I recall the moment I realised Focusrite was in dire need of Tone of Voice guides only tooclearly, and yet I continued to ignore it for far too long. The more brands we had to communicate on behalf of, and the more people we had to represent them, the more often a dose of schizophrenia seemed to set in, but there was just too much to do to pause and reflect. We needed a solution, and that solution was a Brand Tone of Voice Guide (well, multiple guides in our case).
There are a lot of articles on the importance of Tone of Voice guides, so I’m not going to rewrite those. Also, I’m assuming that, especially if you’re reading this, you get the need for a consistent tone of voice in your communications. You understand that trust is the essential ingredient to cultivate brand love within your tribe, and nothing breeds trust like consistency.
Instead then, I suppose this is a process of introspection for me. A chance to right some wrongs. Working across multiple brands, I’ve gone through this process a bunch of times and learned some valuable lessons along the way. We made mistakes, or if I’m not so self-fladulating, we saw ways to improve each time. I’ve captured those lessons and brought them together to make it easier for you to develop your TOV guide with your team.
I started this article by writing a list of do’s and don’ts, and broke one hundred pretty quickly. So I pained over the ones I felt really mattered to make this easier for you, and here is where I got to: Five Tone of Voice rules to DRIVE your business forward — and in the process, I created an acronym (I love a good acronym!) to make them more memorable and implementable.
Finally, before I get into it, this is a ‘how to create’, not a ‘what to write’. I’ve left that whole world out of this. Definitely a subject for another time — I can already sense the heckles of ‘Get on with it!’
D is for distinct.
Of course it applies to all things Brand, but it’s especially pertinent here. If you can’t stand out in your communications, you’ll just blend in and remain an ‘also ran’. If you’re a challenger brand, you’ll never even break through the unconscious preference filter of the consumer in the few microseconds made available to you. There are multiple opportunities to be distinct with your writing; from a unique lexicon and phraseology, to sentence length and pace, your use of grammar and how you choose to break the rules, and ultimately a flow and style that, once someone reads it twice, conjures up a clear sense of a single human entity in their minds. So far then, this all sounds doable (not easy, but doable), until you remember that multiple people are trying to write on behalf of this supposed ‘single communicator’. So, bring the team together and search for some specific, powerful ways to make your brand’s Tone of Voice distinct. Think about each one deeply and how you will help others use it, then zone in on a distinct group of the most powerful, implementable tools. Less is more if you want others to follow (I’ll expand a little on that in two letters’ time).
R is for Resonate.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised here either. It’s another key to all things brand — know your audience so you can truly resonate with them. Take the time to get a sense of the way your tribe speak. Why not bring all the people in your organisation who ever put pen to paper (virtually speaking) on behalf of the brand, and discuss your tribe’s language. Why not organise an event to engage with your tribe for this exact purpose. When they talk, what words do they choose? What are the repeated ‘turns of phrase’? How do they adapt to the different mediums (from reviews to forums to social media to long form content, if you can find any), and what aspects remain the same throughout? (You should touch on content too, as part of this process, even though I said I wouldn’t go there in this article. It makes sense to bring content into the debate as part of a process of getting into the hearts and minds of your community).
Don’t confuse this with a process of imitation. Just because you’re looking to resonate, that doesn’t mean you get there by aping your community. We’ll touch on this when we get to V (you’re you and you have to stand for something you truly believe in, regardless of what others might think), and I have a great tool that will help here which I’ll share when we get to E — so stay with me.
I is for implementable.
It’s a guide. A tool. It’s not an intellectual exercise; not a demonstration of how damn clever and alluringly literate you are. This is all a complete waste of time if your team can’t make use of it. Which brings me back to my central principle for working effectively together. Inclusion. Involve the team in the creation. Not through a process of death by consensus, where the output is the most vanilla entity possible, but by facilitating a journey that makes everyone feel they had a part to play. Implementable means easy. Quick. Clear. Applicable. The reality is, not everyone can be an exceptional writer. You’ll have a group with varied skills, but they’re all communicating on behalf of your brand, and your brand voice is only as strong as the weakest link. You have to bring everyone along for the ride (or limit those who write on behalf of the brand — or most likely, a bit of both). I personally believe all copywriters should take a few minutes to reconnect with a TOV before they begin writing, so the guide needs to be consumable within five minutes or less. That directly translates to a single page; something that can reside up on the wall, or be pulled up on a second screen the moment someone needs to draft something. It also means a few golden examples, a few clear distinct rules, an easily accessible lexicon (this should grow somewhere else organically over time, with everyone contributing to it, but a few key words can be included on the guide itself, especially where they help to demonstrate the other principles and your values in action), a snappy expression of the brand’s personality (strengths, weakness, traits, fears and desires) and some form of register breakdown or ‘tone profile’; a quick visual aid that helps position the brand personality as it pertains to tone. And be specific and concise. The looser your guide is, the more varied, and consequently schizophrenic, different peoples’ implementations of it will be.
V is for Value-based.
You just can’t start the process of creating a Tone of Voice guide if you haven’t established your values. I’ve tried to do it, just from a brand personality profile, which arguably shouldn’t have been created itself in absence of agreed values, but…we live and learn. No, if you haven’t put the time in with your team to agree what it is you stand for, each and every time you walk through the door, then ultimately you stand for nothing, and that will come through in the writing, usually in the form of schizophrenia, or worse, indifference — see D! Strong values will help to inform both the brand personality and your Tone of Voice. They will fuel the discussions and debate, and help your team to say ‘no’ to some approaches, and a resounding ‘yes’ to others. And if ever it was worth having a neutral third party to facilitate, then value creation is it. Agencies often have extremely talented writers, but where their copy falls flat, it’s usually because they haven’t been permitted the necessary time to properly dig into the values behind the brand they’re writing on behalf of.
E is for Environment.
For both brand personalities and Tone of Voice, thinking about a human being you can all relate to is immensely powerful. And I’m not talking about famous people. I’m talking about people you all know personally. Ideally someone who is considered a beacon of the values your brand lives by. Although everyone will have their own impression of that individual, a host of common perceptions will shine through and offer a singular authentic expression of what they’re about.
When we think about how people communicate, we realise how easily they adapt. They’re still the same single entity, and if they’ve got their head screwed on right, for the most part they’re consistent, yet they change in subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. They respond to where they are, who they’re with, and the mood of the moment. There’s a steady, reliable baseline, but above it they unconsciously adapt. Creating a Tone of Voice guide needs to support this ability to adapt, albeit consciously. Whether jumping from a tweet to a considered long-form piece, or from a billboard to a customer-support review request, a good Tone of Voice guide will help writers adapt to the context and enable them to place themselves in a new environment yet still be representing a single personality.
So think about that individual. Come together as a group and place them in different scenarios. How would they act? How would their approach change, and with it, their language. Would they adopt the parent / child relationship, and if so, what happens to their sentences. Place them in a space that they’re not used to. How do they adapt and what happens to the way they communicate? Using a real person suddenly makes it easier to then think about the brand personality and ask how it adapts in different environments.
Finally, take time. All of this takes time, but it’s worth it. Spreading the creation of a Brand Tone of voice across a period of a few weeks, with four or five sessions as a group, playing with ideas and concepts along the way, will result in a Brand Tone of Voice that is both authentic and with enough buy-in to ensure it stands the test of time. Which, when you’re pursuing consistency, is everything.
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