Wanna create a brand with me?
Grab the prompts I’m using to develop a copywriting brand designed for acceleration, meaningful growth, and pitch-perfect audience messaging.
My side hustle hasn’t been my side hustle for over five years. But you’d never know it from my digital footprint. My Fiverr, my LinkedIn, my website — they all tell an outdated story. They don’t reflect where I am now… and definitely not where I’m going next.
I’ve been dreaming about a full brand refresh for a long time, and I’m finally doing it.
This time, I want a brand that’s pinpoint accurate — one that reflects who I am, who I serve, how I show up, and how I sound. A brand voice that feels authentic, never performative, and aligns perfectly with my long-term goals.
And because Copy House Urchin is all about practical, actionable help, I’m bringing you behind the scenes as I rebrand in real time. You’ll see exactly how I build my brand voice identity step by step — and I’ll share prompts and exercises along the way so you can shape your own pitch-perfect brand, too.
Vision
Starting with a clear vision is a non-negotiable with ANY project. It’s especially important when you’re developing a brand. This is what is going to guide every single decision going forward.
Ways you can bring the vision into focus:
Vision board
Pinterest board, Collage
Stream of consciousness writing
Notice I’m not formulating a mission statement. Yet. This is something we’ll do later, but for now, we just want to know the overall goal for the brand.
✏️ Follow Along Steps
Brainstorm and jot down ideas for these areas:
Who are your clients (be specific)
What is your brand known for?
How are you sustaining the business or making money?
What vibes do you want people to experience around your brand?
In 5 year’s time, what is on your calendar?
What kind of change will you drive?
Here’s Copy House Urchin’s vision:
For my writers. I want to grow CHUy into a full-fledged hub where writers can find practically everything they need to start and scale their careers.
For my brands. And on the copywriting side (because this is a two-pronged copy house), I’m doubling down on what my clients already trust me for: writing brand-defining stories. Helping them find their edge, their specialness, and—most importantly—their people.
For CHU. A dual-pronged copywriter brand that serves brands and their writers, leading the charge in authentic brand storytelling, good business practices, and employee empowerment.
Identity
Establishing your Identity is another early-essential to building your brand. Identity encompasses your core values, guiding philosophies, and principles, usually shaped by your early days—life, career, or education.
There are a million and one ways to approach Identity, but I think maybe the easiest way to figure out who your brand is, is through origin story and canon events.
✏️ Follow Along Prompts
Brainstorm and jot down ideas for these areas:
What are your guiding values and principles?
What are you passionate about (high emotion—joy, anger, etc.)?
What’s your background (professional, personal)?
What moment changed how you see things?
What moment set you on this path (that led to you building this business/brand)?
What do you stand against / What are you fighting?
What patterns or themes repeat across your work, background, or life?
What does all this tell you about your brand? Its approach?
What are your canon events?
In storytelling, canon events are catalyst plot points. They’re formative or defining moments that shape who you ultimately become and what you do. And they often happen during your origin story (although canon events can happen in the middle of the story, too. Those spark new adventures.)
A defining moment for CHU (really me—founder and brand are very blended for me right now) was the annual review with my boss’s boss’s boss. I never had a bad review in my life and came to the meeting bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to talk about my future at the company. My desire was to create some social media content for the brand—attracting new clients to the store and giving me hands-on experience in marketing at the same time. I wanted to pivot from the field to the home office.
He got visibly mad. Told me that wasn’t my job and to stay in my lane.
That encounter shaped how I look at things, galvanized my values, and perspectives.
It’s the reason I stopped waiting on my workplace to provide the bridge and when I realized I had to build it myself.
It’s the reason I am a fierce advocate for employee empowerment.
It’s why I don’t allow work to take over my personal profiles (more than 1 employer wanted me to sacrifice my social media on the altar of brand awareness).
It’s why I won’t allow companies to creep into my personal time. If I don’t protect my well-being and progress, no one will.
And it’s the reason I think career pivots should be demystified and information about how to do it yourself should be easy to find and access.
What is your origin story?
Your origin story is the narrative about how this all began. In terms of your brand, what was the moment you realized you wanted to do something, create something, break something? What is your background, and what perspective do you bring?
For CHU? I started this brand as a blog to help other people with dead-end jobs pivot out of their roles. Particularly and especially, pivoting from retail to copywriting. Basically, I was trying to create the content I couldn’t find anywhere else online at the time that would have helped me make the transition.
