Tone, Voice, and Style: Everything You Need to Know About the Fine Art of Portraying Your Brand in the Best Possible Light

"Don't use that tone with me!"

If you had a cheeky, testy attitude while growing up, then you're definitely not hearing this line for the first time (sorry mama's boys, y'all can't relate). 

It was literally every mum's ultimate warning; a declaration of war; a statement of intent. Take the wrong tone one more time, and you'd invite a tongue-lashing of a lifetime, or worse, a few stutter-inducing slaps.

However, marketers aren't afforded such a steely-yet-insightful first warning. As far as interactions with today's savvy, well-exposed customers go, it's a get-it-right or get-it-right kind of situation. Speak to readers the wrong way the first time, and they wouldn’t hesitate to initiate a bible-esque exodus from your brand and all its pages.

The thing about modern readers is that they crave a real, emotional connection with the brands they follow and interact with. Content that speaks at them or past them simply doesn't cut it. Only the posts that speak to them stand a chance. 

But can you achieve all that with "tone" alone? Well, not quite. "Voice" and "style" need to be in the mix as well. Otherwise, your branding will be like a three-legged stool that’s blatantly missing two of its legs.

In this post, we'll explore all there is to know about the 'holy trinity' of distinctive branding. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the most comprehensive guide on tone, voice, and style you'll ever read. 

A round of applause, please.

The Unmistakable Difference Between Tone, Voice, and Style

Since the beginning of time, marketers have always struggled to draw a clear line between tone, voice, and style. It's a forgivable piece of ignorance, but as they say, ignorance can only be harmless for so long. Let's change that narrative for good, shall we?

Voice

Most marketers use tone and voice interchangeably, but in reality, these two wear completely different faces. At its core, a brand's voice consists of two key tenets:

Message: What you communicate with your readers and audience alike

Tone: How you get your message across 

In other words, your brand's voice is the truest reflection of its personality. And as you probably know by now, personality hardly ever changes. It's unique and identifiable too, and no other brand on the planet can claim to have the same exact personality as your brand. 

You've probably noticed how easy it is to pinpoint the "personalities" of your favorite brands, almost as if they're your closest friends.

• Mailchimp? Informal, clear, but never snobbish
• Google? Simple, clean, and friendly
• Coca-Cola? Friendly, positive, and down-to-earth
• Old Spice? Humorous and masculine

Source: Old Spice

See how distinctive these voices (or should we say "personalities"?) are? Never in any lifetime will you find Coca-Cola using sultry or playful language; it's not just in their DNA. Similarly, the content marketers at Mailchimp would only ever use humorous language over their dead bodies.

Tone

Unsurprisingly, a misplaced brand tone in an excellently written copy sticks out like a sore thumb. Your clients can tell that something is amiss from a hundred miles away.

Put simply, tone is how you use your brand's voice across different platforms, audiences, and topics. Think of the last time an accuser waged a finger in your face; chances are, they raised their tone but didn't really alter their voice. Makes sense?

A better way to envision brand tone is to think of a brand that's active on multiple customer-facing fronts:

• Support emails: helpful, patient, not "comical."
• Social media posts: engaging, funny, light-hearted
• Instructional guides: easy, concise, and easy to understand

You get the drill…

Style

The final but equally important member of branding's holy trinity is…you guessed it—style. It's sort of a guideline for how your content should appear to the outside world. Think of it as the mechanics behind your writing. 

Some "experts" will tell you that brand style tells everyone how to communicate with your brand, but I beg to differ. That's the work of a brand style guide, not the brand style per se.

Among other things, brand style dictates:

• How to spell certain words
• How you choose certain words and sentences to achieve a specific effect
• How design elements like images, fonts, and logos apply in your content
• Reminders on vocabulary, grammar, and diction
• Where to use oxford commas, capitals, hyphens, and the like

Does Your Company Need a Consistent Brand Tone, Voice, and Style?

Short answer: Absolutely!

Long answer: Developing a tone of voice is incredibly important because:

1. Everyone Else is Doing It

In a world where 99% of companies have a unique, clear-cut, well-documented brand, you'd hate to be the 1% that's languishing in ignorance. 

