How do you maintain a consistent tone and voice in your messaging?

1 Define your tone and voice

Before you start writing any content, you need to define your tone and voice. Tone refers to the attitude and emotion you express in your words, while voice refers to the style and personality you use to communicate. To define your tone and voice, you need to consider your brand identity, your audience, your goals, and your context. You can use tools like adjectives, archetypes, analogies, or examples to describe your tone and voice. For example, you might say your tone is friendly, confident, and helpful, and your voice is like a trusted advisor or a smart friend.

2 Create a tone and voice guide

Once you have defined your tone and voice, you need to document them in a guide that you can share with your team and other stakeholders. This guide should include a summary of your tone and voice, along with a list of dos and don'ts that provide examples of good and bad practices. Additionally, it should feature a matrix of different scenarios that suggest how to adjust your tone and voice according to the channel, format, audience, and purpose. A glossary of terms, phrases, and expressions that reflect your tone and voice should also be included, as well as a checklist or template for reviewing and editing content.

3 Align your tone and voice with your strategy

Your tone and voice should not stand alone from your product marketing strategy, but rather support and reinforce your value proposition, positioning, messaging, and differentiation. To ensure a successful alignment between the two, it is important to understand your audience's needs, pain points, motivations, and preferences. Additionally, craft content around the benefits and outcomes your product delivers rather than just its features and functions. Furthermore, use clear and concise language that avoids jargon, clichés, and ambiguity. Storytelling techniques can be used to engage and persuade your audience while data and evidence can back up claims to build trust.

4 Test and optimize your tone and voice

Your tone and voice should not remain static, but rather evolve and improve over time based on feedback, data, and insights. To test and optimize your tone and voice, you can conduct user research, surveys, interviews, or focus groups to understand how your audience perceives and responds to your tone and voice. Additionally, you can measure and analyze the performance of your content across different channels and formats, using metrics like engagement, conversion, retention, and satisfaction. You can also experiment with different variations of your tone and voice using tools like A/B testing, multivariate testing, or split testing. Finally, it is important to implement changes and updates based on your findings and recommendations.

5 Train and empower your team

Having a consistent tone and voice across your product marketing team is essential. To ensure your team is empowered and trained, you need to communicate the importance and benefits of this, make your tone and voice guide easily accessible, provide feedback and coaching on content creation and delivery, encourage collaboration and peer review, and recognize and reward good examples. Maintaining a consistent tone and voice is an ongoing process that requires attention, effort, and refinement. With these tips, you can create a tone and voice that resonates with your audience, reflects your brand, and supports your goals.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?