What core values came from your origin story and canon events?
I remember helping a talent manager in the music industry, Sofia of Soso Agency, with this—parsing exactly who she is as a brand. While her projects and clients change over time, I pointed out one critical thing…
She’ll never not be a fierce advocate for women in the industry. She’ll never abandon her desire to innovate and follow her intuition as a creative. Those principles show up in how she operates everyday. They show up in what venues she books and who she reps.
No matter what’s in front her her, that’s her center of gravity she’ll to come back to.
I have a handful of values that guide my philosophies and actions at Copy House Urchin, too.
Copy House Urchin values:
Uniqueness / Individuality
Innovation
Community
Truth
Levity
And I have stories behind each one, telling why each is important to my brand and approach to copywriting and opportunity.
These will come into play when crafting mission statements, developing content strategy, and creating products and services.
For now, it’s good enough to know where you stand.
Archetype
Archetypes are used in storytelling to fill certain critical roles in the hero’s journey—to guide, test, or help the hero. We use archetypes in branding in order to help us (representatives of the brand—designers, writers, executives) instantly understand our role and how we should be “showing up” in communications.
As I explored an extended version of Jungian Archetypes, guided by my vision for the brand, I gravitated to two: The Magician and The Mentor.
To tease out exactly what attributes make sense for Copy House Urchin, I listed the characteristics of both, then considered each.
Is this how I would show up for my audience and clients?
In the center, I pulled all the characteristics that represented the role I want CHU to play for writers and brands. I left the ones that didn’t fit.
Then I created this overlap that perfectly personified the type of brand I’m building—somewhere in the middle of these two archetypes.
And if you listen closely, you can hear the echoes of our core values in the short list.
An important note about Archetypes: I created a blend of two because I feel like we’re strong equal parts of each (is that my Libra coming out?). But many brands opt for one Archetype. It’s simple and easier for a big team and larger industry to grasp.
✏️ Follow Along Prompt:
Explore your archetype.
Start from the center and work your way out.
What is your primary motivation? Find it in the center of the Archetype Wheel.
What word resonates with your vision? These are what the Arch. is known or or does better than others.
Follow that word out to your Archetype.
Photo Credit: Kayla Swedberg
Note: Wheels like this one don’t capture the nuances of each Archetype. Each one has a long list of defining characteristics. I recommend researching further so you select one that really represents the brand accurately.
Voice
Brand voice is where you take core values, motivations, and role and interpret that into a personality and style. We already have a master list of character traits and values to guide our decisions here.
I’ve been a copywriter for a long time, so I know the value of clarity. Writes “Clarity” on the list. Clear instruction, roadmaps, and resources sound very “Mentor” to me.
But I also love wonder, whimsy, surprise, and sass. Those are all “Magician.” So how can I infuse a little of those qualities into the brand?
So I will greenlight wordplay and interesting turns of phrase in the copy, but always defer to clarity. Maybe that means a clever headline, matched-back (retail terminology) to a clarifying subheader with keywords.
More details to come later when we really outline the Brand Voice, but this will guide the brand for now.
✏️ Follow Along Prompt
Define your writing style / voice.
What do you want people your brand/ you’re like to work with/talk to?
How do you talk when you’re most confident and in your zone?
How do you communicate when you’re trying to encourage or motivate someone?
What emotions do you want to invoke in clients/readers?
How to use Brand Identity to grow
Now that we’ve nailed our Brand Identity, how do we use it to grow—and create all the things I need? Websites, offers, keynotes, books… what’s next to build a brand that charms clients and supports them fully? And how do we use this foundation to reach that 5-year vision?
As I’ve mentioned, I use Identity to drive every decision—who, how, what, and where. Right now, I want to make sure the content, services, and products I create are things my clients actually want—using language and tactics that resonate. It’s just as much about the actions I take as it is about the copy I write.
As I rebrand, I’m going to fill out this map. And the next project is addressing the “Who.”
Everyone talks about customer avatars, but your brand interacts with more than just customers. This is where typical Brand Voice Guides fall short. Brands also interact with partners, collaborators, affiliates, freelancers, and team members.
I want decisions to be easy—for me and everyone in my world. That means exploring my total addressable market (TAM) and clarifying all client and audience segments. Follow for that installment next.