What is Tone of Voice and why is it important?
Content and marketing teams love to talk about Tone of Voice but what does it actually mean and why is a consistent Tone of Voice valuable to your business?
Simply put — it’s the voice and personality of your brand. It’s how you speak to customers through words and how you make them feel when interacting with your products. Most importantly, it’s how you build connections, long-lasting relationships and MAKE MONEY. Yes, you will make money through a consistent Tone of Voice.
I’ve come across some stakeholders that believe everyone can write. While this is true in most cases, not everyone can write well. There are so many factors to consider when writing good quality content, and Tone of Voice is one of them you can’t miss out. Why?
- It builds connections — customers are emotionally connected to a brand that uses a positive Tone of Voice.
- It humanises your brand— people like to connect with people and therefore will look to brands that have a personality they recognise and can relate to.
- It helps you stand out — businesses that have a distinctive Tone of Voice have a better chance of staying competitive and standing out from the crowd.
- Increases revenue — believe it or not, all of the above combined will lead to higher revenue.
So let’s talk numbers:
A study by Lucidpress found that presenting your brand consistently is valuable to customers and can spark a 33% increase in revenue.
46% of customers say they would pay more for brands they trust.
It takes about 0.05 seconds for someone to form an opinion about your website — so the first content they see is key to making a good first impression.
A brand’s Tone of Voice is typically submerged in a set of guidelines used across the business so everyone can align to a set of rules and contribute a consistent brand identity.
If you’re the only writer in your company and need to create guidelines from scratch, I’ve pulled together a few topics to get you started:
- Find out who your demographic is, research the hell out of it and see how these customers like to be spoken to while interacting with the product.
- Define 3 core principles that everyone should align to and refer back to in their writing.
- Set rules like ‘Lose the jargon’ and ‘Use contractions’ if you want to humanise the brand. Going back to why customers love your product, it’s probably because they relate to the words you use with a human, conversational tone.
- Research competitors and big players in the game and identify what good copy looks like vs bad copy. Keep these in a library everyone can access. Working in a bank, I focus on how the industry is writing on loans, credit cards, overdrafts etc, so be specific in the examples.
- Pull out some great past examples from your own company. It may be something you’ve already written and are proud of or a previous writer’s work. Leading by example is the best approach.
- Touch on writing for accessibility and inclusivity — this has blown up recently in the writing workspace and it’s an element everyone should be aware of, not just writers.
- Touch on writing for SEO — I’m not an expert on this but it’s an element to consider if you want to reach a large audience through organic search. Research keywords in your industry and litter them through your writing.
- Writing basics — this part could include everything from capitalisation and ampersands to formatting dates and times. It’s simple but crucial in keeping copy consistent.
- Finally — put together an exercise and/or quiz if you’re workshopping the Tone of Voice guidelines. Some theory to start and then practice will no doubt keep your audience engaged.
