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.

Nothing makes my heart sink more than a client asking me to ‘write for SEO.’ Because, often untrained in the principles as they are, what they mean is ‘stuff this copy full of keywords, even if it sounds unintelligible.’ As a copywriter and marketer, I always write for the audience. Because the goal of your copy is not just to get people to your page, but to engage, inspire, and convert them. And you can’t do that with bad copy.

Length matters

Google does reward pages with longer copy with better SEO rankings. But that doesn’t mean you should write 3000 words of drivel. The reason it rewards these pages is because people spend longer on them. How do you make sure they do so? Write something compelling that they want to read. Don’t add words just for the sake of it. If someone has come to your page for a quick answer and you give them reams of copy they will go elsewhere fast, increasing your bounce rate. Say what you need to say to get your message across, and no more.

Cut to the chase

You can tell a post written purely for SEO, or at least old school keyword stuffing SEO, as the first paragraph is stuffed with every possible permutation of the main phrase. By that point, you’ve lost your customer. You don’t have long to articulate your value proposition, some say ten seconds, so don’t waffle about it.

Keywords for key insights

People come at keywords in the wrong way. Rather than think of them as words and phrases you should stuff into your writing, they are actually inordinately helpful research into the kind of mindset your audience are in and where they are in the customer funnel. If the top result is ‘which cat food is healthier?’ you know you need to give them an answer. If it’s ‘where should I go on holiday?’ give options. ‘How do I treat an ingrown toenail?’ try facts. Doing research for keywords isn’t just about finding the words to add in, but learning more about your customer.

Get your goals right

The goal of someone who says ‘write just for SEO’ is to get someone to visit their website. But that’s not the right focus. You need to think about your customer’s goals, and how fulfilling the customer’s goals will get you to yours – more sales, more profit, more work.

Credibility counts

One of the main elements that search engines use to determine rankings is domain authority, influenced by the number of links pointing to that website. If your content is pointless, dull, or spammy, people won’t want to link to it, as it will undermine their own credibility. So just having filler keywords certainly isn’t the way to go.

SEO matters, of course. You can have the most beautiful prose or compelling copy, but if you can’t get an audience through the metaphorical door, there’s little point. But that shouldn’t be where the process ends. That’s one, very important, but certainly not the only, step through the sales funnel and customer journey. To get them to actually click a link, purchase a product, make an enquiry, you need to convince them that you are solving their problem.

And you do that through convincing and compelling copy that converts. And how do you get that? Well, you hire a copywriter of course…

Apparently, I’m doing it all wrong. What you should do (warning: should is a dangerous word) is niche down. Find one thing you like doing, in one sector, and become known for that. Usually this advice comes from people who are writing 3000 word white papers in some niche financial tech sector, or something similar. They are also charging a fortune for it.

I get the logic. It’s best to be a big fish in a small pond. But gosh, it sounds awfully dull.

I set up my own business because I love variety. I’m one of those people always out exploring more, learning new things, discovering how the world works. That innate curiosity is something I bring to my work, and I think it makes me better at it.

I’m good at asking questions, and getting under the skin of a new client. It doesn’t matter where they are from, or what they do, the skill of being able to draw out a story is key. My journalism training probably helps me here.

I also think that working on varied projects makes me more creative. I can have a great idea for one, and see how that approach can help me with another. I can learn something with one client, and see how that idea could be applied to another.

But as I said, apparently I’m doing it all wrong. I don’t know.  I have a lively roster of clients and business seems to be doing well.

I set out to see what others thought of countering the perceived wisdom and not niching down – and found I wasn’t alone.

Georgie Darling agrees. She started out as a travel writer and now (mostly due to the current climate) broadened her services into copywriting, scriptwriting, social media content creation, basic graphic design and Pinterest pin design! She also went from working mostly with travel companies to working with coaches, makeup brands, agencies and more. ‘It’s been great for learning more skills, boosting my confidence and widening my portfolio as a freelancer,’ she says.

Bryony Bishop also says how Covid-19 has highlighted how important it is to not have all your eggs in one basket. ‘Covid-19 has shown that being adaptable, flexible and having a range of skills enables greater resilience. It also makes for varied and enriching work, in my experience. I definitely agree that finding clients that align with your values and where you can be an extension of their team, adapting to their needs, is vital.’

Carolyn Hughes is  a PR consultant and chooses clients based on cultural and personality fit, rather than business sector. ‘I work with clients who I basically get on with really well. I want to be an extension of their team so it’s all about whether we align in personality, ways of working and objectives. My skills are totally transferable so the industry matters less.’ She also points out that focusing on one industry can limit you, as many clients wouldn’t want her to work with a direct competitor.

Jess Dunbar was a broadcast journalist for 10 years before happily falling into copywriting when she had her children. Like me, the bit she loves most about the job is the variety. ‘The job demands I can capture the essence of a business in a short time and accurately represent it. What could be more inspiring than the constantly changing variety of work? Plus the challenge of tackling industries I know nothing about.’ Having a fresh pair of eyes and an objective approach is useful for clients, as you can put yourself in the customer and client shoes without bias or opinion. She says that ‘I love not having a specialism and passionately believe it helps me give my customers an edge.’

That’s not to say don’t ever focus. When marketing yourself it is key to highlight what is relevant to that client or audience. Gemma Pettman is a communications specialist with 21 years of experience. ‘I would say I have a couple of specialisms but that doesn’t prevent me working in other spaces. I think this partly comes down to how you market yourself. When I talk to charities I talk about my non-profit experience, when I talk to policing organisations I focus on that.’

It’s important to do business in the way that works for you, says Hira Sahmed. ‘I think it is more about embracing the whole of us in our businesses and our lives! If we focus our energy of niching down it might feel like it not *you* And I am a big believer of doing our businesses our way, more in tune with who we are with all the quirks and strengths + in alignment with our values. So to put that in perspective- one of my value is curiosity and I love learning new things so I make space for new projects (mostly multi-disciplinary ones) in my creative work.’

We are all multifaceted beings. And our work can reflect that. ‘Society puts so much emphasis on committing to ONE interest. Heck, we’re even expected to pick a favourite colour!’ says Karli Drew, copywriter and disabled activist. ‘But letting go of niche pressure is a one-stop shop to career freedom. Instead, I choose clients based on brand values. It improves my performance and everyone leaves a winner.’

And that’s what clients want – to win. And that’s our job – to enable them to do so. Every client wants to feel special, so as long as you bring your skills and expertise to doing a damn good job for them, it really doesn’t matter if you work in one industry or ten, on one kind of work or multiple. It’s your business, You can do work that energises you and makes your clients happy. That’s the sweet spot we’re all searching for.

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? How can exercises usually reserved for fiction and poetry help our business writing? In more ways than you think.

Write a haiku

How often do you receive some communications from a company, and find that it’s drowning in jargon, technical language, figures and extended sentences – only discovering the thing that you actually want to know right at the end of the letter or information? Great fiction hits you from the off. The first chapter, even the first page, has to be compelling enough to make you keep on reading. When crafting your business copy try distilling down what you need to say in a haiku. With only 17 syllables to play with there’s no room to be vague.

Be active, not passive

‘We are trying…’ ‘You may find that…’ ‘We hope this will be…’ Passive verbs and soft language don’t really instil a customer with confidence. You don’t want to buy a product that the manufacturers have only tried to make work, or attend an event that may or may not be fun. Consumers need active assurance that the company have confidence and authority in what they are doing. When creating content it’s always wise to go through your text and remove all qualifiers (probably, may, expect etc) – don’t say what you might do, say what you will do. Make you or your brand the active subject – e.g. rather than ‘your digital marketing could become easier’ say ‘our software makes your marketing great.’ You want to action to take place as a result of your content, so you have to make it active.

Start with the character

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. It’s also where the emotion is found. People connect with other people. As great as a company might think their product is, or as much as an agency may believe people are passionate about electricity, as loyal as a shop might think people are, the truth is that it’s about the person. So when writing a press release about why the new brand of bleach is a must have addition to the shopping basket, think of the benefits to the customer, the person. The new formula matters because it keeps the kitchen clean and protects their children. The fast acting ingredients free up their time to go out. Novelists say you should know everything about your character, even that which seems irrelevant to the writing at hand. Do the same for your reader. What is their name? What is in their bag? Do they wake up early or late? What do they like to read? Have they ever told a lie? What do they do on a Sunday afternoon? Do they prefer cryptic crosswords or su doku? Only when you know your reader and customer do you know what matters to them, and so how you can connect with them.

Connect

That’s the goal of any business. Ultimately relationships in all forms are about connection. When someone likes you or thinks you have something to offer, they will be prepared to invest their time – or money – in you. Customer can’t connect with inanimate objects, so you need to have some personality. What is your brand? What makes you different to everyone else out there? How do you speak and act? Bring this personality to all your writing. Don’t try to be professional at the expense of being emotional. People buy from people, so bring your personality to work.

First published on Start Ups Geek.

Sometimes these people annoyed the God of Data Analysis (or GDA0101) as he became known. Occasionally they had a spark of things unable to be categorised or quantified. Neither he or his network of data seraphs could process these strange glitches in the machines. They were called ‘emotions’ or sometimes ‘feelings.’ They were baffling and a nuisance.

As time went by GDA0101 noticed that his view from Mount Numerous was not the same as before. The colour had drained. His citizens were becoming slower. Sometimes they behaved in erratic ways that did not fit his carefully honed model. The projections derived from the tracking systems did not always prove correct.

He called on his data seraphs. ‘Tell me what is happening!’ he commanded. ‘And what to do about it! I need to know what causes these people to behave so out of accordance with how the data indicates that they should.’

The Spreadsheet Seraph crunched her numbers and created graphs, but came up with no answers.

The Spirit of Loyalty Cards swooped in to track and monitor and profile. She could tell GDA0101 what was happening, but could not explain why.

The Econometrics Angel modelled and profiled and projected, and produced numerous theories as to what the citizens should be doing – but nothing to help explain why they sometimes didn’t.

Finally, the Cherub of Connection floated along. He was a little bit scared. He knew that his idea would appear radical. ‘How about…’ he ventured, ‘we talk to your people.’

‘Wonderful idea!’ boomed GDA0101. ‘We have some great software for just this.’

‘No, I mean, with words.’

‘Words?’

‘Yes, like a conversation. We could ask them why they do the things they do. Understand the people better.’

GDA0101 was not convinced. What could talking tell him that data couldn’t? How could the word ‘why’ – only three letters long – help him out when he already knew what, where, when and how.

But he was desperate. He granted the Cherub of Connection permission to go out and try his method. as laughable as it seemed.

The Cherub of Connection was gone quite a long time. GDA0101 was monitoring. Conversation was a lengthy process. And not always predictable. Some people had a lot to say, others very little. Some citizens found it easy to talk about their feelings, and others hated it. Some knew why, others had never considered it before. Words were messier than numbers, that was for sure.

Finally, the Cherub of Connection returned. He sat down and spoke of emotions and feelings and passions and motivations. Why proved to be powerful. Words seemed to show something that the numbers didn’t. They weren’t perfect on their own, but when thrown into the mix with when, where, how, what, data, digits, analysis and monitoring, why and words proved to be the missing ingredient. The magic spark.

There was a fizzle, and a crackle. The colour came back. The people smiled. They didn’t always smile as planned and projected of course, but that was ok. GDA0101 understood a little better. The God of Analysis he called himself now. Some data, some discussion.

The world was good again.

—

If you want to know more about how I can help you wade through the mud and tell clear and compelling stories about your brand and business, get in touch on fbaker@live.co.uk or here. I’m a content writer, marketer and communications consultant – and have had plenty of experience with data!

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.