‘Tone of voice’ is not about the content of your copywriting. It’s about how you write. This includes the words you choose and their order, rhythm and pace.
Tone of voice is a mix of attitude and personality. It gives your copywriting style.
Of course, if you are writing for a company, the tone of voice is very important as it’s the ‘voice’ – the brand personality – used by the company to communicate with key groups, such as employees, customers, potential customers, suppliers and shareholders.
Each of these groups may require a different tone of voice, but the company should provide details to the copywriter.
Depending on the goals of your communication and your target audience, your tone of voice could be:
- Playful, cheeky and light-hearted. Example: a note reminding all employees that the Family Fun Day is on Saturday
- Friendly and professional. Example: a letter informing customers about changes in bank procedures
- Inspiring and motivating. Example: a letter from a charity asking for donations, following a natural disaster overseas
Rhythm and pace also affect the tone of voice. Sentences could be short and sharp, more flowing or a mix of both.
The vocabulary you use could be plain and simple, technical, or more effusive.
You can experiment with these variables to find the tone of voice best suited to your target audience and your client.
Hitting the right tone of voice will help get your message across in the right way and help you achieve your client’s goals.
Examples
Here, as an example, are three different ‘tones of voice’ applied to the same situation:
A friendly-supportive tone of voice could read:
If you think ‘technology overload’ is affecting your career, our online training courses are a great way to make getting on in life a lot easier.
A ‘punchier’ tone of voice could read:
Is technology driving you round the bend? Finding it difficult to keep up? Well now you can relax as our simple online training courses will keep you bang up to date. No problem!
A more professional tone of voice could read:
Technology is changing so fast and, as a professional manager, you must be concerned about the often discouraging effect this can have on your staff. We offer a wide range of online training courses on all the major software packages, at highly competitive rates…
Dealing with vague client descriptions of t0ne of voice.
Sometimes a copywriter will be briefed using words like ‘make it punchier’, ‘softer’, ‘more aggressive’, ‘funnier’, ‘more sophisticated’, ‘more dynamic’, ‘more unusual’ and so on.
Your response to this should be to ask the client questions such as, ‘Have you seen any copy you admire as being punchier or softer etc?’
If the client can provide examples, or even if they can’t, take an opening paragraph and write three versions showing, for example, different levels of ‘punchiness’. The client can choose the one they like. If you’re not quite there, ask them what words should be cut and replaced. Then write a second batch of three versions, adding the replacements, and one of them should be approved. You then have the tone of voice you need to write the rest.
If the client doesn’t have a Tone of Voice Manual, it might be an idea work with them to write a list of words they don’t like – anything from those they personally dislike to those that they feel are overused in the industry. Another list can be words they do like. Be prepared to challenge words that are overused in the industry or tired-out business clichés – ‘best in class’, ‘paradigm shift’ – you know the ones!
CLICK HERE FOR BLOG 8 which will deal with writing the main body of your communication…