What do we mean by tone of voice?
In the same way that a person’s tone of voice helps them communicate with those around them, your business’ tone of voice helps you communicates with your customers.
Your business’ tone of voice includes everything you use in any kind of messaging and customer interactions, from the words, phrases and images you use to the places you use them.
If you’re not sure what your business’ tone of voice should be, that’s where Stick Marketing agency can help.
Project spotlight: CDDFT NHS Charity
County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) Charity needed a digital presence that better reflected their impact and made it easier to connect with their community.
Working closely with them, our agency developed a distinct tone of voice to ensure all future communications felt consistent, professional and compassionate.
Read more about our work with CDDFT NHS Charity
Why is tone of voice important for your business?
A person’s tone of voice can influence how they are perceived by others and the same applies to your business!
Tone of voice is crucial to shaping how customers see your business and deciding whether you are a business they can trust.
What’s more, a consistent and effective tone of voice guide will:
- Help your business stand out from competitors
- Build your brand and establish authority
- Allow you to communicate with online customers in the same way you would face to face
Project spotlight: The Bowes Museum
To develop a tone of voice guide, Stick spent time getting to know the Bowes marketing team, their processes, marketing approach and brand.
We used this to create a comprehensive tone of voice document that outlined the museum's brand personality, communication style, and key messaging principles.
This was complemented by interactive tone of voice workshops for the internal team.
Your guide to building a tone of voice
If you want to establish a tone of voice, here at Stick Marketing agency we recommend the following:
1. Establish who you are
It is difficult to speak in a consistent tone of voice without first knowing the values of your business, what makes your business unique and what you stand for.
A mission statement can help with this, showing your customers who you are, what you care about, and how your business achieves its goals.
It is also worth asking yourself:
- Who are we?
- Who would we like to be?
- Who are we not?
2. Build your unique tone of voice
Once you know who your business is, you can create a tone of voice to communicate these values and goals.
To define your tone of voice, it is with worth coming up with some adjectives that describe the tone you are hoping to achieve.
For example, is your business formal or casual? Funny or serious? Cheerful or matter-of-fact?
3. Do your research
While establishing your tone of voice guide, it can help to observe your customers to understand their needs, expectations and, crucially, how they like to be spoken to.
Social media platforms are a useful way to gain insight into how your customers communicate, allowing you to tweak your tone of voice so you can speak to them the same way.
For instance, if your customers tend to use emojis then you can assume they will welcome your business using them too 
4. Implement your tone of voice guidelines
Once your tone of voice has been defined, you can create a tone of voice guide that includes:
- Who you are as a business and who your customers are
- Your unique tone of voice
- What vocabulary to use and avoid/grammar rules
It should also include lots of examples of how to use tone of voice correctly and what to avoid.
Your tone of voice guide can then be shared with your team, particularly those whose role involves communicating with customers.
Project spotlight: Altruvita
This leading supplements company had an existing brand identity, which they approached Stick to refine and finesse.
In addition to refining their website and packaging with a stylish and eye-catching redesign, we developed a new tone of voice guide that clearly communicates Altruvita's professionalism and trustworthiness to customers.
How Stick Marketing agency can help develop your tone of voice
If all of this sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry! Our agency can help your business find its voice.
We can spend time with you to get to know you, your business and what you want to achieve. We will then use this to put together a comprehensive tone of voice guide that outlines what you want to communicate and, more importantly, how to do it!
What’s more, we also provide interactive tone of voice workshops to help everyone in your team sing from the same hymn sheet.
Let Stick Marketing agency help your business find its voice – get in touch today.