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Voice styles
Tailor your communication to your target audience
User interface consultancy Nielsen Norman Group defines different types of voice. These should be established based on the values of the brand and the way your audience communicates. In this way, a brand can choose to be: fun or serious, formal or casual, respectful or irreverent, and enthusiastic or natural.
How to create your voice manual
The first steps
Creating an identity
First of all, you need to think about what values you want your brand to convey. To do this, we need to think about what will differentiate our firm from the competition. It is also important to define how we want customers to feel when interacting with the brand.
Think about all communication channels
The next point is to draw up a list of all the brand’s channels, such as automatic email messages, social networks, the website, footnotes, or contact forms.
Tonal values
Each of the established communication channels will have tonal values. For this, it can be useful to think about the adjectives with which we want the personality of our brand to be described. There will be some that are better suited to social networks and others to customer service.
Share your voice manual
Share your voice manual with all employees of the firm, in order to achieve a homogeneous speech in all areas of the company.
When doing this, share an example with the team so that they can be guided correctly. You will also need to establish a delegate to ensure that the voice manual is respected.
The importance of vocal guidance
These are the advantages of developing a voice manual to reflect your company's personality
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About our experience:
Tips for designing a good Voice Manual.
At MyContent we have professionals with extensive experience in the sector. They elaborate their work based on market research in order to understand what customers need and what the weak points are of the competition. Thanks to this experience, we can offer you some advice when designing a voice manual.
Explain the importance of this tool
The first point of the document will be dedicated to explaining to employees the usefulness of this document, what its function is and how it will help the brand to improve. In this way, they will be able to understand the seriousness of this tool and will be made aware to use it rigorously in all their messages.
Define the brand’s values and vision
The next step is to talk about the firm’s values and mission. This will make them understand the voice manual and help them internalize how they define themselves as a company.
Set the tone
Tell employees how the company will interact and what image it will project to users. To do this, use adjectives that define the brand.
List the guidelines to be followed
By way of rules and recommendations, explain the guidelines to be followed in their messages, both lexically and grammatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I define the brand’s personality?
The brand’s personality is oriented to the needs of the target audience, what their personality is like and what their values are. Once at that point, you must establish a personality that can be maintained over time, that is reliable and that represents you.
Why is it necessary to establish a tone of voice?
The tone of voice unifies the different departments of the business, helps you differentiate yourself from the competition, creates a solid image in users and generates confidence in customers.
In which channels can the voice manual be implemented?
In all the company’s communication channels. Whenever the company interacts with consumers or potential customers, the voice manual should be applied. Many times we think only of the channels with the highest traffic. However, others that go unnoticed, such as the error message when loading the web page, should also follow the tone of voice of the brand.
