Finding a tone that’s in tune with your audience

We’ve been having a lot of discussions about voice and tone lately at work. Last week we discussed some recent trends in voice and tone that are gaining in popularity and adoption across tech companies. Direct and neutral, or plain and serious, or excited and playful? How do you want your brand to sound to your customers?

Hitting the sweet spot about how you communicate with your target audience is easier said than done. The goal is to find their frequency and match it with your own so that your product resonates with them — you need to be a tuning fork.

It shouldn’t be hard to figure out though. You’ll always have some very clear markers and indicators. Here are some angles to consider to be able to match your audiences’ frequency effectively.

Start with what you’re offering

As I’ve said more than once, any process starts from within. Picking the right tone is no different. In this case, this will largely depend on what product or service you’re offering. Is it a video game? An app to order food? A crypto wallet? A shopping app?

This matters because your tone needs to gel with what you’re offering. For example, you can’t be all serious and deadpan with your customers visiting your app to play a game. That would be a downer because the purpose of their visit to your platform is fun and entertainment. You don’t want a matter-of-fact “The fire demon has been destroyed.” when you finish the 126th level of the game.

Similarly, you can’t be too chummy and casual with your tone on a product that handles peoples’ money or investments — like a crypto wallet, for example. Because that would be weird and a little unprofessional. I mean, how’d you feel if Bitcoin prices dropped and you get a notification saying “Whoopsie! Bitcoin just went off a cliff along with your savings. But at least they have each other, right?” You’d probably want to push whoever wrote this message right over the same cliff, wouldn’t you?

It’s rather obvious that what you’re offering forms the foundation of how you’ll interact with your customers. And upon that strong foundation, let’s build our masterpiece, shall we?

Know your audiences’ pulse

Once you’re done with the introspection part, next comes the observation part. Knowing your audiences’ pulse is a bit of a broad stroke that encompasses many aspects within. They are mostly intertwined, and it would be hard to miss one while you’re looking at the other.

First and foremost, you need to try to get into the minds of your audiences as much as possible. This will help you gauge accurately how they’d be feeling while doing something on your app or product. It’s important to know what’s going on in their head because that’s how you can tailor copy to relate with them, establish a connection. And this connection is crucial for a pleasant user experience (even in unpleasant circumstances) and customer loyalty. Case in point, my earlier example with the overly cheerful wallet notification.

Secondly, be mindful of their time. Somebody ordering food on your app is probably hungry. Somebody looking up an address on your navigation app may be in a rush to get there. So you need to make sure that you’re not killing precious seconds of their time in favor of a tone that you prefer. Making sure you’re sensitive to your audiences’ time, poses a great advantage and a challenge. It will force you to achieve a tone that’s helpful, yet not overly intrusive, written in simple and concise language. As you may notice, this aspect also involves you getting into the minds of your audience — their mindset to be more precise.

And when it doubt, ask them! Your audiences are your ultimate source of truth and guidance. You don’t measure up your child or yourself to make a shirt for your father. Run tests, get your users involved in the process, and see what makes them mostly at ease and comfortable.

Decide how close you’re willing to get

Once you’ve got a good read of your audiences’ pulse, the next thing you need to do is decide how close you’re willing to get to them. This will inform the level of empathy and warmth you’ll express towards them through your words.

Of course, you’re not going to be cold, distant, and robotic. However, depending on what you’re offering, and your audience’s state of mind, you may need to decide how much you can cozy up with them. It’s a conversation, after all, and one that shouldn’t get overwhelming or awkward.

For example, how much do you apologize when somebody faces an issue while using your product? Do you even have to? It depends on various factors, right? If it’s not your fault, then you probably won’t need to. And at the same time, you can’t rub it in their faces that they messed up either. You’ll need to keep them at arm’s length and comfort them.

On the other end, imagine you have the hottest fitness app in the market. You can really get in there with the emotions of your users through your tone. Because while workouts and bank transactions are both personal, they hit different cords at an emotional and logical level. You’ll have more wiggle-room with the user who’s wanting to sweat it out than with the user who’s waiting for money to show up on their account.

Look around for inspiration

Now that you have your masterpiece, it’s time for finishing touches. Look around you for inspiration — especially from others in your line of work, competitors, and collaborators alike. You can learn a lot from how they speak with their audience, and in most cases, you’d probably be able to see right away what works for them and what doesn’t. This will in turn inform you to set your tuning fork precisely so that your tone resonates positively with your audience.

You won’t be copying them or even imitating them. You can take the core ideas that you think would work for you and add your own personal brand touches to them to create your own unique signature tone. Besides, nobody is going to fault you for taking inspiration from them.

Imitation is the best form of flattery.

In short, zeroing in on a tone that works for you is an art as much as it is a science. There are various stops to make before you can arrive at your destination of ideal tone. Some of the obvious ones are:

• Picking a tone that will work with the product you’re offering
• Getting a read into your audiences’ state of mind and emotions
• Deciding how personal you want your interactions with your users to be
• Getting inspiration from what’s worked or not for others before you

I hope this helps. I’m no expert; these are just my preliminary findings. I’m sure there’s a lot more to this process. See something missing from this list that you think ought to be in it? Please comment below and let me know. Good luck!