Getting started with tone of voice
We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. A short on-ramp to tone of voice for teams who have not touched it before.
Content is the part of a project most likely to be underestimated and most likely to delay a launch. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
Why it matters
Write like a knowledgeable person talking, not a brochure. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Consistency builds recognition
- Change one thing and measure it
Jargon signals insecurity more often than expertise. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.
How to tell if yours is fine
Writing for the web is largely an editing job: the first draft is always longer than it needs to be. Three things worth confirming about tone of voice before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Jargon signals insecurity more often than expertise — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.