Does your brand speak in a voice all its own?

Our leaders speak differently than our friends. Our friends speak differently than our doctors, plumbers or bike mechanics. No matter who we are, if we want our words to have impact, one rule applies: Consistency leads to trust, and trust leads to influence.

You build trust when you come across as the same brand, interaction after interaction, channel after channel. Voice strategy helps your team express a consistent tone and message, so customers have the same powerful experience wherever they come in contact with your brand.

Does your brand need a voice strategy?

Making sure your brand is liked, respected, trusted and shared has everything to do with how you sound. Thread has spent more than a decade listening to what our clients have to say about who they are, and using editorial research, competitive analysis, story wisdom and our own writerly intuition to determine the most meaningful way to talk with their customers.

What are you struggling with?

Thread voice strategy and guidelines could be right for you if:

• Your company has a brand book, but there are only a couple of pages on voice and they don’t provide the kind of boots-on-the-ground direction that’s actually useful for writers.
• You have an in-house marketing team, or you work with freelancers, but you find they struggle to nail the brand voice every time. It’s a little all over the place.
• Up until now, you have primarily sold to retailers, and haven’t defined an ownable brand voice that speaks directly to your consumers.
• Your company is in a competitive industry and there’s little to no differentiation between your brand voice and that of your competitors.

Project: Brand Voice Strategy and Guidelines

What it is

Just like visual guidelines provide colors, fonts and logos to ensure a consistent, ownable look across a brand, voice guidelines provide direction for messaging and tone. Voice strategy is the road map that helps everyone who communicates on behalf of your brand to speak in a single unified voice.

What you get

1. Brand Voice Audit — A thorough review of existing brand communications to zero in on what is and is not working. We identify bright spots as well as areas for improvement.
2. Brand Voice Stakeholder Survey — A custom survey for your team designed to define your unique brand voice and build internal consensus. We distill survey results into focused insights.
3. Audience + Competitor Discovery — A look at your potential customers to align with their interests, likes and tone. Industry analysis zeroes in on your competitors to ensure your new voice stands apart from the noise.
4. Brand Voice Guidelines — A 6-8 page PDF document that defines a unique brand voice, including communication rules, explanations for why we follow each rule, example do’s and don’ts for each rule, and sometimes/always/never guardrails.
5. Brand Copy Style Guide — A comprehensive living document that tracks the nitty-gritty details to keep copy correct, consistent and on-brand across all of your copy channels. Includes important-but-easy-to-forget stuff like SEO requirements, category-specific direction, technology definitions, trademark usage, brand glossary and more.

Timing: 6-8 weeks

Starter Project: Brand Voice Blueprint

Love everything we’re saying about voice strategy, but not quite ready to take the leap? The Brand Voice Blueprint is for you.

What it is

The Brand Voice Blueprint gives you a solid start to transforming your voice from meh and forgettable to one that consumers actually look forward to hearing from. It includes everything you’ll need to start building a consistent, ownable brand voice, including an action plan with concrete next steps.

What you get

1. Brand Voice Consultation — A 1:1 session with a Thread brand voice strategist. Ask us anything. In return, we’ll ask you about your marketing goals, audience, budget constraints, team and any current areas of frustration.
2. Brand Communications Audit — A snapshot of competitor communications and a review of your current brand communications to help us pinpoint bright spots and areas for improvement.
3. Brand Voice Action Plan — Our recommendations to bring your unique brand voice to life. The plan will include proposed deliverables, timelines and costs based on your goals and budget.

Timing: 2-3 weeks