Who do you believe are the brands that hit it out of the park? Nike, Apple, Walmart?
These companies do a great job of making sure their brand hits consumers from all angles. They engage all five senses: eyesight, hearing, taste, touch and smell to make the brand come alive. But engaging all senses can be problematic in the online marketing world.
Brands often concentrate on the visual aspect, catching consumers’ eyes with a unique and memorable icon, typeface and colors. Sometimes even music can help people remember a brand. But words and content are also a huge way to translate your brand’s identity.
A brand’s appearance is critical to marketing; however, how you talk to customers is also essential to a brand’s identity. A brand-focused writing style can translate your brand identity to consumers, resulting in greater consumer engagement levels and sustainable and profitable growth.
What is Writing Style?
Companies may be familiar with brand guidelines, including a company’s logo, typeface and colors. But a writing style is also an essential element in connecting an audience to a brand.
Besides a slogan, vision, or mission statement, a writing style is essentially the brand’s voice, also known as brand identity or brand personality. Just as important as visual style, written style can do the talking for your brand. A particular written style expresses how the brand wants to look to consumers through words.
A writing style is your brand’s personality and how you want to speak to your customers. This personality should be immediately recognizable across an entire marketing strategy. For example, if you are in the academic world, your writing style will be more formal and academic. On the other hand, a financial-service firm may be more professional, and a social influencer may have a more casual style.
How Do You Identify a Writing Style?
A brand’s writing style grows out of a brand strategy. If you have a good grasp of who your consumers are and what they want, you can begin to define your brand’s writing style. In fact, writing style acts as a bridge between strategy and marketing in action.
One of my favorite examples of a company that brings to life its brand through its written style is the apparel company Toad & Co. Here is an example of its product description for the Sunkissed Maxi Dress:
“Wine tasting in the valley, destination weddings or a dreamy staycation, summers were meant to be Sunkissed.”
But Toad & Co. made me dig for this great copy. Before clicking on ‘more details,’ the first thing they list under the product’s basics other than price, color and size choices, is their commitment to using recycled fibers:
“Recycled fibers are the sustainable gold standard. In 2021 we’ve recycled 37 tons of fiber. That’s over 27 million gallons of water, 55,000 oz of pesticides, and over 400,000 miles worth of car emissions saved.”
Just by reading this copy, you can understand that Toad & Co. is marketing to women who like to vacation or are looking for vacation clothes. However, they also recognize their company’s values (sustainability).
Values, consumer personas, SWOT…everything you identify in a brand strategy can come to life in a written style.
Benefits of a Written Style
There are three benefits of a written style for your brand:
1. Consistency
2. Credibility
3. Confidence
1. Consistency
When a potential customer receives multiple messages from a company, consistency is important to building the brand’s credibility. For example, if an email has a friendly and casual tone, you want the customer service or support conversations to convey the same tone. In other words, you want the consumers to know that they will receive the same brand experience anytime they interact with it.
Writing style should also be consistent with the brand’s image guidelines. A company will persuade more customers to its products and services if the company matches its written content with its brand’s visuals. For example, you can read how the product description and product name match the visual appearance of Coca-Cola’s new beverage Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Byte.
A defined writing style and employees who follow the style consistency couldn’t be more important than today with so many people working remotely. Even if the team doesn’t work remotely, several different people can often be writing copy for the company.
For example, take a look at Mail Chimp’s Annual Report. It would be safe to say that the writers, editors and graphic designers took the numbers the Finance team put together and made them shine with the company’s defined writing style.
2. Credibility
Without a clearly defined writing style, it would be easy for a consumer not to understand what the company is trying to do or sell. Confused customers will not result in paying customers. A defined writing style helps the team create better and more consistent content, which leads to more credibility and loyal customers.
Setting rules and expectations for employees is critical here. For example, suppose you have a serious sales presentation or call sheet but have customer service fill emails with emojis that express a more casual tone. In that case, the company can look less credible.
