I’ll admit it … I’ve probably never met a personality test I didn’t like. Can you relate? Today I’m going to show you start to finish how to get ramped up adding personality to your copy—and yes, as an Enneagram 1, this will be clear and detailed as I can make it in a blog post, wink wink.

My best friend Camilla and I used to steal her big sister’s Seventeen magazines, run back into her room, and take quizzes when we were in middle school.

Anyone else?

Even now, it seems we all have a craving for self-assessment. Everyone loves a good personality quiz!

BUT .. how do you marry that unique personality of yours with the words you type online to market your business?

When it comes to figuring out your brand voice and how it stems from your personality, there are 3 T’s to keep in mind to keep the process super simple and fun. I’ll teach ya all about ’em in this week’s video. Don’t skip out on taking the quiz (it will help you with the video’s third step!) here!

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1. Nail Down Your Tempo

Tempo is the musical quality or cadence of voice. Is it sharp and abrupt? Is it flowing and lilting? Do you talk fast? Do you have a slow drawl? Or are you like me, and a fast-talking Southerner. 🙂

Do you speak in long sentences, or have a tendency to use quick, jabbing quips?

In the video, I show you something fun you can do (plus, it’s a step behind our client process). When I’m talking on others brand voices as a launch and website copywriter, I analyze my client’s voice tempo—you can do that yourself by looking at your average sentence length, how big the words are, and what reading level it’s on.

The free Hemingway App is a fab way to get the quick skinny on the reading level your copy is for (pro tip, I try to aim for eighth-grade max when writing copy for an internet reader), and give you tips on how you can simplify your prose.

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2. Flesh Out Your Terminology

How do you know what to personality packed terms to punch-up your copy? Venn Diagram style, look for patterns and preferences in your life and see where they intersect with things your audience would click with.

I see a lot of creatives—especially in providing copywriting as a service—get so fixated on finding their voice that they forget it’s a marriage of voice of customer data + client voice that we’re after. (If anything, I’ve learned as a service provider over the years to make sure I’m doing my best to educate our clients on this part of the process, so they understand where some phrases come from in the final deliverables …. they’re *not* gonna be a direct client voice match, and that’s okay.)

Remember that the whole goal of copywriting is to match the inner dialogue going on in your reader’s head: It’s less important that your copy sound JUST like you and instead continue the conversation your ideal client or customer is hearing in their head.

Peppering in your voice isn’t really something we want to do either—that’d be like a dubbed video. We want terminology you say (that your audience would be into) to naturally bubble up in your copy.

One more pro tip: Steer clear of putting these things in your value proposition (what my Copywriting for Creatives™ students know I call your Onlyness Factor), but they go GREAT in email copy, bits of micro copy, captions, etc.

Likewise, what mascots or symbols do you want to bring into your brand? Jenna Kutcher talks about mac n’ cheese, I talk about champagne a lot as a metaphor for welcoming your clients and customers … Emily Ley talks about pineapples as they’re a symbol of hospitality … not only are these visual cues for brands, but they’re extended into the copy of the brands as well.

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3. Solidify Your Tone

I saved the hardest for last, you’re welcome. 😉

This can get tricky, so I want to simplify it for you as we pinpoint your personality. The EASIEST way to take this from a nebulous theory to practical to-do is to list the adjectives your friends or dream clients say they think of when they think of your brand.

Ask them if they haven’t.

For example, your tone can be nerdy, innovative, minimalist, cheerful, whimsical, classic, expensive, dependable, romantic, condescending, patriotic, joyful, shocking, spooky, cool, happy, funny, formal, flirty … the list goes on.

Another tip? I’ve found personality tests to be super-duper helpful in gathering a list of adjectives that are really on-brand (especially since my brand has elements of a personal brand, and it’s likely yours does, too). Google and look for words that describe your Enneagram type or Myers-Briggs results.

I think personality-driven branding is so important, so I created an entire quiz that pinpoints one of 4 archetypes as your own thinking and processing style, and gives you a mini-word bank of adjectives you can use to describe your voice.

If you’re ready to shake things up and get a copy/paste list of words that likely describe your brand personality tone—take it here.

Bank on what makes you unique and different as you build your creative business and DIY your own message, and I’ll be here as you do just that.

Aight, tune into the video and let me know below—what are 3 things that represent you that you’d like to fold into your message and copy?