The key to building a connection with your audience, and subsequently converting them into loyal customers, is to write in a way that resonates with them and allows them to understand your messages. Tone of voice guidelines will help you do this consistently across platforms, even when your content is produced by multiple writers. These slides form both a guide to and template for creating your own brand tone of voice guide. You can give your completed guide to your in-house writers and any contract or freelance content writers and copywriters that you may hire.

1. Tone of Voice
Guidelines
[Insert your brand name here]

2. Overview
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3. What is tone of
voice?
The tone of voice for our brand encompasses:
• Brand voice - the overall personality our brand
uses when communicating in any medium
• Brand tones - the nuances of tone we use in
our written communications, which may vary
depending on the situation
3

4. Why is tone of voice
important?
• The key to building a connection with our
audience, and subsequently converting them
into loyal customers, is to write in a way that
resonates with them and allows them to
understand our messages
• These tone of voice guidelines will help us do
this consistently across platforms, even when
our content is produced by multiple writers
4

5. Documents that should be read
in conjunction with these
guidelines
• Our tone of voice guidelines do not cover elements of style, referencing or other
aspects of writing
• These guidelines should be read in conjunction with our [amend as appropriate]:
• Mission statement
• Writing goals and principles
• Grammar and style guide
• Formatting guidelines and templates
• Customer personas
• Brand asset guidelines
• Visuals style guide
5

6. Creating your
guidelines
These slides can be deleted or hidden when
you’ve finished creating your guidelines
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7. Step 1
• Using your preferred analytics platform (e.g.
Google Analytics) determine your top 10
performing pieces of content.
• List common themes that run through the pieces
• Describe the general tone of the pieces
• What emotions do the pieces of content
convey?
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8. Our top pieces of
content
• List the information you gathered in step 1
here
8

9. Step 2
• Ask your customers to describe you and/or
ask your sales team how customers describe
you
• List the top five reoccurring themes
9

10. Our customers describe us
as
• List the information you gathered in step 2
here
10

11. Step 3
• Take a look at how your customers express
themselves
• List the top five reoccurring themes
11

12. Our customers talk
like
• List the themes you discovered in step 3
12

13. Step 4
• Using the information gathered thus far, write three to six
adjectives that describe the personality of your brand
• Examples:
• Thoughtful, interesting, fun, proud, irreverent, bold, human,
serious, loud, witty, empowering
• Remember: You want to create one overall voice but you
might have different tones for specific contexts if necessary
(e.g. support communications may be more ‘direct’) so make
a note of any adjectives that apply to specific situations
13

14. Step 5
• Next to each of the adjectives write a 3-word phrase that further
defines or limits of that aspect of your brand’s personality
• Examples:
• Bold - but not aggressive
• Irreverent - but not offensive
• Serious - but not dull
• Empowering - and not intimidating
• Smart - but not snobbish
14

15. Our guidelines
15

16. Our brand’s personality
is
• [insert each of the personality traits and
descriptions from steps 4 and 5 into a
separate dot point on this slide and put one on
each of the following slide groups - delete
excess slide groups as necessary]
16

17. [Insert trait 1]
17

18. We write like this
• [insert an example of how to write using this
personality trait]
18

19. Don’t write like this
• [Insert an example of how not to write for this
personality trait]
19

20. Because
• [Explain the rationale behind this personality
trait]
20

21. [Insert trait 2]
21

22. We write like this
• [insert an example of how to write using this
personality trait]
22

23. Don’t write like this
• [Insert an example of how not to write for this
personality trait]
23

24. Because
• [Explain the rationale behind this personality
trait]
24

25. [Insert trait 3]
25

26. We write like this
• [insert an example of how to write using this
personality trait]
26

27. Don’t write like this
• [Insert an example of how not to write for this
personality trait]
27

28. Because
• [Explain the rationale behind this personality
trait]
28

29. [Insert trait 4]
29

30. We write like this
• [insert an example of how to write using this
personality trait]
30

31. Don’t write like this
• [Insert an example of how not to write for this
personality trait]
31

32. Because
• [Explain the rationale behind this personality
trait]
32

33. [Insert trait 5]
33

34. We write like this
• [insert an example of how to write using this
personality trait]
34

35. Don’t write like this
• [Insert an example of how not to write for this
personality trait]
35

36. Because
• [Explain the rationale behind this personality
trait]
36

37. [Insert trait 6]
37

38. We write like this
• [insert an example of how to write using this
personality trait]
38

39. Don’t write like this
• [Insert an example of how not to write for this
personality trait]
39

40. Because
• [Explain the rationale behind this personality
trait]
40

41. Empowering, and not
intimidating
(example)
41

42. We write like this
• “When selecting your social media channels,
ask yourself whether you’ve chosen 2-3
channels that are frequented by members of
your target audience.”
42

43. Don’t write like this
• “Warning: you must choose appropriate social
media channels that are frequented by your
target audience. Failure to do so will sabotage
your social media success.”
43

44. Because
• Your role is to help readers make informed
business decisions.
• We don’t want our prospects or customers to
feel intimidated or inadequate.
44

45. Need help?
Do you need a bit more help creating your
guidelines? Or are you struggling to find the time
to really nut this out?
Email me, Kelly, at kelly@kmwade.com and I’d
be happy to draw up some tone of voice
guidelines for your brand.
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