The Truis way of speaking

Written by: Jenna Brooker · General Manager · Marketing

One of the key factors that led to the development of our Truis brand voice: Those fish-out-of-water situations.

If you’re not all that interested in wine, hearing about the tannins and terroir probably won’t mean a lot to you.
What you really want to know is – will I like it?

If you’re not familiar with the intricacies of aerospace engineering, the endless acronyms will only cause confusion.
What you really want to know is – is this plane safe?

And if IT isn’t your bread and butter, the tech jargon probably sounds like a lot of white noise.
What you really want to know is – will this help my business?

What all of us forget, from time to time, is that each industry has developed its own language. 

We get so used to communicating with colleagues, suppliers, and those who speak our language that the jargon, the acronyms, and the specific technical details that we know to be important – it becomes standard. It feels normal to us. 

But for people outside the tech space, including those we exist to serve, ‘REEF’ is where you go to snorkel and ‘DAM’ is an expression reserved for when you’ve locked your keys in the car.

If you’re not directly connected to the tech sector – how could you be expected to speak the language?

This was one of the key insights we uncovered during the process of rebranding from Computer Merchants to Truis.

Since we’ve become Truis, ‘people-first’ has become the guiding principle of our brand voice. Our people-first brand voice means cutting the jargon. The acronyms. The language that returns head-scratching and glazed expressions. It means always trying to communicate in the simplest terms possible. 

To keep the Truis voice consistently people-first, we created Mack, our ideal buyer persona. By all accounts, Mack is an everyday guy.
He has down-to-earth values and at work, he manages a team of people.
Between keeping his workplace on track and spending time with his family – he’s a busy man.

Over the past two years, our marketing team has become very familiar with the ‘Mack test’.

1. The moment a piece of marketing collateral is ready for review, we ask ourselves: Will the content inform, inspire, or answer one of Mack’s questions?
2. If we communicated the content to Mack verbally, would it feel natural?
3. Have we used language that Mack is already familiar with?
4. Is it visually designed in a way that allows Mack to quickly pull out the key points?

If the answer is ‘no’ to any of the above, we tweak until it’s a ‘yes’. 

To truly connect with your audience? It’s not just what you say. It’s also about how you say it.