’t say it wasn’t good. A lot of the writing was indeed good.
However, it was wildly inconsistent. Voice whiplash. As a reader, the constant change in tone was disorienting (to put it nicely.)
One writer realllllly excelled at “twisting the knife”. Getting readers good & scared about the monsters under the bed & around every corner. “Do this or you’re toast.” Very Voice of God.
Then a new marketing manager came on board who did not like pain and fear based marketing. They ushered in an era of earnest appeals to our fairer sensibilities…
Long, heartfelt, aspirational “we’re in this together, all you have to do is step in and do your part” pleas. Total Yogi Voice.
Yet another writer came along and brought their Underdog attitude with them. A little downtrodden. And also a little chip-on-your-shoulder confrontational (which was an abrupt departure from the inspirational Yogi voice.)
Where did I fit into this stew?
Well, this was all before my Brand Voice Academy training & certification. I knew there was a big problem afoot… but I didn’t yet have any concrete tools or systems to fix it.
I knew there had to be a way for the founder to reign it in and get people on the same page – or at the very least, define what was “in bounds” and what was “out of bounds” for his brand.
But with the unrelenting pressure of deadlines and launches and projects…
Getting everyone on the same page was constantly sidelined in favor of the next urgent thing. It was a “maybe someday that would be nice to have” pipe dream.
The result: a mish-mash of garbled messaging. For years.
One week you get the kind, gentle, motivational speaker…
Next week, the confrontational “you’re the problem” bully shows up…
He’s followed by the desperate, “why isn’t anyone taking me up on my offer???” underdog…
And the inconsistency is evident in the ever-shrinking list and declining enrollment.
What I’m trying to say is this:
Leaving your precious messaging in the hands of writers who come & go… scattered freelancers… the unrelenting pressures of time… is a recipe for a Brand Voice horror story.
And those are the problems V.O.I.C.E. Guide is designed to solve!
It puts you back in the driver’s seat and in control of your messaging.
The mission, vision, and values of your brand and messaging come straight from YOU – documented for everyone to adhere to.
The style, the outlook, the philosophy… again, all you. The “heck yeses” and the “hell nos”... you get to decide.
And you barely even have to lift a finger.
A quick look at how a V.O.I.C.E. Guide leads to Consistent messaging:
A Style Guide Section: Whether it’s punctuation preferences (the hot-button em-dash, use of exclamation marks, to parenthese or not to parenthese). Or grammatical preferences (starting sentences with And, But, Yet); number formatting; testimonial layout – you’d be surprised by how the “little” style choices add up.
Lexicon: what are your commonly used phrases? Do you have any “isms” or idiosyncrasies that make your Voice pop? Personal anecdotes that are part of your brand story? Just as important: what are the words and phrases to AVOID at all costs?
Outlook: How you relate to your audience. This is your Voice Type. It’s important and should be consistent – not Voice of God one day and Friend at the Bar the next. When your writers know this, they can frame their writing accordingly.
Resources: real, concrete examples of what you consider to be great writing (whether it’s yours or someone else’s); internal guides to all products and offers. Your team doesn’t have to wonder, they have models.
Rubric: writers can evaluate their writing against a custom rubric to check they’re hitting the right notes before it even hits your desk. Then you can use the rubric as an objective tool to provide feedback.
And did I mention… this really isn’t an onerous process for you. We meet, I collect what I need, and then I do my thing behind the scenes.
Then, you (or your copy chief) hand this Voice Guide over to any writer or freelancer you use, and voila! They’ve got an instruction manual to “get” your voice and produce Consistent Messaging.
Back to our poor friend from above: I left that role in large part to pursue Brand Voice. I wanted a concrete solution to this problem I saw eating away at this great business…
I know it will be a lifesaver to so many people in the same boat.
If that’s you, hit reply and let’s chat!
– Jill “Consistency” Jensen
P.S. Here’s where I’ve written about some of the other letters in the V.O.I.C.E. acronym: