Why does tone of voice matter?

Think about when you meet someone. Do you decide whether to be friends with them based on what they look like or the colour of their clothes, or is it more about the conversation you have with them? The words they use, how they sound, and the way they come across.

Tone of voice is crucial for a brand or a business. Here’s why…

Tone of voice helps you stand out – tone of voice reflects our brand personality and makes us different from the rest. If everybody sounds the same, you don’t get heard. Make the way you speak a business USP.

Tone of voice lets people know who they are dealing with – having a tone of voice that represents your brand personality means that people understand you and your business better. They know who they are dealing with and the kind of service they can expect.

Tone of voice attracts the right clients – having a specific tone of voice can help you find clients in your industry or niche, if that’s how you choose to work. If you’re very corporate, you’ll attract corporate businesses. If you’re more conversational, it might be those from creative industries.

Tone of voice can help you scale your business – one of the things that holds people back from scaling their business is worrying about diluting their brand. Having a defined tone of voice ensures that anyone communicating on behalf of your business will be doing so in a way that is aligned to business purpose and brand values.

Tone of voice builds trust – a clear tone of voice helps customers trust you because it enables consistency. If every email, newsletter, social media post and blog post feels different, you’ll seem inauthentic. Getting it on brand every time makes sure your clients and customers know what they are getting when they come to you.

Defining your tone of voice

It all comes down to thinking about who your audience is, who you are, and how you will connect the two. Writing tone of voice guidelines is probably my favourite thing to do, so if you want to know more about how I can help you, get in touch.

It doesn’t have to be this way. All communication should evoke some kind of reaction, be it educative, informative, entertainment or emotion. This can’t happen unless there’s a bit of passion behind the words. A bit of creativity. Some life. It can be so easy to stick to the same formulas and language, yet this not only doesn’t benefit the client in the long run, it makes your working life a little bit dull.

What can we learn from creative writing for business writing? I ran a workshop at Petit Miracles to share some exercises usually reserved for fiction and poetry with budding entrepreneurs, all with the aim of improving their business writing.

The most crucial element of any story is the character. Who they are, how they act, and what happens to them is how plot develops. People connect with other people. Novelists say you should know everything about your character, even the things that seem irrelevant to the story. It’s not enough to know that your target customers are women aged 20-40. Be specific. The Petit Miracles team know their customer’s names, when they last laughed, what book they are reading, what’s in their handbag.

How often do you receive some communications from a company, and find that it’s drowning in jargon and long sentences – only discovering the thing that you actually want to know right at the end of the letter or information? We tried distilling down what the business and brand was about to a haiku. With only 17 syllables to play with there’s no room to be vague. Making the pitch poetry was a fun way to play.

There are over 90,000 products in the largest supermarkets, and we’re exposed to over 800 ads per day. How can you stand out? The best brands know that the heart leads, not the head. Decisions are made emotionally rather than rationally. Rather than focusing on what the product is, the entrepreneurs at Petit Miracles thought about how they wanted the product to make their customer feel. It’s not about clothes, it’s about feeling powerful. People don’t buy soap, they buy relaxation and time.

By the end of the workshop not only had we laughed a lot, but all the participants said that they had a better idea of who their customer is and how they want to speak to them. Confidence in writing and marketing improved, and there was a real energy in the room, with everyone motivated to take their business to the next level and ready to tell their brand story.