Crafting Your Brand Voice to Boost Newsletter Engagement

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A Guide from Valle Creative Consulting, by Arianna Valle

If your inbox is anything like mine, newsletters can sometimes feel like a snooze-fest. 

Yet, when done right, they have the potential to engage, entertain, and even convert. If you’re ready to ditch the bland and level up your newsletter game, your brand voice is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. A strong brand voice doesn’t just set you apart from your competitors, it also builds trust and keeps your readers coming back for more.

Your newsletter should be as unique as your business. So, let’s talk about how you can craft a brand voice that resonates with your audience, boosts engagement, and keeps your subscribers eagerly awaiting your next issue.

Understand your brand voice

Your brand voice is the personality that shines through all of your communication. Just like how you talk to friends, your brand should have a tone and style that feels authentic. When your newsletter reflects your unique voice, it builds a stronger connection with your audience.

Here’s the kicker—newsletters don’t have to be dry and corporate. In fact, they shouldn’t be! 

Whether you’re snarky, inspiring, playful, or formal, find a tone that suits your brand and speaks to your audience. Ask yourself:

  • Who do you want to read your content?
  • What makes your perspective unique?
  • How do your friends describe you?
  • If your business could talk, what would it’s personality be?

These questions will guide you in defining your voice and ensuring it aligns with your overall brand strategy.

Identify your audience—speak to the right people

Identifying your target audience, aka the specific group of people you want to reach with your products, services, and marketing is crucial to every aspect of your brand. 

So it’s no surprise that it also plays a key role in shaping your brand voice. Your audience will guide how you craft your content, what language you use, and what stories you tell.

To make sure your newsletter is resonating with the right people, ask yourself:

  • Who do you want to read your content?
    Imagine a real person when you’re creating your content. This is your ideal reader, and every word you write should be directed toward this person. This vision will make your writing feel more personal, relatable, and genuine.

  • What are your audience’s interests?
    What’s your audience passionate about? What topics are they constantly engaging with? If you understand what matters to them, you can align your newsletter with their interests to create content that truly resonates.

  • What are their desires, and how do your offerings meet those desires?
    Every audience has a deep-seated desire they want to fulfill. Whether it’s gaining more freedom, improving their work-life balance, or finding the best solutions for their business challenges, your brand must speak to those desires.

  • Describe your favorite clients to work with.
    Think about the clients you enjoy working with most. What makes them tick? What kind of personality traits do they have? By envisioning your favorite clients, you can start shaping a voice that connects with people who share similar qualities and characteristics.

By identifying your audience, you can fine-tune your brand voice to create a more meaningful connection with those who matter most to your business.

Find your differentiators

To help solidify your brand voice, you must understand what sets your brand apart from the competition. Why are you different? Why should your audience care? Uncovering your brand’s differentiators will help you identify your tone and position your brand as a unique solution for your audience. To dig deeper, ask yourself:

  • Why did you start your business?
  • What motivates you?
  • What are your core values?
  • How do your offerings benefit your audience? 

The answers to these questions will give you clarity on how to infuse your brand’s unique personality into your newsletter content. Maybe you’re a designer who’s passionate about sustainability, an artist who loves documenting your inspiration, or a consultant who thrives on helping businesses unlock their potential. Whatever it is, let it shine.

Write with intent & repurpose like a pro!

When it comes to crafting content, working smarter, not harder, is key. Your newsletter doesn’t need to be a full-on production every time. Think of it as a recap of what’s going on in your business. You’ve already created plenty of content, so use that to your advantage!

 Here’s how:

  • Intro Story/Hook Paragraph: Start with a personal anecdote, a recap of what’s been happening behind the scenes, or a recent discovery. Don’t be afraid to get personal! Newsletters are an excellent form of nurture marketing, where the foundation is trust-building. People want to connect with you as a human, not just a business.

  • Repurpose Blog Posts: Share a brief recap of your latest blog post, along with a link. This lets your newsletter subscribers stay in the loop and drive traffic to your website.