Without an identifiable brand that customers can relate to and recognize in a jiffy, you can as well say goodbye to matching up to your competitors—let alone outwitting them.

2. Flashy Offering Entices Customers, But It's Trust that Closes Them

You've probably heard this for the millionth time, but I'll reiterate it anyway—every customer interaction is a chance to reinforce trust or blow it out the window. 

It's, then, no surprise that a whopping 88% of customers say they can only support, trust, and buy from a brand with an authentic voice. The other 12% will make up their mind as soon as tomorrow, and you can rest assured that they won't buy from brands they don't trust.

3. The Wrong Tone Never Sits Well With Your Ideal Audience

Using the wrong tone of voice to address your target audience is akin to sending inappropriate pictures to a family's WhatsApp group. It's weird at best.

If, for example, you used a playful tone for a hypertension blog, your customers would think you've gone nuts. Similarly, a misplaced or overused slang can send a Gen Z audience scampering for the hills.

The bottom line? Just hit the right tone from the get-go, and everything else will eventually fall into place.

4. It Helps You Know What to Say When the Going Gets Tough

Writer's block is every content marketer's worst nightmare. That said, it's inevitable and can paralyze your creative juices when you least expect it. 

In such situations, a clear, well-defined voice can help you hit the ground running. Knowing "what would my brand say about this?" gives you the psyche and direction you need to communicate clearly in different scenarios.

4 Tried-and-True Ways to Define (and Perfect) Your Brand's Tone, Voice, and Style Over Time

Before we go any further, let's get clear on one thing: "boring" is the worst possible tone of voice you can adapt as a business. Period.

Is there anything like the right tone of voice? Heck, yeah! As long as it doesn't come across as boring, you're good to go.

Now comes the biggest question of them all: In an age where clean, joyful, daring, sophisticated, etc., are all prospective voices, how do you know which one is right for your brand?

Here are some ways to figure it all out.

1. Dive into Your Existing Content Strategy for Inspiration

The do's and donts of your tone, voice, and style make up what's known as content style guidelines. Unfortunately, this is the one area most marketers have been fumbling at for years.

To begin refining your content style guidelines afresh (or crafting them anew), gather samples of your content before all else. Then take a long, hard, incisive look at each one of them.

Does any of it make you shake your head in detest and jest? Or, do any of your content pieces (or even specific sections within them) pique your interest straight away and make you think, "This is exactly how I want my brand to be perceived?"

Hopefully, you're doing all this with a checklist on hand. Pay close attention to the main message, headlines, subheadings, introduction, conclusion, and the complimentary media in each piece. Are these facets painting the right picture of your company? 

Content Marketing Institute do this really well with their content inventory/checklist:

Ultimately, there are no hard and fast rules regarding your audit checklist. Tweak it whichever way you deem fit. The goal is to get one step closer to your ideal tone of voice, not to have the perfect audit inventory.

2. Put It Down in Writing

Your tone of voice will always remain a mystery if it only exists in uninteresting office conversations and after-hour Budweiser drinking sprees. So, make a point of articulating it on paper in a few punchy, well-thought-out sentences.

Is your brand all about staying ahead of the curve and leading from the front? Then your voice could as well be trendy, modern, and brave.

Are you a grounded, well-exposed thought leader who isn't afraid to explore topics that everyone else is shying away from? Your brand voice could be bordering educating, professional, and insightful.

Then you do what again? That's right—put it down on paper (or in your brain, if you're a natural genius)! 

3. Get the Dictionary Out 

Sometimes, even scribbling down your preferred tone of voice may not yield the best results. 

Maybe you want your brand to come off as confident, but the word "confident" in itself is a bit too aggressive. What about intrepid, assured, optimistic?

In instances where your brand voice may seem harder than usual to define, trust the thesaurus in you to get the job done.

4. Weave It All Together Using a Style Guide

So far, so good. At the very least, you've got a pretty good idea of what your ideal brand voice should look like. All the articulation, self-doubt, and incessant midnight mumbling weren't in vain.

Now, the worst thing you can do at this point is to take a step back and assume that your brain has got you covered. Newsflash: no brain is entirely immune to selective amnesia. To avoid losing track of your brand's tone of voice somewhere down the road, consider elucidating it further using a style guide.

