Tone of Voice is important if you want your content and digital marketing messages to stand out from the crowd.
Tone of Voice (or ToV for short), adds personality to your content through the use of language. Subtle changes in wording can give a sentence an entirely different feel or ‘vibe’, and can help readers identify whether they are your target market or not.
Consider the below example: these five different phrases all say essentially the same thing – but at the same time, the minor wording alterations give the sentences slightly different meanings.
- We specialise in content marketing.
- We provide content marketing services.
- We are content marketers.
- We help you with your content marketing.
- We take care of your content marketing needs.
Applying a tone of voice to your copywriting can give the content a whole new meaning, making it stand out from your competitors.
What are the benefits of having a ToV?
Establishing clear tone of voice guidelines for your brand or business can help you ensure that all of your marketing materials and communications are consistent. Any content marketing that is done for your brand – whether it is website content, blog posts, SEO copywriting, social media content or offline mediums like print and brochures – will use consistent language and terminology, resulting in a more professional and cohesive experience for the reader.
Having established tone of voice guidelines also means that your copy won’t accidentally take on the personality traits of your copywriter. A good copywriter will be able to write from any point of view or tone of voice, but if you don’t provide them with one then elements of their own personality will likely seep into the content. This problem compounds if you have multiple copywriters writing for your brand, because the result will be inconsistent.
Another great benefit of using a tone of voice to guide your content creation is that it helps your target audience identify with your brand, and lets them know that your product or service is designed for them. An example of this might be if your target audience consists of younger generations versus older generations. Using jargon like ‘LMFAO’ or talking about ‘shipping’ or ‘stanning’ something will go over the heads of older generations, but will connect with younger audiences.
Likewise, the type of language that you would use if you are trying to establish yourself as being a ground-breaking, innovative business versus being a sustainable, ethical business would be significantly different.
Your tone of voice should align with your brand values, and your brand values should align with the values of your target audience.
Tone of Voice Examples:
To highlight the importance of tone of voice, we’ve taken a small chunk of text from our own marketing materials and re-written it using six different personality traits that you might find in a tone of voice document.
No Tone of Voice:
Welcome to BeKonstructive Marketing, a content marketing studio based in Brisbane. We are a small team of content creators, copywriters, and digital marketers who help our clients grow their audiences and build a loyal base of customers. Get in touch with us to book a free consultation.
Professional Tone of Voice:
BeKonstructive Marketing is a content marketing business based in Brisbane. We employ a team of expert content creators, copywriters and digital marketers, and we specialise in assisting small to medium businesses build strong, loyal audiences which in turn leads to growth in their customer base. Contact us for more information or to book a free initial consultation.
Energetic/Outgoing Tone of Voice:
Hi there!
We’re BeKonstructive Marketing and we do content marketing! We’re a small team of creatives based in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley and our content creators, copywriters and digital marketers specialise in building loyal communities for your brand or business. Having a loyal and engaged audience is the first step towards growing your customer base – drop by our studio for a coffee and a catch-up if you’d like to find out more about our team, our services and how we can help you!
Organic Tone of Voice:
Hi! We are BeKonstructive Marketing, a content marketing studio based in Brisbane. Our small team of content marketers, copywriters and digital marketing specialists believe that the best way to grow a sustainable customer base is through building strong, engaged and loyal online communities and audiences. If you’d like to find out how you can grow an organic audience without the use of paid advertising, drop into our studio for a free consultation. Book online now.
Niche Tone of Voice:
Welcome to BeKonstructive Marketing, a Brisbane content marketing studio. Our team of copywriters and marketing specialists have over 10 years of experience in helping lifestyle brands and businesses grow their online communities, building loyal and engaged audiences which results in an increased customer base and higher sales revenue. If you’d like more information about how content marketing can be used to grow your business, please book a free consultation today.
Kind Tone of Voice:
Welcome to BeKonstructive Marketing, a content marketing studio in the heart of Fortitude Valley. Our small team of content creators, copywriters and digital marketers are here to assist you in growing your customer base by partnering with you to develop a strong, loyal audience. We invite you to book a free consultation at our studio so that we can find out how we can best help you and your business thrive.
Innovative Tone of Voice:
BeKonstructive Marketing is a content marketing studio based in Brisbane with a fresh perspective on digital marketing. We employ a small team of content creators, copywriters and digital marketers who use the latest tools and technology to grow loyal audiences and increase the customer base of our clients. Book a free consultation to learn about the latest digital marketing trends and how they can help your business evolve.
Tone of Voice Development:
When we create tone of voice guidelines for our clients we start with an in-depth workshop to discuss brand values, personality, target audiences, and language.
We then take the results of that workshop and develop three key personality pillars for your brand. From there, we use the personality pillars to build out a brand persona, a set of language rules, and a word bank.
These three tools (the persona, rules, and word bank) can be used by any copywriter who is tasked with creating content for your brand. Think of it as a style guide but for your brand language.
The final aspect of our Tone of Voice Guideline documents is a set of application examples. We take some snippets of content from your existing marketing collateral, such as your website, social media channels, capability statement etc, and rewrite those snippets with the new tone of voice applied. This helps provide a clear example not only of how the tone should be applied, but also of the difference and impact it can have on transforming a piece of plain text into marketing copy.
Do I Need a Tone of Voice?
Brands who are investing heavily in their content marketing and building a strong digital presence should strongly consider investing in a tone of voice. There are two main reasons for this:
Firstly, there is a lot of noise and competition in the digital landscape. A tone of voice will help your brand cut through the noise and reach your target audience faster, using language and communication styles that they understand. Your tone has the ability to signpost to your audience that the content is designed for them – something that is very important when you consider how many marketing and advertising messages the average person is exposed to any given day.
The second reason is that if you are investing heavily in content marketing then you likely have a team of people working on creating that content. A tone of voice will ensure that everyone is one the same page when it comes to the right type of language to use in their content, and will ensure consistency.
At BeKonstructive Marketing, we like to start all on-going clients off with a tone of voice workshop – whether we are providing your with Brisbane SEO services, social media management, email marketing, or a comprehensive digital marketing campaign that includes a little bit of everything – locking in your tone before we get started enables us to be more efficient with our content marketing activities. It also means less time spent on your behalf requesting edits and changes, as we will have a strong understanding of your target audience, their wants, and their needs.
Request a Quote
If you’d like to learn more about our tone of voice guidelines, please get in touch. We are happy to send you through some examples of the outcome as well as a quote to develop your own set of tone guidelines.
