Give your brand a personality that stands out.
The way you talk tells people much more about your brand than your colours or your logo. Voice is personality. It’s what you say that matters.
But your tone of voice isn’t just about being bold and adventurous. It’s about being memorable. To your audience, and to your writers.
So we’ll help you decide on your tone, create memorable guidelines for your people to follow and make sure your brand not only stands out, but is consistent.
Good writing helps solve problems.
Having a consistent tone of voice can iron out some of the biggest problems that businesses face.
Make your customers happier
Create a tone of voice that connects with your audience, helping to increase your overall customer satisfaction index.
Get more responses
The Behavioural Insights Team found that just making letters easier to understand “often results in a 5% to 10% increase in response rates.”
Soften bad news
Being empathetic can help soften the blow of bad news and lead to better outcomes. In fact, even in the medical industry, good communication can avoid court cases and lead to 90% satisfaction rates on both sides.
Change your culture
Your tone of voice is a practical way to embed your values into everything you do. And can even help ease your people into big changes in how your business runs.
A good tone reflects your culture.
If your culture is bright and bubbly, then your people will find it easier to write in that way. On the other hand, if your internal culture is geeky or scientific, then you should explore having a geeky or evidence-based tone of voice.
Consider what your people are like. Obviously, the bigger your company, the harder it is to find common ground. And you need to consider what your audience cares about. So we always review your culture when we run our workshops. We’ll find out exactly who you are, inside and out.
Empower your team to be brand ambassadors.
A tone of voice only works if everyone sticks to it.
But it can be tricky to convince people to change. It’s natural to feel some resistance, especially when you’re working with some already talented writers.
We can work with your team and show them the value behind your new tone, so everyone gets on board. And keep your new voice top of mind with everything their write.
Get your own tone of voice expert in-house.
The best way to truly adopt a new voice is to have an expert in your team.
Make sure you have someone who understands the ins and outs of tone of voice, and the importance behind it. Someone that can train your crew in your tone, and spot inconsistencies at a glance.
We can either be that person for you, where we arrange and host regular monthly drop-in sessions for your team. Or, we can take one of your writers under our wing and teach them what we know, so you’ll have your very own expert in-house.
How we can help your brand.
How you speak to your employees and customers defines how they view your entire business. Here’s how we can help.
Establish your brand's personality
Your personality is more than just the clothes you wear. It’s what you say. Are you authoritative? Rebellious? Playful? How you speak to your customers and employees defines that personality.
Figure out your brand purpose
We’ll help your figure out your purpose, your mission and your values. And we’ll put it all together into a single narrative that you can communicate around the business.
We'll name your products
Names are important. Descriptive names. Abstract names. Names that catch your attention on the bus. So we help you name things, but also create a system to make sure that your future names follow the same rules.
Create guides and templates
Once you have your tone of voice and messaging, you want to make sure everyone is using it consistently. We’ll create guides and templates for your team to follow. And if you already have one, we can tweak it to reflect your new personality.
How we’ll find your perfect tone of voice.
While every business is different, there are typically five stages to a tone of voice project. They are:
Step 1: Auditing your brand
We’ll review your writing, check what your competitors are doing, and look for themes and trends in your writing. What are you doing well? What should you be doing? What do you customers expect?
Step 2: Getting to know you
We’ll run workshops with you to understand your customers, your competitors, and your culture. What’s your overall strategy and goal? What’s your personality? And what kind of writing appeals to you?
Step 3: Presenting back our recommendations
After bringing all that together, we’ll come up with a tone of voice that fits your brand. As well as any other recommendations that we discover along the way.
Step 4: Creating practical guidelines
We’ll create custom guidelines and materials that make it easy for your people to learn your tone of voice.
Step 5: Keeping your tone alive
Tone of voice is a programme, not a single document. So we’ll work with you to figure out how you can keep tone top of mind. Do you need regular practice sessions? Do you need a new review process? Could you gamify the whole experience?