Create a Brand Tone of Voice Guide for Your Business

What Exactly is a Brand Tone of Voice Guide?

A brand tone of voice guide is a document that defines how your business communicates in writing. It covers the personality behind your words, the level of formality you use, the types of phrases that are on-brand and off-brand, and practical examples of how your tone applies across different contexts.

Tone of voice is not just about being friendly or professional. It is about being specific. Two businesses can both be described as “professional” and sound completely different — one formal and distant, the other direct and warm. A good tone of voice guide closes the gap between vague descriptions and actual words on a page.

The guide is a working reference. Anyone writing for your business — whether that is you, a team member, a copywriter, or an AI tool — can use it to produce content that sounds consistent and recognisable.

It is different from a brand style guide, which covers visual elements like colours, fonts, and logo usage. Tone of voice covers language only — but language is what most of your customers encounter most often.

 

How We Create Your Tone of Voice Guide

Step 1 — Your existing business communications are reviewed — website copy, emails, social media posts, and any marketing materials — to identify what tone is already present and where inconsistencies exist.

Step 2 — Your business, your customers, and your market position are reviewed to understand what tone of voice will build trust with the people you are trying to reach.

Step 3 — Your brand personality is defined across a small number of clear characteristics — specific, distinct attributes with practical descriptions that are easy to apply, not vague adjectives like “innovative” or “passionate”.

Step 4 — Writing guidelines are documented: sentence structure preferences, vocabulary that is on-brand and off-brand, how to address the reader, how to handle different scenarios such as formal proposals versus informal social posts.

Step 5 — The guide is completed with worked examples — real before-and-after rewrites showing how the tone applies to your actual content — so it is immediately useful rather than theoretical.

 

Why Tone of Voice Matters

Customers form impressions of a business before they make a decision. Much of that impression comes from language — how a business explains what it does, responds to enquiries, and handles everyday communication.

When tone of voice is inconsistent, customers sense it even if they cannot name it. The website sounds different from the emails. The social posts sound different from the proposals. This inconsistency creates low-level doubt about whether the business is organised, professional, or trustworthy.

When tone of voice is consistent, it builds cumulative trust. Each interaction reinforces the same impression. Customers begin to feel they know the business — which is the foundation of preference and loyalty.

For businesses with multiple people producing content, a tone of voice guide is also a practical efficiency tool. It reduces the time spent on rewrites, briefings, and corrections by giving everyone a clear standard to work from.

 

Why Most Business Writing Sounds Like Nobody in Particular

Most business owners write the way they think a business is supposed to sound. Formal. Cautious. Qualified with phrases like “we strive to deliver” and “our mission is to provide”.

This language communicates very little. It does not tell a customer who you are, what makes you different, or why they should feel confident choosing you. It sounds like every other business in the same space.

The businesses that communicate distinctively — that have a clear, recognisable voice — earn more trust, attract more aligned customers, and produce better marketing results from the same budget.

This is not about being quirky or informal. A law firm and a children’s activity centre should sound completely different. The point is that both should sound like a specific, considered, coherent business — not like a default corporate template.

A tone of voice guide gives your business a voice worth listening to.

 

What We Will Do During Your Tone of Voice Guide Creation

• Review your existing written communications to assess the current tone and identify inconsistencies
• Define three to five specific brand personality characteristics with clear, practical descriptions
• Document your tone across a spectrum — how formal or informal, how direct or considered, how warm or neutral — with guidance on when to adjust
• Create a vocabulary reference: words and phrases that are on-brand, and words and phrases to avoid
• Write practical guidance for applying your tone across key content types: website copy, email, social media, proposals, and customer-facing messages
• Include worked examples using real or representative content from your business
• Deliver a complete, formatted guide ready to share with anyone writing for your business

 

You Need a Tone of Voice Guide When

• Your website, emails, and social media sound like they were written by different people — because they were
• You are briefing freelancers, copywriters, or agencies and finding it difficult to explain how you want to sound
• You are scaling your business and bringing in team members who will represent the brand in writing
• You have a brand style guide covering visuals but nothing that governs language
• Customers comment on your content but it feels inconsistent or hard to replicate

 

What We Need From You to Create Your Tone of Voice Guide

To develop the guide, the following is required.

• Examples of your current business writing — website copy, email templates, social media posts, or any marketing materials you have produced
• A description of your typical customer and what matters to them
• Any existing brand documentation such as a brand story, positioning statement, or style guide
• Your honest view of how you want your business to sound — and how it currently sounds

If you have limited existing materials, this can be covered in a short call before the work begins.

 

When You Should Create This

The best time to create a tone of voice guide is before inconsistency becomes embedded.

If you are at an early stage and producing most content yourself, the guide captures and formalises how you naturally communicate — making it reproducible before the business grows beyond you.

If you are already scaling and multiple people are producing content, the guide is an urgent fix. Every piece of inconsistent content that goes out is a small erosion of the trust you are building.

If you are about to brief a copywriter, launch a new website, or invest in content marketing, having a tone of voice guide in place means that investment produces content that is genuinely on-brand from the start.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the same as a brand style guide? No. A brand style guide covers visual identity — colours, fonts, logo usage, and design standards. A tone of voice guide covers language — how your business sounds in writing. Both serve the same purpose of consistency, but across different channels. Some businesses combine them into a single brand guidelines document, but the content is distinct.

Can I use this with AI writing tools? Yes. A tone of voice guide is particularly valuable when using AI tools to produce content. You can provide the guide — or excerpts from it — as context for AI-generated copy, which significantly improves the output. Without clear guidelines, AI tools default to generic business language.

Does our business have to be a certain size to need this? No. Sole traders and small businesses benefit from tone of voice guides as much as larger organisations. The guide helps you communicate more deliberately and consistently regardless of how many people are producing content. For growing businesses, having it documented early makes onboarding and delegation far easier later.

 

Want Your Tone of Voice Guide Created Correctly?

A tone of voice guide is only useful if it is specific enough to apply. Generic descriptions of how a business “feels” do not help anyone write better copy.

At 10x Marketing Lab, the guide is developed by reviewing how your business actually communicates, identifying what is working and what is not, and building a practical reference that anyone writing for your business can use immediately.

The result is a document with real examples, clear standards, and concrete guidance — not a branding exercise that ends up filed and forgotten.