Every brand should consider their voice. By this we mean, the style and tone of the words you use to represent and market your brand. Your brand’s voice speaks to your market at an emotional level sending messages about why they should trust you and use your services.
Two essential voices in healthcare
Honestly, fear is the emotion that your voice should be addressing. Fear of what is happening to a person’s health and what will happen in the future. Your brand’s voice needs to speak to that fear and to remedy it. There are two different voices that can do this: Nurturing and Authoritative. This week we will look at the Nurturing voice.
We are going to take care of you
The goal of the nurturing voice is to fight against fear by promising to take care of your patients. You take on the role of the mother who will do everything they can to protect their child and see to their well being. It is a very powerful voice for combating fear and uncertainty. It is essential in healthcare.
The nurturing voice also combats fears about the unknown. Many people have a negative view of hospitals as places that are cold and clinical. By adopting a nurturing voice you sooth these fears and transform their image into a place where everything is focused on the patient’s safety and comfort.
Elements of the nurturing voice
A nurturing voice starts with a personal tone. The word “you” is essential for this. You want to seem to be talking to only one person, the one reading or listening to your message. Speak to emotions. Show you understand someone’s worries and state clearly you want to help.
Words like “warm”, “compassionate”, “caring”, and “love” are powerful signals. You want to avoid technical and clinical terms. You want to consider how words make you feel as much as what they mean. Focus on what you are going to do to help and support others.
Stay consistent
Not every marketing message needs to have the same voice, but within any given message, you absolutely want to stay consistent. If you have boilerplate messaging, make sure it matches the voice you want to use and is consistent with your brand overall.
A good practice is to review every piece of marketing material for voice. Have in mind what you are aiming for, and look for places to strengthen this voice and for places to remove competing voices.