71: 8 Brand Voice Examples

First , I want to say that the marketing membership is open and I'm really just trying to own the fact that I want the membership to basically sponsor this podcast so I can keep showing up this way and sharing with all of you guys different things , that I want the membership to basically sponsor this podcast so I can keep showing up this way and sharing with

all of you guys different things that I've learned and I have been loving the membership . We had a basically this is just a quick overview of how it looked .

On Monday morning I went on there live , I talked about planning for the week and I opened it up for Q&A so people could say I have these sessions coming up , I'm struggling with how to market , and we could kind of work through it .

We also had a website homepage workshop and then the photographers who wanted to were able to post their website in the chat for critique and then on the first , we have a summer goal planning session .

So I want it to be so helpful , so consistent , a place where you can go when you feel lost or overwhelmed with marketing and come out of your time just in the chat with a plan , some ideas and some encouragement . Okay , so done with that part .

We're just going to go through basically eight different brand voice examples , because I think a lot of times , like I'm trying to always think about what is preventing photographers from showing up right , and so the first one is just general feelings of overwhelm which , as the educator , I've tried to help solve by the freebie is the main one just giving you that

Canva freebie , just giving you that as a jumping off point in terms of creating marketing . There's also a ton of marketing ideas just in that freebie . Then you have this idea of overwhelm with time management or productivity , which is its own problem , where you have to create boundaries and space in your life to actually do the marketing .

Then there's the visuals part , which half of that we have pretty much nailed down because luckily we are visual creators , so most of us have really beautiful images to showcase . If you want to add in an educational or other side of your brand , then you can go to Creative Market or Etsy and get a Canva template .

That's just social media and you can just save it in a font that feels very on brand with you , or a type of design that feels very on brand with your brand . As a visual photographer , you also I mean majority of photographers that I meet also have a fairly good eye for design .

So if we think about that as like little boxes that you can check off , that will open the doors for you to be able to market . I feel like one of the missing ones and another barrier is just figuring out how you want to show up with your voice , and your brand voice can be different than your in-person voice .

Like those two things do not have to be the same . So I'll give you some examples and then you can kind of think about how you might want

to show up . So the first one I'll call the warm and nostalgic storyteller . So the vibe of this person is a gentle , sentimental , rooted in tradition type . Person Language cues would be soft objectives , like golden , tender , treasured . They're focused on sensory details , first person anecdotes .

So it would be something like this You'll never forget the way your daughter's curls caught in the evening light . Let's bottle that feeling . That is a brand voice . And if you are consistent with a brand voice like that and it goes really well with a type of art that you can produce that can build trust .

So let's move on to the second one , the playful best friend . The vibe of this person is upbeat , chatty , approachable . They use light humor , quick , quick exclamations . I cannot say that word . I drive my family . Okay , there's really side tangent . There's a couple words I can't say exclamations . My brain says exclamations . So annoying , I know .

I every once in a while I accidentally say library instead of library . And the other one I really struggle with is ambliance . Okay , I'm sorry . Okay , back to the playful best friend . Second person , kind of talking in a way that you're just exchanging with someone .

So an example of this would be kick off your shoes , chase the kiddos , let's make a little joyful chaos together . That would be an example of the playful best friend , okay . The third is the adventure loving guide a free spirited , outdoorsy , energetic type person .

Language cues would be action verbs like hike , scramble , explore , references to nature , very inclusive . So a sample language line from this type of person would be we'll climb the bluff at dawn , breathe in the solitaire , capture images that are as wild as your crew so you can see how some of these kind of go together . So you with different session types .

You can also show up as different session personalities , like maybe your outdoor work is very warm and nostalgic , whereas if you do adventure elopements you kind of have a adventure loving guide type vibe that you're giving off . Okay , fourth is calm and minimalist . This would be like the clean , soothing , refined type vibe .

Language cues would be short sentences , deliberate pauses , focus on light and space and minimal adjectives , adjectives , adjectives sorry , my notes are really scrambling Adjectives . That's the one . So an example would be simple moments period , soft light period , honest portraits that feel like home .

So if you visualize what I just said with , like the short sentences , you can see how that feels very minimalist and calm , very different than we'll climb the bluff at dawn , breathe in the salty air and capture your wild crew right . So these are different types of voices that are showing up through brand .

The fifth one it would be the elevated fine art editor . I would say that this person really shows up for me , not in my life . Hello , I am not the elevated fine art editor , but this would be like a luxury brand . The vibe would be editorial , polished . It would be elevated vocabulary .

It would be like heirloom craftsman , a focus on artistry and archival quality , linens , that type of thing . So it'd be a sample like language line from this would be from bespoke wardrobe styling to museum grade prints .

That type of what we're getting here is an overall feel for luxury , again very different than even the calm , minimalist right , because we're talking about luxury , we're talking about opulence . Sixth is Rooney right now , because I know you guys like to know what Rooney's doing when I'm doing the podcast .

What she's doing right now is she is laying in a pile of Legos and so at any moment something could happen . Right now she seems to be comfortable somehow . I don't know how , but if there's an explosion of sound , that's what has happened she has erupted out of the Lego pile . Okay , number six heart-centered empath .

