Tone of Voice in Copywriting for Brands

Tone of Voice in Copywriting for Brands

“Congratulations! That brings us to the end of the course. I really hope you've found it useful. We've worked through the critical steps of the tone of voice, why brands need it, and how to build your tone. Now, let's summarise the key points to complete your project.

• Start by understanding that tone of voice covers everything a brand does or says.

Everything a brand writes is the tone of voice. Customer-facing copy, internal presentations, client emails, social posts. It all carries your brand's tone of voice. So make sure you don't forget any element of your brand communications regarding your tone.

• Think of tone of voice in a literal sense.

Focus on all the things that make up the way you talk. Where you grew up, your parents, the books, series, and films you took in. All these things influence how you speak. They mean that some words and phrases will sound natural to you, some not. It's the same for brands. Some things don't sound right for specific brands.

• Dig into your brand to define your values.

Who is your brand? What do you believe? Where are you from? Geographically, socioeconomically, and culturally. All these things are relevant to your tone of voice. Invest time in thinking about your brand values. Everything flows from your brand values, so the investment is worthwhile.

• Get specific with your values.

It's okay if you decide to want your brand to sound rebellious. But you need to define rebellion a little more. It can help to think of specific people or characters. Who do you think of that embodies the rebellious spirit you want your brand to display? Greta Thunberg is rebellious. John Lydon of the Sex Pistols was rebellious. But both would talk very differently. Use people as a shorthand for understanding what you mean when you say rebellious, for example.

• Make your values manageable.

As a guide, aim for three to five values. Anything more makes it a little hard to write. Imagine making sure your copy was always open, honest, daring, witty, progressive, respectful, diverse. Fewer is easier. Plus, if you have too many values, maybe it's because you haven't thought enough about them.

• Develop a clear picture of your audience.

You need to know who you're talking to. Be as straightforward as possible here. This isn't easy, and it will take you some time to get there. But the more specific you can be with your audience, the more you can tweak your tone to fit. You would talk to a group of 60 year-olds interested in wealth management differently from how you'd speak to a group of 16 year-olds uninterested in sexual health. You need to know who they are to understand how to get their attention.

• Represent your brand through a brand identity, brand persona, or brand philosophy.

These are three different ways of embodying your tone of voice. I'm sure there are others. For example, an identity says, 'we are the Tireless Helper'. A persona says, 'we are Ted Baker'. Finally, a philosophy says we follow the idea of 'inform and go'.

• Give clear examples of what to write, what not to write, and why.

Use the structure 'like this', 'not this', and 'because'. The more specific you can be here, the better. Use real copy examples for the positive samples. As a minimum, you should have one instance per brand value. If you're using a brand identity/brand persona/brand philosophy, write as many as you feel you need. Indeed, I would write one for each facet of your tone of voice. For example, if you want to limit sentence length or keep words under three syllables, you need to show that.

• Demonstrate how you modulate.

You should always sound like you, but your voice can flex across different subjects. Think of tone like a set of volume dials. Depending on the message, you'll dial some aspects of your tone of voice up or down. Your tone should sound the same across all platforms. Consider the audience expectations on each platform when you're writing. But keep in mind that you shouldn't have a different tone of voice in each forum or even in society in general.

• Distill your tone of voice into a typographic poster.

You can then put this up somewhere in your workspace. That way, when you write, you'll always have a reminder of how your copy should sound. This will only be a reminder, though; when you need to go deep, you'll have to go to the whole tone of voice guide. My final piece of advice is don't skip on the forum, share your doubts and your progress. I'll be there from time to time to help you, but don't hesitate to engage with your peers too. See you soon!”

Partial transcription of the video

“That brings us to the end of the course for developing your tone of voice guide. We work through what tone of voice is, why brands need it, and how to develop your own tone. Before saying goodbye, I'd like to go over a few key points that I put together to help you develop your own tone of voice guide. Start off by understanding that tone of voice covers everything a brand says or does. Absolutely everything a brand writes is its tone of voice. Customer-facing copy, internal copy, social posts, emails, presentations, they all carry a brand's tone of voice. So make sure you don't forget any ...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Tone of Voice in Copywriting for Brands

• Level: Beginner
• 97% positive reviews (66)
• 3805 students
• 4 units
• 13 lessons (2h 41m)
• 8 downloads

• Category

  Marketing & Business, Writing

• Areas

  Advertising, Communication, Copywriting, Storytelling, Writing