You only have to receive one poorly worded email to appreciate how much we communicate JUST through words!
Most companies have Tone of Voice guidelines, which your comms team feel right at home using. That's not the problem; it's getting your other staff to be more confident with guidelines.
They may be time-poor frontline staff, salespeople who are deal-focused, not detail-focused, or Gen Z-ers brimming with enthusiasm rather than experience.
Here's how to get everyone on the same TOV page.
People always learn better when they're brought in early.
When developing your Tone of Voice guidelines, involve as many key stakeholders as possible in the Discovery session. This is when you define your brand character, so getting buy-in at this stage is an easy win.
Generally, we like to keep this to a small group of no more than ten people. However, we recently did a Tone of Voice discovery session involving 40 people.
As long as the session is highly interactive, I find everyone comes out excited. As a bonus, they consider what their company stands for and the values that create a brand's unique voice.
A comprehensive Tone of Voice document is tailored for each channel, audience, and department. However, it can end up being a 40-page document, which can be a off-putting.
This works a treat: create a swatch, like a paint swatch, with specific tips and 'Do and Don'ts' for different departments. The user then picks the relevant cards and keeps them on a key ring.
If your company has a no-printing policy, creating a microsite on the intranet is also a good idea.
As a young copywriter, I was so scared of negative feedback that I wrote my copy and left it on the Creative Director's desk!
Remember that we all start out green, and don't underestimate your role in guiding, training, and encouraging people to write on tone.
Lead by example. Highlight great examples of on-brand writing and provide constructive feedback when the tone isn't right. One of the best people to improve my writing was a CD that I wanted to kill daily! (not that we want that to happen to you!)
Be diligent with your suppliers and trained comms people - there is no excuse for writing off-brand.
Maybe it's because I'm a one-finger typist (I know, shocking confession, isn't it?), but my mind races faster than my fingers, so I ALWAYS use Grammarly to tidy up spelling and grammar.
Grammarly is currently exploring ways to customise your brand tone using AI. Sure, it's an off-the-shelf product, so it's never going to be as good as your own Chat GPT, but if you're a start-up, it's worth looking into.
The setup process involves using a wizard that prompts users to choose versions that sound most like their brand. Grammarly then recommends a tone profile based on those selections. Alternatively, organisations can manually add individual tones to their profile.
Some other programs are Typetone AI, Jasper, Writer, Junia and Persado. Copilot is currently too general.
Here's how it works for Tone of Voice:
We already have clients looking into this. It's early days yet but worth watching.
Whenever we create Tone of Voice guidelines for a brand, we always push for training sessions afterwards. The workshops generally fall into three areas:
These workshops can be conducted on a Teams call using tools like Miro to encourage participation. Personally we prefer in-person training at the office so we can have group conversations.
These interactive sessions often result in a better understanding of how different areas of the business need to communicate with their stakeholders, which can enrich the brand TOV lexicon.
Educators use many tricks to teach tertiary students things they don't want to learn!
I was talking to a client the other day who suggested multi-choice questions. Great idea. Years ago, we encouraged Pharmacy Assistants to learn about a product by reading a double-page spread and answering multiple-choice questions for a chance to win a diamond. And who doesn't love a diamond?
Once you go down the education route, there are many other great ideas to steal; Tone of Voice quizzes, weekly challenges, recognition programmes and so on.
Microsoft Copilot is making a big push into this area. The concept of developing pre-approved templates for common communications isn't new, but using AI has put this on steroids!
Currently in Copilot, AI can generate drafts based on user input, recent emails, and relevant information or users can choose from predefined response categories or enter their own text for AI-generated content.
For example:
This is the perfect time to take new employees on your tone journey. If you are serious about onboarding, you already have a video or a booklet that includes your company values and mission statement as a guide.
Include a Loom video on Tone of Voice in onboarding kits for new employees, ensuring they start with a clear understanding of expectations.
Of course, it all starts with having proper Tone of Voice guidelines in the first place.
It actually amazes me how many companies have massive design guidelines and two pages dedicated to brand tone - usually written by a designer!
Writing styles have dramatically changed over the last few years, so when you refresh your brand, review your Tone of Voice too.
