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Tone of Voice 1-0-1
A Tone of Voice is your brand’s unique way of writing. It's the language, grammar, prose, and punctuation that differentiates your message.
While that might sound trivial, copywriters often obsess over capturing a brand's personality through the written word, which is no small feat. Everything from the length of sentences to how often commas or full-stops appear can change a reader's mood or perception. When your competitors are working hard to put you out of business (it's a gritty world), having a clearer, wittier, or more relevant message goes a long way towards success.
A Tone of Voice is part of your brand's identity in the same way as a logo or a name. Using a consistent message, style, and tone across different marketing channels transforms your content into more than just words on a screen; it becomes a familiar experience that turns readers into followers. That's crucial for MNCs targeting a global audience where marketing can start to sound like indoctrination rather than a genuine connection.
But a style guide isn't just for the corporate world. With so much competition in the small business space, setting yourself apart with an elegant message is just as important for start-ups or even sole traders hoping to build a strong digital presence.
Why you need a Tone of Voice
Think of the difference between two figures like Donald Trump and Pope Francis. Besides everything imaginable, the most obvious distinction is how they speak. Their 'voices' are more than just audible sounds; it's the inflections, language, tone, tempo, volume, and pitch used to convey their message, making one of them seem humble and reserved while the other is a master of confrontation (guess who).
Thankfully, recognizing voices isn't just a labour of listening. Our eyes can also pick up on character differences based on the grammar, prose, and punctuation in a piece writing. Think of how you felt in the third grade after reading a note from your crush — now compare that to reading a cease and desist letter from a lawyer. Still think tone and style don't matter?
It only takes a few seconds for those emotions to kick in while readers scan your blog post or landing page and decide whether or not to stick around. First impressions count for everything in the digital age.
Copy that's genuinely smart, playful, adventurous, or trustworthy is way more appealing than simply telling customers you have "the best products at the lowest prices!" Your readers deserve more than rehashed marketing rhetoric. Give them a taste of your brand's voice and they might just stick around to smother your Call-to-Action.
How to build your brand's voice
Your Tone of Voice should include any guidelines or writing techniques that contribute to your brand's personality. There's no right or wrong way of doing this but as a general rule you should always aim to be as detailed as possible.
Does your brand use Australian, British, or American English? (those are three different languages). How long should the average sentence in your copy be? Can your brand use emojis or CAPS? What about metaphors, alliteration, assonance, expletives, or other writing devices?
A Tone of Voice guide also needs to define your brand's story. This isn't just a recount of your time in business or your corporate values. A brand story is the social or personal ambitions behind your brand. What does it stand for and what exactly do you want to achieve (besides earnings lots of money)? It's much easier for writers or designers to capture your brand's personality if they know the story behind it.
Here's a few of the elements we include when building a story and brand identity for our clients:
Brand pillars
We identify a brand’s personality with three strategic adjectives that act as the pillars of its voice. Three is a good number here — anything less is too vague, anything more can dilute the message. This usually requires a few brainstorming and insight sessions to fully understand what readers want out of a brand and how to capture their interest.
Dichotomy of traits
This section sets important boundaries on the pillars used in the previous section and how they should be interpreted. In other words, now that we know what the brand is, it's time to define what it's not. Here's a sneak peek of what that usually looks like:
A brand is
But it is not
Intelligent
Adventurous
Funny
Know-it-all
Reckless
Immature
Reader persona
A snapshot of the brand's target audience including their demographics, level of literacy, pain points, and so on. This makes it much easier to remember who to write for and which topics to focus on. We also give each persona a name (either after a real person or a made-up pseudonym) to make it easier to share.
It's all about the data
Aside from a healthy blend of creativity and strategy, crafting a Tone of Voice requires a deep dig into your brand’s internal data. Here’s the kind of information we use to guide those decisions (under complete confidentiality, of course):
demographics of your customers, including their age, level of education, income etc
your brand’s mission statement
the tone and style of competitors
languages spoken by your audience
cultural or market standards.
Once you're equipped with all those, you're ready for the hard part. The good news is that you don't need to do it alone. Building a successful Tone of Voice goes much smoother if you team up with an agency that lives and breathes for crafting written identities. Talk about a coincidence.
Need a re-tune?
Stone & Stylus takes the time to study your brand and build a voice that sings to your audience. Get in touch to see how we can help.
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