Rachel Van't Land

Rachel Van't Land helps businesses speak in a credible voice that aligns with their brand. She is a copywriter, brand strategist, and content strategist based in Seattle, WA.

Rachel and I talked about:

how she defines "voice" and how she helps her clients find theirs

the importance of voice - it's every bit as, if not more important than, your logo and other visual branding elements

how you can end up with an "accidental" brand voice if you don't pay enough attention to it up front

how there's a perception that "anyone can do the writing," whereas not everyone can use Photoshop or make a logo

her process for helping clients articulate their voice - it works best if you can work alongside the brand and leadership team from the start

the importance of deep foundational work to inform the articulation of the brand voice

the combination of qualitative and quantitative (analytics) research to inform voice development

how the starting point in her projects can vary depending on how much of that fundamental work has already been done

how the terms "conversational" and "authentic" drive her nuts

her hunch that most people mean "relaxed" and "approachable" when they say "conversational"

Microsoft's success in developing a conversational tone in their consumer messages

her thoughts on the differences between "voice" and "tone" - you usually speak in  the same voice but adopt a different tone depending on the context (e.g., Target using a pun in an Easter promo but being much more formal when letting you know about a data breach)

the unique benefits of establishing voice in a consulting role, as opposed to an in-house role or as part of an ongoing agency team

how "voice" is a living, breathing thing, worth revisiting on a regular basis

her work with a company that has grown and added products by acquisition and how to maintain a consistent voice through the process

her use of a "this not that" methodology to fine-tune one-word descriptions of an aspect of voice

the differences between voice-and-tone and grammatical-style guides

her work with chatbot auto-answers, making sure they conform with the brand voice, and how it is often really more of a tone problem that needs to be solved

"It's never to late to work on brand voice." - never to late to revisit - a quick site audit against the current voice and tone guide, e.g.

circling back the "conversational" voice - how The Evergrey has established a genuinely conversational style in their publication

Rachel's Bio

Rachel Van’t Land is a copywriter and consultant who helps organizations use storytelling to bring the right messages into their marketing. When she’s not at the keyboard, she’s meeting up with friends, coordinating her family schedule, or nerding out over marketing books. Her favorite things are desert hikes and free refills on coffee. You can find her at suncatchercopy.com.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/E7KzYc0h4IU

Transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 42 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us, Rachel Van't Land. Rachel's a copywriter, a content strategist, and a brand strategist here in Seattle, Washington. She runs an outfit called Suncatcher Copy, and I'll let Rachel tell you a little bit more about herself.

Rachel:

Yeah, thanks Larry. Thank you for having me. So as Larry said, I am the founder of Suncatcher Copy. And I help brands come up with the right messaging and positioning, and then the way to convey it effectively to their audience. That involves a lot of storytelling, but it also involves finding the right voice and the way to connect the mess...