Tone of voice writer

Figuring out who you are and how you sound

You know how colours and images create a personality for your brand? Well, the words you use do the same. We call it ‘tone of voice’.

Used without purpose, your tone of voice has the power to dull your shine, leaving you camouflaged in a jungle of competing businesses. Your messaging misses it fundamental aim, to speak to your customers and sell your product or service.

Used without consistency, your tone of voice can make your brand forgettable, confusing and even untrustworthy. Customers meet a different persona from platform to platform. You’re wearing a baseball cap on Instagram and a top hat over email. Their experience of your brand becomes disjointed, they have no idea who you are or what you’re about.

As a company of one, the challenge is injecting your copy with the sparkle you bring to in-person interactions. If folk seem surprised by how friendly or funny you are IRL, it might be that your copy needs a personality lift.

Teams, meanwhile, face the challenge of producing consistent, on brand copy no matter who writes it. Usually, this looks like endless rounds of edits and rewrites, demotivated writers and wasted time. “It’s okay, Jenny’s got our brand voice down pat.” But what happens when Jenny leaves? You need a way to sprinkle that Jenny magic on everything you produce.

I can help.

“She has exceeded our expectations”

We have loved working with Sally. She completely understood our concerns with formulating our brand voice and has honestly put our minds to rest. She has exceeded our expectations and we couldn't be happier.

Honore Wheeler - Creme du Loch

Brand voice for who you are and who you will be

Strategic

A good tone of voice factors in your story so far, your offer, your customers, your market and your goals. We’ll go deep on the big questions to unearth what makes your brand who it is and how we can translate that into words that will solidify your values, strengthen your brand, push you towards your goals and perpetuate your company culture.

Methodical

How do we arrive at the insights we need? I have a proven method to get us from start to finish and deliver a tone of voice strategy that feels right. I’ve used it to unlock verbal identity for brands including skin, hair and personal care companies, fashion and jewellery brands, tech companies, women’s organisations and manufacturing companies.

Standout

When a brand does tone of voice well, you know it’s them just by the way they sound. You feel as though that brand just gets it. Gets you, gets your problems, gets what matters to you. (To see what I mean, check out a couple of my current favourites: Tony’s Chocolonely and This Girl Can. You can also check out this blog post I wrote about discovering your brand tone of voice.) We’ll develop a tone of voice that makes you recognisable and memorable.

Customer considerate

I delight in the gaps between you and the next brand on the spectrum. I revel in the quirks that make your company special. And I care about your customers and why they might prefer this word over that. You see, good verbal identity joins the dots between your business, your mission, your values and your customers. It’s the final piece in the puzzle that brings the whole picture to life.

Built to last

Your project culminates in a set of tone of voice guidelines. This easy-to-follow manual means whoever writes for your business can communicate your brand personality with consistency and clarity, long after our collaboration ends. We’re talking strong verbal identity and cohesive customer experience without the delegation anxiety, employee churn and countless rounds of edits and rewrites.

What? Verbal identity, catalogue and web copy

Who? A Californian jewellery brand

Why? To modernise and appeal to a younger customer

Jewellery brand tone of voice

What? Verbal identity and brand messaging

Who? A luxury skincare brand

Why? To champion body positivity with authenticity

Skincare brand tone of voice

What? Verbal identity and brand messaging

Who? A high-end natural deodorant

Why? To create a standout brand in a crowded market

Beauty brand tone of voice

How does it work?

Our journey to pinpoint your verbal identity will follow a tried and tested process with four key steps. Here's how it works.

Discover

I’ll begin by analysing your brand. I can check out your competitors, chat to your customers (or get data from your reviews), and talk to your team to strengthen your new brand voice guidelines.

Next, we’ll get together for a creative workshop. I’ll guide you as we discuss your business goals, your current copy (if you have any), your target audience, your competitors, and what makes your brand unique.

Explore

I’ll present my recommended personality pillars and show you what I mean with a real life piece of copy. You’ll have the chance to dial up and down the traits until we hit on the perfect balance.

Define

Based on your feedback, I’ll refine the copy and begin working on brand voice guidelines. My goal will be to explain your brand voice and how to use it so that anyone who picks up the guide can write for your brand with a fast and pain-free learning curve.

Complete

You’ll have the chance to check the guidelines and talk to me about any parts that need further clarification. From there, we’ll arrive at a finished set of tone of voice guidelines for you to keep and use whenever you produce content for your business.

Core

For companies of one, microbusinesses and startups

✅Mini content audit, competitor summary and customer voice summary

✅1.5-hour brand discovery workshop

✅Three to four personality principles

✅Two page tone of voice summary plus one before/after copy example

✅Style guide outlining your writing rules

“Stakeholders have been really pleased”

It's been brilliant working with Sally over the last couple of months on a large-scale tone of voice project for one of our clients in the tech sector. Sally is a brilliant brand language consultant and strategist, and stakeholders have been really pleased with the outputs at every stage of the project. Sally has also led training sessions for the roll-out of the TOV, helping stakeholders understand the importance of language to brand and build their confidence in writing and communicating for business. Sally is responsive and reliable, her approach and project management is thorough and organised, and I'm very much looking forward to working with her on another project soon.

Georgia Corp - Account Director at Stratton Craig