You’re a busy business on the up and up. Things are going well. You’ve got your socials sorted, your website locked down and your marketing strategy in place. Tick, tick, tick!
Good job.
Unless you’ve made a really bizarre business decision not to communicate with potential and exisiting clients or customers, there are so many channels from which to choose. Social media, newsletters, websites, emails and even printed mail outs; with any of these there are so many logistics to consider.
For-example
- If you’re selling your products through social media, you’ve got to make sure the stock is available before you publish that post! (I supported local just before Christmas and headed into the CBD to pick up a gift. I parked miles away and turned up to find out the stock hadn’t come in yet. Yes, I should have phoned or messaged or something, but I assumed that because it was advertised on my Insta feed, it would be there.)
- If you’re packaging a mail out or an electronic newsletter and you’ve used a database to do a merge, you really want to make sure you’re you’re not sending it to ‘Dear Mrs [first name]’. (Test, test, test! is my advice, or there are going to be a lot of people pretty miffed you can’t even get their name right, and what will that do for your reputation)
In addition to all the processes, checklists, data checks and triple testing that must be done before you press send or publish, or seal the envelopes, there is one thing that I think really matters in written communication … and it is so often neglected:
Your voice.
When you speak to a customer/client/audience you come across in a particular way. That might be calm, warm, sophisticated, authoritative, vibrant, etc. You also need this voice to be clear when you write to your customer. Your voice is who you are and you must be authentic if your clients are to trust you. You want your audience to believe you.
Often, businesses are so under pressure to get the information ‘out there’ they forget about their voice.
What is ‘voice’?
How you write determines how you come across: your character, attitude and personality. Your tone, choice of words, subject selection, and (my favourite) punctuation, all come together to create your voice. And if it’s authentic, it will be unique. Uniquely ‘you’! That will set you apart. That will give you another point of difference. And that is good!
How to improve your voice:
There are two ways to improve your written voice.
Practise using your voice.
Listen to yourself, and your staff. What do you say about your business or product and how do you say it? Think about how you want to be heard. Write something and test it on someone. Then do it again. And again. And again…
Get some help with your voice.
Someone like me can meet with you and really listen, and then use all of the experience and skills I have to turn your existing content (or create new content) into something that is uniquely ‘you’. My guess is that if you’ve been so flat out with the logistics and processes associated with communicating to your clients or potential clients, this might be the option you never knew you needed so much!