Academy / Find your customer and your message
Lesson 5 of 5 · 6 min
A voice that sounds like you
Two bakeries can sell the same bread with the same message and still sound nothing alike. One is warm and chatty, the other short and a bit dry. Both work. What does not work is sounding like a third bakery every other week.
Your voice in three words and one rule
Think about how you talk to your best customer from lesson 1. Pick two or three words for it, and one thing you never do.
- Yoga studio: "Calm, warm, a little funny. Never tells people what their body should do."
- Barber: "Short, direct, dry. Never uses more than one emoji."
- Business coach: "Plain, honest, numbers first. Never promises a result by a date."
- Candle shop: "Cozy and precise. Never says 'luxury'."
If you are not sure, read your last ten DMs to customers. That is your voice. Your posts should sound like those messages, not like an ad.
A few rules of your own
Rules catch what the three words miss. Write the ones you would tell a new employee on their first day:
- Always: "Say the price when we mention an offer." "Use the teacher's first name." "Write for someone who has never been here."
- Never: "Never say 'no pain, no gain'." "Never use a discount as the first line." "Never call customers 'guys'."
Three of each is plenty. More than ten and they start to fight each other.
Put it all into Postfjord
Everything you wrote in this course has a field under Settings, Brand voice. Every post, reply and plan Postfjord writes reads it first.
- About the brand: your one sentence from lesson 3 and what you sell.
- Audience: your customer in two sentences, from lesson 1.
- Tone of voice: your three words and your rule, from this lesson.
- Always and Never: your rules.
- Standard call to action: the next step you ask for most.
- Example posts: two posts or messages that sound exactly right.
If you have a website or a connected Instagram or Facebook account, press Fill from website or Fill from your posts first. Postfjord drafts the whole profile, and nothing is saved until you press Save. Then replace its guesses with the lines from this course, because yours come from real customers.
How you know it worked
Open the composer and use the brief from lesson 4 again: the doubt, the proof, the next step. Press Generate draft. The draft should open with your customer's words, sound like your DMs and end with your call to action. If it sounds like someone else, change Tone of voice first. It usually takes one round.
Quick check · 3 questions
Check what stuck
Where do you find your voice if you are not sure what it is?
Show the answer
In your last ten DMs to customers. Your posts should sound like the messages you already send, not like an ad.
Where does your one sentence go in Postfjord?
Show the answer
About the brand. Settings, Brand voice: your sentence in About the brand, your customer in Audience, your words in Tone of voice.
Postfjord filled the brand voice from your website. What do you do next?
Show the answer
Replace its guesses with the lines from this course, then save. The scan is a good start. Your lines come from real customers, so they win.
In this course
- 1Who you sell toWhy "everyone" is the hardest customer to write for, how to pick one real person, and the five things to know about them. · 5 min
- 2What they want, in their wordsWhere to find the words your customers use, the difference between what you sell and what they buy, and a list of phrases to reuse. · 5 min
- 3Your message in one sentenceA simple pattern for the sentence that says who you help, with what and why you, five worked examples, and a test to know it works. · 5 min
- 4Proof and the doubts people haveThe kinds of proof a small business already has, the five doubts that stop people from booking, and a post that answers one of them. · 6 min
- 5A voice that sounds like youDescribe how you sound in a few words and a few rules, then put the whole course into the brand voice in Postfjord so every draft starts from it. · 6 min