Tone of Voice Inspection:
is your brand tone of voice sound?
In one line
an expert examination of the voice your brand writes in, the work usually sold as a brand voice audit, for self-funded technology companies, delivered inside two weeks.
The facts
Price
£1,800, one payment in full.
Length
Two weeks.
Your time
Two to three hours: one conversation at the start and the findings briefing at the end.
Done by
Luis Defaz, Brandian's founder.
Credit
Brand Tone of Voice or Coherence, in full, inside six months.
When to buy this
Your website doesn't sound like your brand, and nobody chose the voice it has.
Your team asks which of the voices on your website is the one to write in, and nobody can say.
You still read every piece of copy before it goes out, because nobody else can tell what sounds like you and what doesn't.
Each is about your brand tone of voice: how a technology company sounds in writing, on every touchpoint where it speaks. A competitor on investors' money had its voice written at launch by an agency, paid for out of an investment round. Everything written there since has had guidelines to follow. Yours has been written as your business grew, by whoever needed the words that day, and each of them wrote well in their own way. What none of them had was a shared description of how your brand should sound. So a buyer moving from your website to your proposal to an email meets a different voice at each step, is left confused, and never connects with your brand.
A brand tone of voice has one job: to sound like the brand, wherever the brand speaks. Where it does, a buyer recognises you before they reach the name, and what they read makes them warm to you. That happens when the writing has the personality your brand is meant to have, uses the words your buyers use, and is easy to follow. The Tone of Voice Inspection examines each of them, on a sample of what you have already published, and puts the evidence in writing.
Where your credit goes
Where the findings show faults in your voice, the corrections are ranked, and who makes them is your decision. Brand Tone of Voice is the service that makes them. Buy it inside six months and the Tone of Voice Inspection's full price comes off the first instalment. The same credit applies to Coherence, the solution that adds the voice to Brand Platform and Brand Identity.
The Inspection's work is that service's opening step already done, so you pay for it once. Where the findings show your voice holding, that verdict is in writing. The Inspection has narrowed where to look, and the other parts of your brand have Inspections of their own.
What it examines
Six parts, examined on a sample of your sales material and public presence.
6
Your voice guidelines. Whether any exist, whether the copy follows them, and whether a new hire could use them unaided. None is itself the finding.
5
Vocabulary. The words the copy leans on, checked for filler, jargon and words any competitor could use. It shows which are yours and which aren't.
4
Clarity. How hard the copy makes a buyer work: sentence length, and what a reader must know to follow it. It shows where the writing is hardest.
3
Fit to the personality. The personality the writing shows, set against the one your brand is meant to have. If none is defined, the finding names it.
2
Distinctiveness. Your copy beside your competitors', for whether a reader could tell yours from theirs unnamed. It shows whether it sets you apart.
1
One voice or several. Whether your communications sound like one voice, or change with whoever wrote them. It shows how many voices a buyer hears.
The Inspection doesn't define your brand tone of voice, write your guidelines or rewrite your copy. That work belongs to Brand Tone of Voice.
How the two weeks run
Day 1
The opening conversation. You name the competitors whose writing yours should be told apart from, and hand over any voice guidelines that exist. The rest comes from your sales material and public presence.
Days 2 to 13
The copy is sampled, the six parts are examined and the report is written. A clarification or two may reach you by call or email; nothing else is asked of you until day 14.
Day 14
The findings briefing with Luis, where your questions are answered. Each finding opens on what it's costing you, with the copy that shows it beneath, graded, and the corrections ranked, and your further questions go to Luis by call or email, as many as you have.
A test you can run this week
Take the About page of your website and your two nearest competitors', and cover the names. Give all three to a prospect who has had one meeting with you and is weighing those two competitors as well, and ask them which page belongs to which brand. If they put yours with you, your voice is carrying your brand's personality as they met it. If they put it with a competitor or can't say, your writing and theirs are interchangeable, and a buyer has no way to tell you apart. Then the Tone of Voice Inspection shows what in your writing is generic and what is already yours to build on.
Questions buyers ask
We have tone of voice guidelines already. Is there still anything to examine?
Yes. The guidelines and the copy they're meant to produce are examined together: whether the writing follows them, and whether they're clear enough for someone new to follow. How far apart the two stand is a finding.
Nobody has ever written down what our brand sounds like. Is there anything to examine?
Yes. Your technology company has a voice whether or not anyone chose it. It's there in everything that has gone out, and that's what the Inspection reads. A tone of voice nobody has set down is itself a finding.
How is this different from the Brand Record?
The Brand Record measures how your buyer sees your brand; the Tone of Voice Inspection examines the voice your brand writes in. Buy the Inspection if you already suspect the writing is the problem. Buy the Brand Record if you can't yet say which part of your brand is at fault.
Does a bad finding mean rewriting everything?
No. Rewriting is the last resort, and the findings say whether your copy needs it. The corrections are ranked, the copy that prompted each one sits beside it, and the decision is yours.
What if the findings say the voice is fine?
Then your brand tone of voice is sound, and the problem lies elsewhere. The findings say where to look next.
Does this commit me to buying anything else?
No. You leave with the faults named and the corrections ranked; whether you act on them with Brandian or with anyone else is your decision. If you go on to Brand Tone of Voice or Coherence inside six months, the Inspection's full price comes off the first instalment.
Who does the work?
Luis Defaz, personally, from the opening conversation to the briefing.
Does it carry the Performance Guarantee?
No. The Tone of Voice Inspection is a fixed-price examination delivered inside two weeks; the Guarantee belongs to Brandian's services and solutions.
Can I cancel or postpone?
A Tone of Voice Inspection can't be cancelled or refunded, because the work is scheduled as soon as you buy; you can postpone it once, for three months at most. Inside six months, its full price comes off the first instalment of Brand Tone of Voice or Coherence.
Inspections