The good thing about having a style guide is that it won't just cover the intricacies of your brand and voice; it'll also highlight the dos and don'ts of your brand style in 3D. Isn't that like the coolest thing you've ever heard?

That said, let's dive into the nuts and bolts of what makes a robust style guide:

A. POV (Point of View)

Does your brand prefer speaking in the third person (they/she/he) or the first person (we/I)? Make that unmistakably clear in your guide. 

But there's a caveat here: third—person personas don't sit well with most audiences, and your brand may come off as unapproachable and distant if you're not careful.

B. Jargon

Not all jargon is detrimental to a brand's voice and tone. If anything, some jargon can portray a depth of knowledge or underline a shared mindset (think: those jargon-rich, multi-writer PubMed articles).

There's no better place to spell what jargon your brand tolerates and which it does not than within a style guide. While at it, make sure the jargon you choose offers clarity and never gets in the way of your messaging.

C. Slang

Some brands were just never meant to use slang in their marketing copy, and that's something you should be privy to when composing your style guide. 

Before jumping in on the slang bandwagon, ensure you're 100% confident about your word selection. Else, you'll look weirder than a dad dancing at a wedding.

D. "Never ever" terms

Chances are excellent that there are words you'd never use in your marketing copy. You know them by heart and can probably recite them in your sleep. 

Curse words are an obvious example, but sometimes, it could be something a little more nuanced—like using "clients" instead of "customers" so that you're more inclusive of people who rely on your continued, personal service.

Make sure these terms are well laid out in your style guide. This way, your clients, stakeholders, and third parties will know exactly what to use and what to avoid.

E. Logo Guidelines

Knowing the ideal color for your logo is one thing, but knowing how it's going to look in different environments is an entirely different prospect altogether.

Designate a section of your style guide for logo guidelines. Ideally, this section should include all acceptable versions of your logo, a description of where to use each, as well as visual examples to make it all crystal clear.

Over and above, good logo guidelines also prevent glaring branding mistakes from happening—think: condensing, altering, or re-aligning. If these slip through your fingers, you could be staring at a tainted, cringe-worthy brand that no one ever wants to be associated with.

F. Color Palette

Granted, your brand won't feel consistent or outstanding if its main colors are screaming at each other rather than blending together in seamless harmony.

To that end, pick a lighter color for backgrounds, dark color for text, one other color that stands out, and a neutral hue as well. Then use your style guide to perfectly portray how all these brand colors come to life—complete with succinct swathes for each. 

Beyond that, include the information needed to accurately replicate those colors in different environments. For inspiration, check out this color palette from Heineken (simply mercurial, in my opinion).

G. Image Guidelines

Naturally, different images will work for different brands. Yours is no different. Never in our lifetime will we see a scrumptious-looking burger being used to represent Victoria's Secret (unless, of course, Victoria's Secret is Burger King's secret agent in the fashion world).

The best way to nail image guidelines for your brand is to throw an example here and another one there. Make sure your brand style guide includes all the images that have previously performed brilliantly for your brand. If you're lacking in the examples department, feel free to borrow images that "feel right" from bigger companies. It's really that simple.

Don't Let Brand Tone, Voice, and Style Be the Straw that Breaks Your Content Team's Back.

There are many things that excite your in-house content marketing team, but rest assured that elaborating, clarifying, and documenting your brand's distinctive tone, voice, and style isn’t one of them. 

For us at Zoey, though, nailing a brand's unique tone of voice time and again is really what makes us get out of bed in the morning. In the years that we've been in the game, we've learned that only a tone of voice that's thoughtfully individual and distinctively unique can jump off the page; the rest fail to impress past the headline. It's a mantra we've sworn to live by, and our long list of clients proves that we've not been drawing shadows in that department.

Now, only one thing stands between you and our wealth of expertise and experience on matters of tone, voice, and style: an initial call with one of our intake specialists. Let us help you hit the right notes, the right way, and in all the right moments, so you can stand out in a way that leaves you (and your target audience) grinning from ear to ear—all day, every day!

 Photo by Ana Flávia on Unsplash