“Tone of voice reflects your brand personality, helps you connect with your audience, and makes you different from the rest” – SEMrush
Name a brand with a memorable tone of voice. If this was a question on the content marketers’ edition of Pointless – Innocent would probably be worth top points. MailChimp, Oatly and First Direct would be up there too. These companies have a memorable tone because they know what they want to say to the world, and most importantly, they know how they want to say it. These brands will have a clear set of tone of voice guidelines so that just about anybody that types a word gets it right. Every time.
But you’re not Innocent. And neither should you want to be. Innocent’s tone of voice guidelines work because they were crafted by Innocent. The quirky style and tone comes naturally to the brand’s writers because it is a natural voice for the business that was built to disrupt and do things differently. You’ll want to do things your way.
Why do you need brand tone of voice guidelines?
Not all marketers are natural copywriters and they don’t write all of your communications. Your CEO, sales team, customer service team etc. all need guidance on how to create a memorable tone to set your content apart. We want every sentence and every piece of content to add value.
Your business is having big, loud conversations with your audience whether it’s through your website content, social media posts, online product descriptions, the words on packaging, or the words to used to put things right with an angry customer. But, there are quieter moments when someone is signing up for a newsletter, filling out a form, checking out your FAQs or clicking on a welcome email. You need a consistent tone of voice in all of these places too.
Like your logo and trademark, your brand tone of voice needs to be consistent or it loses power.