Nobody cares about your brand voice… until your conversions tank.
Most founders ignore voice until their ads stop working. At that point, it’s not about “positioning” – it’s about survival. Your numbers are down because your brand became invisible.
Nik Sharma, a top growth advisor for DTC brands like Feastables and Jolie, calls this the “sea of sameness.” Emily Heyward, co-founder of Red Antler and author of Obsessed, says great brands don’t just sell – they stand for something.
But instead of building from belief, most operators mimic what’s trending. Same millennial pink, same “fun but safe” copy, same 3-column carousel on Instagram. It’s not strategy. It’s templated personality – and it’s costing you.
The good news? Originality isn’t something you create. It’s something you recover.
Here’s how the pros do it – without rebranding, hiring another agency, or burning out.
You can’t outsource originality – especially if you never defined it.
Agencies are great at amplifying. They’re not great at soul-searching. Founders try to outsource “voice” like it’s a deliverable. But if you can’t say what you stand for, no one else can either.
You have to know: what truth are you willing to say that your competitors won’t? What cultural tension does your product resolve that others gloss over? That’s the emotional edge. That’s what sticks.
Emily Heyward calls this “starting from the gut” – the real reason the best brands resonate. Without it, you get mood boards and taglines that sound like everyone else.
Originality isn’t discovered in a brainstorm. It’s remembered from your own story.
This is the hard work most founders avoid. But it’s the only work that leads to something that can’t be copied. Because clarity can’t be outsourced – and neither can soul.
Before you sound different, you have to think differently.
Brand voice is a reflection of internal thinking. If you think like the crowd, you’ll sound like the crowd. What you say in your marketing is downstream from how you see the world.
DTC culture teaches you to chase what’s working – the same offer stack, the same TikTok hook, the same “customer-obsessed” messaging. But originality doesn’t live in swipe files. It lives in stolen moments of clarity.
Start reading outside your category. Study stand-up comedy, political speeches, literature. Nik Sharma often says the best-performing creative doesn’t follow the rules – it disrupts patterns and grabs attention instantly.
Edgy isn’t the goal. Original thinking is.
If you want to sound different, you have to live in a different mental neighborhood. Because breakthrough ideas don’t come from benchmarking – they come from curiosity.
If your marketing feels lifeless, it’s because you’re playing defense.
Burnout doesn’t always come from overworking. Sometimes it comes from working on things that don’t light you up. Most DTC brands lose their spark the moment they start reacting instead of leading.
You end up adjusting headlines based on last week’s ROAS. Chasing Black Friday playbooks you didn’t write. Running campaigns that feel nothing like you — because you’re scared to fall behind.
But conversion and creativity aren’t enemies. They’re dance partners. The best brands make brave, clear choices — then let the data follow.
You didn’t start this brand to optimize clickthrough rates. You started it to make something real. Somewhere along the way, that got lost.
Defensive marketing is a slow fade into irrelevance. And the customer always feels it. Because they can tell when a brand is just checking boxes.
Lead. Don’t follow. Create. Don’t chase. That’s how you fall back in love with your own brand.
Bonus: A strong brand voice doesn’t start with tone. It starts with truth.
Most DTC brands obsess over finding the right tone – clever, cheeky, casual, bold. But tone is style. It’s not substance. And without substance, you’re just noise with a color palette.
The most iconic brand voices aren’t “crafted” – they’re aligned. They come from founders who are ruthlessly honest about what they believe.
What is your brand angry about? What does it care about? What does it refuse to compromise? That emotional backbone is what gives voice its spine.
As Emily Heyward says, real brand resonance happens when people feel something before they even understand it.
Truth leads. Tone follows.
Get clear on what matters first. Then say it in a way only you can. That’s not branding – that’s storytelling with teeth.
Refocus. Reignite. Rebuild.
You don’t need to reinvent your brand. You need to remember what made it powerful to begin with.
That energy – the kind that makes your team excited again – doesn’t come from a design refresh. It comes from clarity.
When your brand has a voice rooted in truth, originality becomes effortless. You stop copying, and start commanding. You stop burning out, and start building momentum.
That’s when your marketing finally feels like you again. And that’s when your customers feel it, too.
The brand that finally stops pretending is the one people remember.
If this resonated, here’s what to do next:
→ If you’re tired of content that fills space instead of driving sales, let’s talk. Schedule a quick demo.
→ If you’re ready to turn product pages, email flows, landing copy, and more into silent salespeople for your brand, subscribe to either our Unlimited Standard Plan or Unlimited Professional Plan to get started.
Your story deserves better than generic copy.
We make it unforgettable.