A great example of consistency in action is Backcountry. Backcountry clearly trains its customer service in communicating the brand’s standards over the phone and through email. In fact, when they call you to follow up on your order, they almost act as brand ambassadors in the truest sense.
Here is what Backcountry wrote to me after I purchased a new rain jacket yesterday:
Hey Susan,
Thanks for your most recent purchase of the Marmot PreCip Jacket.
My role as a personal gearhead is to make the most of your time spent outside! Whether it’s recommending new gear, general outdoor tips, or help with service-related items like returns and exchanges, my role is to be your direct point of contact!
Do you have any gear needs for Spring? Any fun adventures for the season?!
Cheers,
John
A particular writing style also shows that the company is professional and reliable. Hiring an editor to ensure the writing style is put into action through every step can help preserve the writing style and integrity of the brand’s personality.
3. Confidence
A defined company writing style, including expectations and guidelines, gives team members the confidence to write content for the brand. It also provides management confidence employees can write quality content that appropriately represents the brand.
Consumers also have more confidence in a brand when the writing is clean, professional and meets their needs. People are more confident purchasing a product or service when they see a consistent message. Sometimes the writing style isn’t noticeable to the average reader, but usually, they can spot mistakes, which lowers their confidence in the brand.
Finally, the last thing anyone should do is confuse a customer. A consistent message builds customer awareness and trust. This starts with a clearly defined writing style. Customers will know what they will get every time they interact with a brand if the written style matches the visual style.
How to Create a Style Guide?
A style guide is a piece of work that outlines the company’s writing style. It includes the tone of voice, messaging guidelines and other specifics for carrying out the writing style.
The style guide usually develops after the company has strategically defined their company’s brand. This may include a vision statement, customer profiles, logo, colors, font, etc. In addition, a style guide can develop after a company has grasped and written down who they are, where they want to go and its values.
A style guide can be a general overview of how to speak to customers or very detailed, helping writers and editors consistently craft messages in specific ways. A style guide can include the following and more:
- Tone of voice
- Messaging guidelines (Ex: Any rules to follow when writing certain pieces such as an email vs. a contract).
- Punctuation
- The spelling of particular words that are specific to the company or industry
- Grammar rules such as using or not using contractions
- Formatting rules like how to capitalize titles or dates
- Examples of good and bad use of the writing style
Who Creates the Writing Style?
Usually, it falls on the Marketing team to create the company’s writing style. However, this may not be their area of expertise.
Although anyone with a passion for writing and who has been close to the brand strategy can come up with the brand’s writing style, it’s best to hire a skilled editor and writer to develop the writing style and create the company’s style guide.
So, if you’ve used a copyeditor or proofreader before, you may think that we only check for spelling and punctuation errors. But a skilled editor can help you develop your brand’s voice and create a company style guide.
An editor can also be hired long-term to ensure the brand’s writing style is implemented consistently company-wide. Editors ensure every written piece is on track with your brand’s personality, which eventually builds brand confidence and trust and attracts more customers to the brand.
Final Thoughts
Companies spend so much time developing their strategic goals and their brands. But not following through on every detail when the marketing plan hits the road is tragic.
A company’s writing style is just as important as the company’s logo, color choice and vision. When consistently applied, the writing style helps build credibility and confidence, translating to more customers and sales.
If you are looking for help building your brand’s voice, writing style and style guide, I’d love to hear from you. I can deep-dive into where you are now in the brand-building process and suggest the appropriate way of developing and implementing your brand’s voice.
If you are interested in learning more about a writing style and how it can improve your brand’s appearance and sales, reach out to me, and share your thoughts and questions. I’d love to hear from you.
Sources
https://blog.ciep.uk/brand-voice/?utm_sq=gr1wtovx6g
https://blog.ciep.uk/editor-business-content/
https://unsplash.com/@patrikmichalicka
