# Northbeam — Voice & Tone

Clear like a beam · Analytical, not academic · Calmly decisive · Built for momentum · Human in the details

## Personality

- **Funny ↔ Serious:** leans serious (+1) — Northbeam handles business-critical product decisions, so the voice should be serious and focused, with little room for jokes.
- **Formal ↔ Casual:** balanced (0) — The brand should sound professional and precise, but still plainspoken enough for fast-moving growth teams.
- **Respectful ↔ Irreverent:** respectful (-2) — Analytics copy must respect the user’s data, time, and decision pressure; irreverence would weaken trust.
- **Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact:** leans matter-of-fact (+1) — Northbeam should feel confident and momentum-building, but its credibility comes from measured, evidence-based language.

## Traits

- **Clear like a beam** — Use precise, plain language that points teams to the next insight or action. No haze, no filler, no over-explaining.
  - Why: Northbeam’s name and crisp geometric identity suggest focus, direction, and signal. Growth teams need fast clarity when they’re deciding what to build, fix, or scale.
  - e.g. "See where activation drops, what changed, and which segment to inspect next."
- **Analytical, not academic** — Sound data-literate and rigorous without drifting into jargon, theory, or dashboard-speak.
  - Why: The audience understands metrics, funnels, cohorts, and experiments—but they’re using Northbeam to make decisions, not read a white paper.
  - e.g. "Revenue is up 12%, but repeat usage is flat. Start with returning users in your highest-spend cohort."
- **Calmly decisive** — Lead with confident recommendations and clear hierarchy. Avoid hype, hedging, or alarmist language.
  - Why: Growth teams operate in ambiguity. Northbeam should feel like a steady analytical layer that helps them choose the next move.
  - e.g. "This change is statistically meaningful. Promote the variant to 100% when you’re ready."
- **Built for momentum** — Keep copy concise, action-oriented, and oriented around progress: finding, comparing, testing, learning, and shipping.
  - Why: Product analytics is most valuable when it shortens the distance between question and action. The voice should feel efficient and forward-moving.
  - e.g. "Find the drop-off. Compare the cohorts. Ship the next test."
- **Human in the details** — Acknowledge the user’s task and context without becoming chatty. Be helpful, never cute.
  - Why: Growth teams work under pressure. Northbeam can be direct while still making complex analysis feel manageable.
  - e.g. "No matching events yet. Check the event name, date range, or applied filters."

## Tone by context

- **Onboarding:** Be structured, reassuring, and progress-oriented. Explain the value of each setup step in one line. Prefer “Connect your first source” over generic setup language.
- **In-product guidance:** Be concise and directional. State what the user is seeing, why it matters, and what to do next. Avoid long tooltips or broad educational detours.
- **Insights and recommendations:** Be confident but evidence-based. Name the metric, the change, the segment, and the suggested next step. Avoid overstating causality unless Northbeam can prove it.
- **Empty states:** Be useful, not apologetic. Explain what’s missing and how to generate value. Keep the tone calm and practical.
- **Errors and failures:** Be plain, accountable, and specific. Say what failed, whether data is safe, and what the user can do. Avoid blame, humor, or vague “something went wrong” language.
- **Success states:** Be brief and momentum-building. Confirm the completed action and point to the next logical step.
- **Marketing:** Lead with outcomes for growth teams: faster answers, cleaner decisions, and clearer product bets. Stay crisp and credible; avoid inflated claims like “revolutionary” or “game-changing.”
- **Sales and enterprise:** Sound strategic and operationally mature. Emphasize trust, measurement rigor, team alignment, integrations, and decision speed.

## Messaging

**Audience:** Growth, product, analytics, and lifecycle teams at digital products who need to understand user behavior, identify conversion and retention opportunities, and make faster product decisions.
**Value:** Northbeam turns product behavior into clear, decision-ready insights so growth teams can find what matters and act faster.

- **Signal over noise** — Northbeam helps teams isolate the metrics, segments, and behavior changes that actually matter—without getting lost in dashboards.
- **Built for growth motion** — Funnels, cohorts, experiments, and retention views are designed around the questions growth teams ask every day.
- **Fast path from question to action** — Clear analysis, guided comparisons, and focused recommendations reduce the time between spotting an issue and shipping the next move.
- **Confidence teams can share** — Northbeam gives product, growth, and analytics teams a common view of what changed, why it matters, and where to focus next.