  • Social Media Highlights: Give your subscribers a peek into your recent social media content. Be sure to include a call to action to follow you on those platforms to stay connected.

  • Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek: Show your subscribers what’s in the works. Transparency builds connection and keeps things fresh! Whether it’s a new project, a studio tour, or something inspiring you, share it.

  • Event Recaps and Teasers: Got an upcoming event? Or maybe you’ve just hosted something exciting? Share it in your newsletter! Offering exclusive updates will make your audience feel like VIPs.

  • New Products or Services: Let your newsletter subscribers in on any new products, services, or offers before anyone else. Give them first dibs! Remember, your newsletter is a marketing tool, so treat it as such.

Link it all together with a common thread

One of the most effective ways to engage your audience is to weave a common thread throughout your newsletter. Think of this thread as the unifying idea that ties all the different sections together. Whether you’re talking about a personal story, upcoming events, or repurposing social media content, keep the tone and theme consistent.

For example, if you’re sharing about a new service offering, your intro could be about how you’ve been inspired to add this service after hearing customer feedback or discovering a new passion. This approach creates cohesion and keeps your readers engaged from start to finish.

Don’t forget a CTA to drive action! 

A well-crafted call-to-action (CTA) can be a game changer for your newsletter’s engagement. Whether you’re directing readers to your latest blog post, encouraging them to follow you on social media, or inviting them to an upcoming event, make your CTA compelling and aligned with your brand voice.

But here’s the trick: don’t be afraid to have fun with your CTAs. Instead of a simple “Follow me on Instagram,” try something playful like, “Come see what’s going on behind the scenes on my Instagram—you won’t regret it!” Play around with your CTA language to keep it consistent with the tone of your newsletter.

TL;DR: 

When you craft a brand voice that’s distinct and authentic, you create a newsletter that your audience actually wants to read. Your newsletter will be engaging when you: 

  • understand your brand voice, 
  • position your brand’s differentiators,
  • speak to your ideal audience,
  • and keep things authentic.

 

From our guest:

At Valle Creative Consulting, we believe in helping businesses like yours connect with their audience through thoughtful, creative marketing.

By implementing these tips, your newsletter will stop being just another email in the inbox and become an eagerly anticipated communication tool. So, let’s get to work—your next great newsletter is just a few clicks away!

Do you need help finding your brand voice or perfecting your newsletter strategy? Let’s chat! Reach out to Valle Creative Consulting, and let’s make your marketing as vibrant and unique as your business!

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Making Myths and Luxuries: Branding Lessons for Artists

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You can sign up for our Business of art newsletter to get great content in the comfort of your own inbox.

 

In the corporate world, we talk about “brand” to discuss a company’s identity. Much like human identities, there are many brand possibilities for companies. Brands can be fun and playful, irreverent, serious, etc.

While the word brand might be too stiff or formal for an artist’s business, artists still have an identity. And developing your identity is key to being successful. For artist entrepreneurs, it can be fun and valuable to explore what identity they want their business to have. Artist branding doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

 

What Is a Brand?

We often think of a brand as a logo, but it’s a lot more than a stylish symbol. A common phrase in corporate marketing is, “A brand is what your customers say it is.” In other words, a brand is the emotional connection between the company, its products, and the customer. A brand is complex; it is the essence of a company and the relationship of that essence to its audience. 

When customers buy something from a brand they like, they’re not just buying a product or a service. They’re buying meaning, something that goes beyond function and reflects on how the customer views themselves. 

 

Something similar can be said for art. 

 

Certainly, most people don’t buy art for its functional value the way they buy, say, a pair of shoes or a car. They buy art for how it makes them feel. A big part of that is the storytelling that happens around the art, what I like to call the Myth.

 

Myth Making for Artists

What makes one artist more well-known than another? Is it that their work is better than others? 

Sometimes a revered artists work IS better, but likely what makes an artist more well known than another is differentiation! More often than not, it’s the myths created around the artist and their artwork that heighten the audience’s value of the creative output. In branding, we call this “myth” a brand story.

 

What is a myth, exactly? 

