ProductLed's Three-Step Method for Building a SaaS Brand Voice That Users Remember

SaaS companies that dismiss brand tone of voice as a concern for physical direct-to-consumer products are leaving differentiation, trust and churn reduction on the table, according to a ProductLed guide that lays out a three-step process for finding a product voice. The payoff, the guide argues, is fourfold: standing apart from competitors, humanizing the brand, building trust through familiarity, and creating a personal connection that influences users. Brand voice extends beyond features and functionality — it is how a product communicates its message, values and personality.

What does Step 1 require?

The process starts with data gathering — internal and external.

Internal resources:

• Mission and values. A disconnect between stated values and tone makes communicating those values externally far harder. Values should drive whether the tone is rebellious, relaxed, professional or friendly.
• Existing content. Content has usually already shaped a consistent tone. The recommendation is to evolve it rather than reverse direction entirely.
• Internal conversation. A brand voice separate from team culture is difficult to sustain; the closer the tone sits to how the team already talks, the easier it is to maintain.

External resources:

• Audience. Study how target users communicate on LinkedIn, Slack and other communities, whether they are formal or informal, and which words they use. Stay as close to the audience's vocabulary as possible.
• Competitors. Not the starting point, but necessary to avoid becoming a carbon copy. Look for the blank space in the market and fill it.
• Channels. Tone must vary by channel. Nike keeps a motivating, energetic core but on LinkedIn shifts from athletics to internal company stories, still around leadership and motivation.
• Local specifics. Not full localization, but word choice matters: "awesome" in the US often describes run-of-the-mill things, while Europeans reserve superlatives more carefully. Local advisors can help recalibrate.

The takeaway: tone of voice starts as a research exercise, not a creative one.

How do you turn research into a shared voice?

Step 2 moves the work into team exercises, because tone is fickle and hard to verbalize even when you know what you want.

• Personality Slider. Borrowed from Google Ventures' Three-Hour Brand Sprint, this framework defines a brand in three hours. Teams mark where the brand currently sits and where it should sit on sliders such as elite versus mass appeal — and where competitors sit. The worst outcome is keeping every dot at the center: "That's not a brand. That's a robot talking to a person." The value lies less in the placement than in the internal debate about why each slider sits where it does.
• Tone of Voice Dimensions. Based on Nielsen Norman Group's research, this exercise uses four voice dimensions, each with a few explanatory words. Being neutral on some is fine; being neutral on all signals a problem. Words add meaning: you want to be formal not to seem professional but to seem trustworthy.
• Brand Archetypes. Drawn from Carl Jung's 12 archetypes and split into four motivations: freedom-motivated (Innocent, Sage, Explorer), ego-motivated (Outlaw, Magician, Hero), social-motivated (Lover, Jester, Everyman) and order-motivated (Creator, Ruler, Caregiver). Lego is cited as a strong Creator brand. The recommended practice is one primary archetype plus two or three secondary ones.

The takeaway: exercises force a team to argue through positions it cannot articulate in the abstract.

What happens in Step 3?

Codification. The output is a brand voice chart listing each characteristic with a description and dos and don'ts, placed in front of everyone who communicates externally. MailChimp's content style guide is cited as the most popular and detailed reference.

Context scenarios — marketing content, advertising, customer service, product copy, investor memos — each need distinct treatment while staying on brand. The guide recommends a designated Chief Voice Officer to check communications before publication.

Which examples show voice in practice?

Two UK beverage companies illustrate the extremes. Innocent, a healthy drink brand, opens its homepage with a horoscope: "You will become unexpectedly interested in crushed fruit and companies that give 10% of profits to charity." BrewDog goes edgy and aggressive: "Punk IPA, Bold. Hoppy. Tropica."

In SaaS, a 404 page makes the same point. ActiveCampaign keeps it professional, concise and nearly emotionless. Mailchimp goes quirky — clicking a horse peering into a hole launches a browser game. Neither approach is better; they show how similar products differentiate.

The guide cites Maya Angelou — "People don't always remember what you say or do, but they always remember how you made them feel" — and Robert Cialdini's Influence: people find things more manageable when they like who they are talking to, and meaningful connection reduces churn.

ProductLed ties the method to its broader ProductLed GTM System from founder Wes Bush and a PLG readiness assessment. As AI-generated copy floods every channel, a deliberately codified, archetypes-anchored voice is becoming the durable differentiator that generic output cannot fake.