Read your website, a recent quote, your last three social posts and an automated email your system sends to customers. Do they sound like the same business? For most small firms, they don’t. The website is stiff and formal, social media is chatty, and the automated emails sound like a bank from 1998. A defined tone of voice fixes that.
Tone of voice is simply how your business sounds in words. It’s as much part of your brand as your logo, and arguably more important, because customers read far more of your words than they spend looking at your logo.
The good news is you don’t need a thick document to sort it out. You need a few clear principles and some examples.
Voice versus tone
A useful distinction: your voice is your personality, and it stays constant. Your tone adjusts to the situation. You’d speak to a customer differently when they’re making an enquiry than when they’re making a complaint, but you’re still recognisably you.
So the aim isn’t to make every message sound identical. It’s to make sure the same personality comes through, adjusted sensibly for the moment.
Step 1: find your three tone of voice principles
Start from your brand personality, if you have one. Otherwise, think about how your best staff talk to customers on a good day. That’s usually close to the right voice.
Pick three principles, each written as “this, not that.” The “not that” part is what makes them useful, because it stops people overdoing it.
- Straightforward, not blunt. We say what we mean, but we’re not rude about it.
- Knowledgeable, not jargon-heavy. We know our stuff, and we explain it so anyone can follow.
- Friendly, not overfamiliar. Warm and human, without calling everyone “hun.”
These are only examples. Yours should reflect your market. A specialist legal firm and a children’s party entertainer will, rightly, sound nothing alike.
Step 2: show it with before and after examples
Principles are abstract. Examples are what people actually copy. Take real pieces of writing from your business and rewrite them in the new voice.
Before: “We are pleased to advise that your order has been dispatched and will be delivered within the specified timeframe.”
After: “Good news: your order’s on its way. It should be with you by Thursday.”
Before: “We provide comprehensive, customer-focused solutions across a range of sectors.”
After: “We fit and service commercial kitchens for restaurants, schools and care homes across the North West.”
Three or four pairs like this teach more than a page of description.
If you want people to write in your voice, show them. Before and after examples do more than any list of adjectives.
Step 3: set a few house rules
Alongside the principles, agree some practical decisions so people aren’t guessing:
- Do we use “we” and “you”? (Almost always yes.)
- Contractions like “we’re” and “you’ll”, or not?
- How do we write our own name, and our service names?
- Sentence case or Title Case for headings?
- Emojis on social media: yes, no, or sparingly?
- Words and phrases we avoid, like clichés common in our industry
- UK spelling throughout
Step 4: adjust tone for different situations
Write a line or two on how the voice flexes in the situations you meet most:
- Sales and marketing: confident and clear about benefits
- Quotes and contracts: precise, plain and unambiguous
- Complaints: calm, direct, no jokes, and own the problem
- Social media: the most relaxed version of you, still recognisably the same business
- Bad news, like price rises or delays: honest and early, with the reason and what happens next
Putting it to work
Once it’s written, get it into daily use. Rewrite your most-read pieces first: website homepage, about page, Google Business Profile description, email signature and the automated emails customers receive. Then update your quote and proposal templates. Share the principles and examples with anyone who writes for you, including freelancers and agencies, and ask new staff to read them in their first week.
Review it after a few months. If people keep asking the same question, add the answer. If a piece of writing gets a noticeably good response from customers, add that too, as an example of the voice working.
If you’d like help finding the right voice and writing the key pages in it, our naming and messaging service covers tone of voice principles and examples, and our website content team can rewrite your site to match.