 

It’s more than a story. Myths often have some common characteristics, including:

  • A story with a nearly unbelievable—but still possible—arc. 
  • An origin, a transformation, and an expansive possibility

Myths are created to teach us, to inspire us, and to help us understand our own experiences in the world. The ability to craft and articulate a myth can be very valuable to an artist seeking to sustain themselves through the sale of their artwork.

 

For artists, this usually translates to:

  • An origin story somewhere between truth and fiction, but that showcases the artist’s humanity. It is where you are from in all aspects. Your hometown, your family, your friends and colleagues, and all the unique things and experiences that make you, YOU.
  • A transition where they experience concepts and learn skills to turn ideas into things. It is how you emerged as an artist. Your early experiences. The teacher that recognizes your talent. The training that refined you. The critique that made you. The transition is the awareness of you as a creative force.  A vision of things yet to exist. The artist has dreams of concepts, ideas and inventions that will enrich them as a creator.

 

So how does myth making translate to selling art? To understand this, it’s important to understand what type of business you want to be and to develop a myth that embraces the type. 

 

Three Types of Businesses

There are essentially three types of business: Commodity, Premium, and Luxury. Let’s take a quick look at what each of these are. 

 

Commodity Business 

Commodities are interchangeable goods or services. Their price is controlled by the customer, who can buy any number of products or services that are nearly the same  from a selection of vendors. For example, it doesn’t matter whether they buy the store brand of sugar or a name brand. The product is essentially the same and the creator has no control over the price.

 

Fine art is rarely sold as a commodity, though there are certainly websites where artists can sell various quality prints of their work as a commodity. This might be most akin to an unlimited print run.

 

Premium Business

A premium business sells differentiated products or services based on quality of material, skill, or customer support. The prices are often tied to what the market will bear, but is also greatly influenced by the quantity and expansiveness of offerings that supply has created in the marketplace. The creator has some control over the price, although the peers that they are competing with will influence price as well.

 

For an artist business, a premium business model can make a lot of sense. The artist often selects ideal materials for their creations and their skill is often high caliber. Together, the quality of materials and expertise of craftsmanship to make a work of art can command premium pricing, although your price may be influenced by your fellow premium peers.

 

Luxury Business

Luxury businesses are distinguished from the other types based on often irrational, subjective reasons. Products and services in this category are driven by scarcity, usually manufactured, and priced much higher than the value of the materials or skill needed to create them. In some ways, luxury products transcend reality by enabling the customer to be, think, say or do something beyond themselves. 

 

Think of almost any high-end luxury clothing brand where it’s all about the designer’s name and the brand rather than the material of the product or the skill of the person actually making the goods (either by hand or using machines). 

 

Art easily lends itself to this category, and much of society also sees art as a luxury. Not only is art a perspective, expression or manifestation of an idea that reflects the buyer, but its supply is greatly limited, it is usually unique, and only the artist has the skill and experience to create it. As a luxury brand, the artist and their business team can have significant control of the price.

 

Where Does Your Artist Business Fit In?

So what do these three types of businesses have to do with making myths? Oftentimes, the myth defines the business type. In other words, your art might be totally differentiated from every single piece of art out there. But it is your myth—your story, your skill, your experiences, etc.—that defines whether your art is a commodity, a premium product, or a luxury experience. How accessible your myth is to your audience also plays an important role. If no one knows the myth–or understands it–it kind of doesn’t exist!

 

Keep in mind that you may work through all three of these types of businesses over your art career. You might start at the commodity level, maybe churning out similar, less differentiated work at first. Then, as both your artistic vision and business skills mature, you might morph into a premium business, making fewer pieces (i.e. reducing supply) and growing the perceived value of your work. Finally, you might further refine your model to develop luxury pieces and services, such as painting commissioned murals in a customer’s home or designing Diadora’s next show line.

 

Ultimately, the direction you choose to take your business is yours. But if you need guidance in refining your vision and understanding how to build a business that supports your art, I’m here to help. Contact me to discuss how to build your income as an artist in a way that aligns with your artistic vision.

 

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