Why tone of voice matters
As a content writer with a lot of very different clients, I deal with a different tone of voice every working day. For me, discussing tone of voice has always been part and parcel of my career. It’s now second nature for me to flex writing around brand guidelines or a client’s brief.
But freelancing in so many different businesses has really opened my eyes to the fact that lots of brands aren’t giving their tone of voice anywhere near the attention it deserves.
I think a lot of this is due to confusion about how a super slick tone of voice can benefit your business.
Why tone of voice is important
We all know that the way we speak has a huge impact on how we come across. Shouting and screaming is a sure-fire way to lose both your cool and an argument. Mumble your way through a job interview and you may as well kiss that new career goodbye.
Tone of voice affects perception of our ideas, arguments and even our integrity.
If we want to be heard, trusted and believed, tone of voice matters.
What is tone of voice in marketing?
There’s a reason things are so easily misconstrued over email or text: without the social cues of body language or vocal delivery to go off, we are left with only the words.
Now think of your marketing copy in the same way. With both digital marketing and traditional marketing, we are effectively engaging in a blind WhatsApp chat with our customers, with nothing but our words and images to get the message across.
We are throwing things out into the void and hoping our customers will want to speak to us more.
Just for a moment, consider your marketing strategy like Tinder. You need a witty one-liner, sincere chat-up lines and excellent banter if you want to score yourself a date. And you definitely, definitely need to make sure there aren’t any autocorrect typos in there that make you look like an idiot.
As marketers, we need to engage our customer and ensure they believe in what we are saying. That’s why it’s so important that we land our message succinctly and with the right tone.
In short, those words had better be damned good, because a strong tone of voice ensures you come across as authentic and builds trust among your customers.
If you believe in your brand, your copy needs to compel your customer to do the same.
And trust in a brand leads to engaged customers, authentic relationships and sales.
Tone of voice for brands
When your customers read your words, do they ring true to what your brand stands for? Can you confidently say that the tone of voice at every marketing touchpoint – from your Facebook posts to your marketing emails and even your product descriptions – rings true to the ethos of your brand and the customer you want to attract?
You wouldn’t choose a sub-standard logo or typeface. So why would you settle for subpar copy which doesn’t feel true to your brand guidelines? Writing is branding. The tone of voice you set is as important as every other piece of advertising you use.
If you’re a fashion start-up, with a core client base of 16-24 year-old fashion-savvy young women, you need to be on their level. What are they thinking, seeing and sharing? You want to talk like one of their friends, not some fifty-something man, who last bought a pair of shoes because they ‘looked sturdy’ in the Debenhams sale four years ago.
Likewise, tone of voice for charities is likely to be very different to tone of voice for luxury brands. If you’re a charity, you need to be knowledgeable, appeal to your customer’s empathetic side and always maintain a formal sense of integrity.
If your brand is luxurious, expensive and aimed at customers with a high disposable income, you want to inspire but never patronise them, and never talk so informally that they may as well be a teenager with a budget of £5 to spend on some new foundation.
Knowing your customer inside and out is the first step to creating a tone of voice which captures both the essence of your brand and the essence of your core customer demographic. Nail this, and you’re well on your way to creating some solid tone of voice brand guidelines.
How to develop tone of voice
Setting tone of voice is a skill. It’s not as simple as just knowing your customer.
You may know exactly what you want to say. But somehow, as soon as you come to write it all down, the words wriggle away from you. No matter how many times you delete and rewrite that brand story or witty marketing email, it never comes out quite the way you pictured it. Sound familiar?
Most people can write but most people are not writers. Think back to English class at secondary school. How many people were able to write cogent essays, using words to fluently argue their point and persuade the reader? Not very many. Just as the ability to logically solve a mathematical problem isn’t bestowed upon all of us, neither is the gift of the written word.
There’s a reason brands pay people to set and implement a strong tone of voice. It takes consideration, careful copywriting skills and consistency to define. Helping brands establish (or indeed re-establish) their tone of voice is one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.
Think you could use some help setting or evaluating your tone of voice? Get in touch below, and read on for general guidelines to consider.
How to define tone of voice
If you’re ready to have a go without the help of a copywriter or branding expert, here are some things you’ll definitely want to think about:
A controlled vocabulary
Are you the sort of brand that says ‘complimentary’ or ‘free’? Are you after customers who think in terms of ‘bargain bins’ or ‘exclusive sales’? Do you use colloquialisms or are you a little more formal?
I was once asked by a marketing director to rethink the way the brand said hello or hi without saying ‘hello’ or ‘hi’.
It wasn’t a trick question.
Although I politely explained that there wasn’t really an alternative in the English language that had yet been invented (unless perhaps he thought ‘Yo!’ would appeal to his largely middle-aged, highly affluent customer demographic living in Surrey) I do understand where he was coming from.
The words you use count, and he recognised that. Unfortunately, though, I’m a copywriter for brands – not a consultant for the dictionary.
Talking to your tribe
Consider the energy and ideals of your dream customer and speak to them directly through your tone. People should be able to identify with and feel at home with your words, so they come to consider you and your brand a kindred spirit who is totally aligned with their lifestyle.
Be influenced, but never imitate
It’s a saturated market and you’re competing for attention. The key to success is to have a USP that sets you apart from the competition. Make sure the words you use to tell your story do the same. Just like your best friend realised when you copied their haircut back in 1999, your customers will realise when you’re trying to be something you’re not.
Please, please, please learn to spell
If you’re not a hot speller, employ someone who is. Nothing will make customers doubt a supposedly sophisticated brand quicker than if someone’s constantly mis-spelling words and using incorrect grammar on marketing channels. Please never write ‘SNEAK PEAK’ ever again if you want to be taken seriously.
Remember, it’s not just new brands that need help with tone of voice. It’s easy for established brands to find there’s been a shift in buying behaviours over several years. Now they have a new customer to speak to, and yet they’re not doing so effectively with their old tone of voice. The result? You’ve alienated your old core customer and now you’ve lost the new one, too.
It’s always worth reassessing your tone of voice. Times change, people move on, brand direction alters with consumer demand.
Make sure that your tone of voice evolves with you or prepare to be shouting at a wilfully deaf audience.