The vibe of this person would be affirming inclusive , emotionally safe Language . Cues would be validation phrases you are seen , you are heard , you deserve this Gentle encouragement , mindful pauses .

A language line could be be however your family looks today , messy mornings , your story belongs here , and , as I'm saying these , you're probably going to conjure up photographers that have really leaned into their brand voice in this way , where you see them through this lens and that's how you know you're doing it really well .

You see them through this lens and that's how you know you're doing it really well . Seventh is educational mentor . This would be helpful , knowledgeable , nurturing a teacher type person .

Language cues would be here's how , calls to action for parents , behind the scenes insight and really , if we're honest , I feel like educational mentor should be a part of every brand , but I do think that it can be its own solo voice and the reason this is helpful is there's people who are really not emotive and they're not emotional in the way that they

communicate . They just want to get the information across . So I do feel like you can build a trustworthy brand being just an educational mentor and having your education having sorry , having your brand voice come through education and the inspiration side of your voice just come through your visuals .

Okay , the eighth is sort of like a naturalist , so earth , friend , earth friendly type , like authentic , rooted . Those are kind of the vibes , so they will have a lot of references to locally sourced prints .

Stewardship , purposeful action , right and again , like even as I'm saying that I can picture a handful of photographers with each of these types of brand voice that obviously have done a good enough job with the consistency of this that I'm pulling their name to the top of my head .

So this would be someone who has a high focus on Leave no Trace , who's honoring land , who is being very conscious , and so , like I said , you can have many different pieces of these different types of brand voices . But here's how , here's what I want you to think about .

If you want to lean into one and see how it feels , it may open up a new channel of marketing for you . That gives you a little bit of freedom , especially if the brand voice is different than your in real life voice .

So if you were to create a marketing campaign , for example , and you chose to market that campaign through the lens of the warm and nostalgic storyteller , you can already see how that brand voice is going to be colored throughout that marketing

campaign . Just the same , with the playful best friend , the adventure loving guide , the calm minimalist , the elevated fine art editor , the heart centered empath , the educational mentor and the eco conscious , natural loving person , that person really got gypped on the name there . I really lost it at the end .

But you can see how each messaging marketing slash campaign would feel different through the lens of each of these .

If it is one like if in your real life , you are a kind of serious person and maybe you're not even very social , maybe you're introverted , your brand voice can be something different than who you are in your day-to-day life , and writing this way and through this lens can really also hone your copy , because oftentimes when I'm going through photographers' websites ,

when there's not a clear brand voice , I can feel that missing in the copy . And it doesn't mean that it's going to make you not be booked or it's going to mean that nobody can build trust with you . But a really strong brand voice can help people to build trust with you faster , which is , of course , what we want .

So I also want to give a little plug to remembering and really leaning into , especially as we head into marketing summer

. Just a little bit of an ode to magic . I know I keep talking about this , but I just feel like there's so like the world is literally a garbage can on fire right now and I'm just so sick of focusing on it all the time .

And it's not like I don't want to focus on it or care about it , but I've lately been kind of allowing the beautiful parts of my job to kind of be a band-aid on the rest of the feelings that I have about a lot of things that are going on , because in the regular world , if I'm too on my phone and looking at what everything else is going on and feeling

a lot of things when I'm for example , I had a really fun maternity session on this beautiful night and I was able to , for that hour , just really be present in that moment with these people who in just a few weeks , are going to welcome their first baby into the world If I really allow myself to channel my joy through my job , I kind of want to get back

to that , my joy through my job . I kind of want to get back to that . I feel like we haven't really been given permission because it kind of feels like a you shan't have too much joy right now moment .

And I just believe that there's room for joy in every period of life , no matter what is going on , and I feel like our jobs , this profession , family , newborn photography can be a vessel of that joy , and so I just want to kind of give everyone a little bit of permission to go back to feeling that way .

I also feel like the thing that has made it hard to feel that is the way that we market these days where it feels very cutthroat and all about the algorithm and is your is is the things that you're doing , performing and I really just want to get back to .

We're showcasing what we love and helping people understand that art and plug into our process as an artist . So I just that was just a thought that keeps kind of roaming around in my mind .

But anyway , I hope these eight different brand voice examples give you an extra layer of permission to market consistently , because I do feel like the overall feeling of having a consistent brand if we are not trend chasing , like we've talked about before , if we're not coming from a place of scarcity and that feeling of like there's never enough to go around , if

we're coming from a place of trusting our artist selves and leaning into the sessions that we love the most and showcasing , educating , inspiring people to join in on that journey with us , understanding and facilitating your marketing through a brand voice can really help you to show up because you'll kind of

know how you want to talk and how you want to sound . So I hope this gives you something to work on . Rooney is still in the Legos , so I'm sure the second I stand up she's going to blast out of them . All right , I will see you guys next week and if you want to come to the summer goal planning workshop , it's also going to be recorded this .

This membership is so underpriced , oh my gosh . But it's okay . I love it so much . It's my absolute favorite way to teach . I don't know how long it's going to stay at $35 a month , so definitely sneak in at $35 a month , because for everyone who's at $35 a month , it'll stay there for you . All right , have a good .