Audit 10 Content Pieces for Voice Drift
Objective: Apply the lesson's Stage 1 audit diagnostic to a set of 10 real content pieces and flag which ones would fail the 'logo removed' test.
FirstCry has content from 4 different teams, marketing emails, app push notifications, support replies, and social captions, with no shared voice check performed in over a year.
Read all 10 pieces aloud, apply the logo-removed diagnostic, and flag structural drift patterns, not just individual off-voice lines.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free, easy to sort and share with stakeholders across teams
The process
1 step
Step 01 of 01
The lesson's Stage 1 asks one diagnostic question per piece: if the logo were removed, would a reader still know this came from your organization?
Of 10 pieces across 4 teams, if more than 5 fail the logo-removed test, is the voice problem structural or just a few bad drafts?
Procedure
- Read each of the 10 pieces aloud without seeing which team wrote it
- Mark PASS if the piece is recognizably on-brand without the logo, FAIL if it isn't
- For each FAIL, note the specific drift pattern (jargon, formality swing, missing personality)
- Count FAILs; if more than half the sample fails, flag the problem as structural
VOICE AUDIT (10 pieces) Marketing email #1: PASS Push notification #2: FAIL - reads like a system alert, no personality Support reply #4: FAIL - overly formal, no contraction use anywhere Social caption #7: PASS ... TOTAL: 6 of 10 FAIL -> structural problem, not editorial
Healthy
Fewer than half the sample fails, and failures cluster around one team or format, pointing to a targeted fix.
Unhealthy
More than half the sample fails and failures span every team and format with no shared pattern.
What this means
A high fail rate spread across teams means there is no shared voice document doing any work, this is a Stage 2/3 gap, not a training problem with one team.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| 6 of 10 pieces fail the logo-removed test across 4 different teams | Escalate to defining and documenting voice attributes (Stage 2-3) rather than editing individual pieces | 30 min |
Final deliverable
A completed 10-row audit sheet with a PASS/FAIL call and a specific drift note for every piece, plus a one-line verdict on whether the problem is structural or editorial.
See a reference example
PolicyBazaar Content Audit (excerpt)
Email #3: FAIL - jargon-heavy ('premium remittance schedule') where support copy elsewhere uses plain language
Push #6: PASS
VERDICT: 7 of 10 pieces fail; drift concentrated in email and support, not social. Structural gap in email/support voice specifically.Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- All 10 pieces read and scored PASS/FAIL against the logo-removed test
- Every FAIL has a specific, named drift pattern, not just 'off-voice'
- A final verdict states whether the problem is structural (affects most pieces/teams) or isolated