## Lexicon

**Use:** `signal`, `clarity`, `growth teams`, `product analytics`, `activation`, `retention`, `conversion`, `cohorts`, `funnels`, `segments`, `experiments`, `insights`, `next move`, `drop-off`, `source of truth`, `decision-ready`, `measure what matters`, `from question to action`, `find the pattern`, `compare performance`, `ship with confidence`
**Avoid:** `synergy`, `leverage best-in-class solutions`, `unlock your full potential`, `game-changing`, `revolutionary`, `insane growth`, `crush your metrics`, `magic`, `effortless insights`, `data-driven culture transformation`, `one weird trick`, `just`, `obviously`, `oopsie`, `uh-oh`, `blast off`, `supercharge everything`, `disrupt`, `single pane of glass`

## Mechanics

- **Capitalization:** Sentence case for UI, headings, buttons, and navigation. Use title case only for formal document titles, report names, or event names supplied by users.
- **Contractions:** yes
- **Emoji:** Never in product UI, documentation, errors, or enterprise communications. Rare and deliberate in social posts only if the surrounding copy stays sharp.
- **Reading level:** Grade 8–10. Keep sentences short, but allow standard analytics terms when they help precision.

## Boilerplate

- **Short:** Northbeam is a product-analytics platform that gives growth teams clear, decision-ready insight into user behavior.
- **Medium:** Northbeam helps growth teams understand how users move, convert, and return across their product. With focused analytics for funnels, cohorts, segments, and experiments, Northbeam turns behavioral data into clear signals teams can use to prioritize, test, and ship with confidence.
- **Long:** Northbeam is a product-analytics platform built for growth teams that need faster answers from user behavior. It helps teams analyze activation, conversion, retention, cohorts, funnels, and experiments in one clear workspace. Instead of adding more dashboard noise, Northbeam surfaces the patterns and changes that matter, then helps teams decide where to focus next. Product, growth, and analytics teams use Northbeam to align on performance, identify opportunities, and move from question to action with confidence.

## Voice in action

**Homepage hero**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| hero-headline | Product analytics for growth teams that need a clearer signal. | Unlock powerful product analytics to supercharge your growth strategy. | The on-voice version is specific, restrained, and tied to Northbeam’s clarity theme. The off-voice version is plausible SaaS marketing but too inflated and generic. |

**Primary CTA**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| hero-headline | See Northbeam in action | Get started today | The on-voice CTA sets a concrete expectation. The alternative is serviceable but generic and less aligned to an analytical buying journey. |

**Empty dashboard state**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| empty-state | No product events yet. Connect a source or send your first event to start mapping user behavior. | There’s nothing here yet. Add data to get started. | The on-voice version names what’s missing and the exact next step. The alternative is clear but underspecified. |

**Funnel insight**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| notification | Activation dropped 8% this week, driven mostly by new users on mobile. | Your activation funnel has changed since the last reporting period. | Northbeam should surface the signal: metric, magnitude, time frame, and segment. The alternative sounds competent but vague. |

**Tooltip for cohort comparison**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| onboarding-welcome | Compare cohorts to see how behavior changes by signup date, plan, channel, or experiment group. | Cohort analysis helps you evaluate different groups of users over time. | The on-voice version connects the feature to practical growth questions. The alternative reads like generic documentation. |

**Integration success**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| success | Segment is connected. Northbeam will start processing new events now. | Success! Your integration has been successfully completed. | The on-voice version confirms the source and what happens next. The alternative is acceptable but redundant and less useful. |

**Sync error**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| error | We couldn’t sync the last 2 hours of events from Stripe. Your existing data is safe. Retry the sync or check the connection. | Something went wrong while syncing your data. Please try again later. | The on-voice version is calm, specific, and action-oriented. The alternative is common but too vague for analytics infrastructure. |

**Experiment result**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| notification | Variant B increased trial starts by 14%. The result is significant at 95% confidence. | Variant B is performing better and may be a good option to roll out. | The on-voice version gives evidence with enough rigor to support a decision. The alternative hedges and omits the decision-critical numbers. |

**Pricing page subhead**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| hero-headline | Plans that scale with your data volume, team size, and growth motion. | Flexible pricing for teams of all shapes and sizes. | The on-voice version uses criteria relevant to product analytics buyers. The alternative is friendly but broad. |

**Documentation intro**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| onboarding-welcome | Use this guide to send clean events into Northbeam and keep your analysis trustworthy from day one. | This article will walk you through the process of setting up event tracking in our platform. | The on-voice version explains the outcome of setup, not just the procedure. The alternative is competent but flat. |
