If you were to ask a marketer what their idea of the ideal brand voice would be, they’d probably answer somewhere between conversational and agreeable and they’d be right to some degree. Using clear, ordinary and familiar language when speaking to an audience is good and it makes content easy to understand. But there is a danger in being too conversational and too agreeable and that is that it leads to a lack of depth, which can result in extremely yawn-worthy content.
Part of the problem is admittedly the nature of our current reality. People are impatient, and the market is so flooded with content that readers just can’t fully read through every piece of content they come across.
But a bigger part of the problem is that most content that brands produce nowadays is just too agreeable, which ends up being boring. Readers aren’t excited to get to the next paragraph and certainly aren’t hooked enough to get to the end. The result, audiences can’t even remember the brand that wrote the piece.
What is agreeableness?
Agreeableness alludes to one’s tendency to be compassionate, cooperative and compromising. And inevitably a dislike of confrontation. And there is definitely a place for that in marketing, but a lot of audiences also tend to benefit from hard-hitting thought leadership and assertive counsel rather than only meek recommendations. You can still deliver honest advice that is practical and to the point without being offensive.
The traits mentioned above are particularly important because they ensure that a brand’s content stands out! A great example of hard-hitting thought leadership is a blog piece written by Binance, “A Beginner’s Guide to Day Trading Cryptocurrency”.
In the blog, Binance clearly states what it takes to be a day trader and most importantly, the guide doesn’t try to sugar coat it. It breaks down the highly stressful and demanding life of a typical day trader and then mentions a few additional follow-up resources that readers should consult before diving in.
A disconnect between marketers and audiences
It seems that there is a disconnect between how marketers come across to audiences and what audiences actually want. The truth is that writing at a primary school reading level is what most people find enjoyable to read. This is because content written at a lower reading level comes across as more trustworthy.
Brands with clear and simple writing styles are perceived to possess greater transparency and credibility than brands that don’t. Plain language helps to remove barriers between you and your readers. And it sets your brand apart from the competition, resulting in increased conversions and loyalty.
Additionally, jargon-free language allows readers to be much more engaged and eager to learn about your brand’s product or service.
Even if your audience is more educated, your content can still benefit from you simplifying the work. The real secret to great content marketing is the ability to make complex topics easy to understand.
In closing, if the goal is to be conversational and agreeable, then there should be a system in place to have the right conversations with your audiences. It might be worth studying the brand voice and tone to see if there is room to make content more helpful, compelling and even commanding to readers!
