Would You Date Your Business?
Posted on February 7, 2012 by Pure Ink | Leave a comment
Formal, reserved, professional B2B company seeks funny, reliable customer for successful and mutually rewarding relationship.
If you were writing your business dating profile in the hope to tempt a customer and took an objective look at it, how would you rate it? Would it grab your attention on a 60 second speed date? Does it represent what you’re really like as a business or are you perhaps embellishing a little too much? Do you standout from other business daters or would you simply sink into a murky sea of other fish?
If your business was a person what would its personality be like? Would it have a GSOH, be caring and sympathetic, trustworthy and reliable, quirky, intelligent, relaxed, sporty or artistic?
Say you were in a room full of daters who all carried a beautiful red rose…how would you step out from the crowd to get the attention of a potential companion? What would make your approach more compelling than the businesses around you? What’s unique about you?
Your personality.
When it comes down to it, dazzling beauty and handsome looks aside, we’re all attracted to people who have something about their personalities which suits ours and we click with. A business to consumer relationship really isn’t that different to this. The thing that identifies businesses in the marketplace and makes them more noticeable and attractive than others is their personality and from a business communication perspective that is their tone of voice.
Tone of voice is simply the personality of a business and copywriting is the mechanism which communicates this. If you think about it simply, how you talk is how you write and the reason for this is because that’s your personality.
Let’s take an example from the cosmetics industry.
Benefit vs Clinique
Both of these cosmetic companies sell make-up and skincare products, in fact they sell an almost identical range of products but they have very different business personalities. Benefit make-up has a quirky and cute 1950s style personality whereas Clinique has a more serious, scientific and mature personality. If you look at the foundations these companies sell the difference is clear…
Benefit sell foundations called ‘Some Kind-A Gorgeous’, ‘Hello Flawless’, ‘You Rebel’ and ‘Play Sticks’.
Clinique sell ‘Repair Wear Laser Focus All-Smooth Make-Up’, ‘Anti-Blemish Solutions Liquid Make-Up’ and ‘Age Defense BB Cream’.
Neither business personality is better than the other, they are both strong personalities but they will appeal to different customers.
These beauty brands have identified what their business personalities are and have consistently communicated this. Taking the dating example, if you feel you have a good grasp of the person you’ve met and get on with them well and on date number two or three they seem like a totally different person, this will trigger mistrust and it’s no different in business. A business’s tone of voice has to be consistent in order for it to appeal to customers and be credible as a brand. As a business you need to decide what the personality attributes of your company are and then convey these in a consistent way throughout every piece of communication, from how your team interacts with customers to every piece of marking you produce.
An important point here is that you have to be open and honest about whom you are as a business. No one likes a faker, and as the saying goes ‘you have to be true to yourself’ – fail to do this and you’ve lost the trust and respect of a potential customer. For example, if you are a long established, highly corporate company which suddenly adopts a ‘wacky’ style of copywriting then is not going to work as it will just confuse customers.
Once you have your personality or values in place then these can be conveyed through copywriting in your marketing materials. For example, if you are a reliable and professional company then you may want to adopt a formal written style which translates to everything from the vocabulary you use to the grammatical structure of your sentences. If you’re a more playful, young and quirky company then look at a more conversational style of language and a more informal sentence structure. The key is to make your tone of voice consistent from the opening sentence on your website to the final paragraph in your company brochure.
Establishing a tone of voice isn’t difficult… having the skills to create the copy can be another matter though. Good copywriting will communicate a strong tone of voice and keeping it consistent. Asking a copywriter to take charge of your tone of voice will ensure your business will outshine all the other daters and enjoy a long lasting relationship with many satisfied customers.
Posted in Content Writing Tips Copywriting