How to find the perfect words to describe your brand
“Where on earth did that come from?”
It’s a question we often find ourselves asking when we see brand language work produced by larger, less word-nerdy agencies. Things like:
A purpose statement that makes the org sound like it’s operating in a completely different industry
“Table-stakes” values that no company should ever have to shout about
Tone of voice guidelines that leave you thinking “so what do I do exactly to write in a way that’s “friendly”, “professional” and “fun”?”
Copy that sounds like, well, copy (i.e. overly rhetorical)
In other words, attempts at brand language that don’t actually get to the heart of what the brand is about.
Language that sometimes feels shoehorned into a slightly contrived framework.
Language that, dare we say it, sounds like it may have originated in a stash-raid from a previous client job?
In fact, it’s the very reason we created Broom & Moon: to be the branding agency with, not just a love of words, but a rigorous approach to choosing the perfect ones.
The branding agency that doesn’t give you slick marketing copy — even if that’s what people in your industry are mostly used to seeing.
Instead, our goal is always to find much more ordinary — but powerful — words: the words your target audience is already using.
The words that’ll land perfectly with the people you want to reach — because you’ll, literally, be speaking their language.
How do we get there?
One word: listening.
We’ll start by asking you lots of questions to really understand your brand. We’ll also push to get our hands on anything that tells us how the people you want to connect with talk:
Customer verbatims? Send them over.
Your dream client’s LinkedIn profile? Let us at it.
That employee survey with all 85,000 comments? Bring. It. On.
From there we’ll dive in and nerd out. We’ll immerse ourselves in all the words people are using to describe your brand.
We don’t work from wordclouds. Or AI summaries. Or Likert scale ratings.
In fact, we sometimes wonder if we’re the first or only human beings to have taken the time to actually read through every customer or employee comment.
With this work, we’re not looking to identify themes or territories, although that will happen as part of the process. Neither are we looking to translate, into digestible format for you, what people are saying.
Our goal is more like ventriloquism: to put their words into your mouth. To use their language to craft your purpose statement or customer promise or whatever it is we’re helping you with.
Because whatever you’re writing, the most persuasive words are the words your audience is already using.
What this approach means is that we’re always able justify our language choices. So whenever we present our work back to a client, we’re able to demonstrate how every word has earned its place.
Funnily enough, no one ever asks “Where on earth did that come from?”. But if they did, we could cite the exact source.
Copywriting tip: how to capture your brand’s essence
If you want to really understand how people are feeling – and talking — about your brand, go straight to the source.
Spend a day or two reading every comment in that survey. Talk to people and write down what they say. And make sure what you write down is a word for word account of what you hear.
It’s where the gold is and you might be surprised by what you learn.
