Have you ever misunderstood what someone has said because of the way they said it?
That’s tone of voice. And it’s relatively easy to pick up on tone when you’re talking with someone in person.
It’s a lot harder, however, to pick up on tone of voice in written text. That’s why so many of us resort to including emojis in our text messages.
There is a world of difference, for example, in the following:
- I hate you
- I hate you
But this doesn’t mean you need to rely on emojis in your professional web copy, either. In fact, the words you use and the way you write already say a lot about you and your company.
Red Bull’s copy, for example, tends to position the brand as energetic and adventurous, while CocaCola’s copy tends to position the brand as friendly and uplifting.
Tone of voice, at the root of it all, represents and expresses your brand’s personality and values.
This is important. Since your brand’s tone of voice should be unique and distinctive, it sets you apart from other companies. But it also helps build trust and familiarity.
So how do you go about finding the right tone of voice for your engineering company?
Below, I’ll share six tips to help you get started.
1. Understand your audience
Before you even begin trying to define your ideal tone of voice, you need to figure out who will be listening, i.e. reading your content.
Who is your audience? Who are you creating content for? What are their values and interests? What language do they use?
Once you understand who you want to be targeting with your copy (and your brand as a whole, for that matter), you can begin to analyze what tone of voice would work best, both for you and for the audience in question.
For example, if you’re targeting up-and-coming engineers with new and innovative ideas, your copy may be a lot more edgy than if you’re targeting well-established companies that have been working on massive portfolios for generations.
2. Define your brand personality
Your brand’s tone of voice should reflect your brand’s personality.
If you’re a well-established business, you may already have a distinct personality set, but this does not mean that your tone of voice reflects this well.
If, for example, the stakeholders of your company want to be known as the serious leaders in a particular field but the copy thus far has been fun and playful, there may be a disconnect between the ideal and the reality.
So it’s important to set some parameters on what works best for your company – keeping your target audience in mind, of course.
A well-defined brand personality can act as your compass, guiding not only your tone of voice but also the overall look and feel of your company.
To start, think of a few adjectives that would best describe your company and the way you want people to see you.
Do you want to come across as formal or informal? Friendly or professional? Passionate or quirky? Confident or commanding?
It’s best to settle on two to three words that can guide you further.
Honesty here is very vital, and it’s important to focus on a brand voice that actually aligns with what your company is or has the potential of becoming.
If you’re just starting out, it can be helpful to work with AI and ask it to generate different ideas for you to help you identify what type of brand voice works best. Of course, don’t base your final brand voice on this, but use it to inspire your thought process and help you pinpoint specifics.
3. Analyze your competitors
Tone of voice should be unique, so it may be helpful to analyze your competitors to see what tone of voice they’re using.
Can you differentiate yourself? Can you identify what your competitors are doing that works really well, and what might not work so well?
Refine your current (or ideal) tone to make it truly unique. This allows you to differentiate your brand and provides you with a competitive advantage.
4. Set a style guide
Once you’ve done your research to identify your ideal target audience and have set a brand personality that’s wholly different from your competitor’s tone, you can begin working on the nitty-gritty aspects of your tone of voice, reflecting what kind of language you want to be using to set the right tone.
Will you be using jargon? What about humor? Are there any punctuation conventions you want to implement?
For this, it can be helpful to envision your target audience.
If you’re faced with one member of your target audience, how would you speak to them? Would you crack a joke? Would you be very professional? Would you try to be more personal and approachable? Would you rely on a lot of technical jargon to come across as very smart and well-educated? Or would you break things down into simpler terms?
All of these aspects are important to consider when setting your style guide.
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5. Be consistent
The tone of voice you use in your engineering blog should match the tone of voice your company portrays elsewhere.
Of course, this doesn’t only refer to written copy. It’s important to think about your overall visual identity and the imagery and colors you use. What picture does this paint?
If you have a very formal corporate identity, for example, a casual tone of voice on your engineering website would not work well.
Inconsistency quickly creates dissonance. Consistency, in stark contrast, reinforces your band identity by building trust and familiarity.
Imagine if CocaCola were to adopt Red Bull’s tone of voice – or vice versa. This would seem very out-of-character and jarring, and audiences would likely be confused.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t adapt to different contexts. The exact language you’d use to explain a technical aspect of a product may be slightly different from the language you’d use in an email newsletter. You should adjust the level of formality and complexity depending on the medium in question.
But you should not abandon your tone of voice entirely – there should always be an element of consistency and authenticity that runs through all your copy.
6. Test and re-evaluate
Even if you’re set on a tone of voice, this doesn’t mean you don’t have to re-evaluate your work.
Perhaps the brand personality and tone of voice you’ve decided on aren’t working for you? Or perhaps your company is undergoing massive changes and trying to adopt a new brand identity?
Using A/B testing to experiment with different tones can be helpful – this will give you the chance to test different types of tones of voice on audiences and see which options perform better. But you can also pay attention to other engagement metrics, such as website click-through rates (relying on Google Analytics) or social shares (relying on native social analytics). If there are massive changes in this data and the only thing that’s changed is your tone of voice, then you may be on to something.
And, of course, always rely on audience feedback. This is invaluable.
By testing and re-evaluating how your tone of voice is serving you and your company, you go from strength to strength as you constantly hone your message and tone.
Do you need help finding your tone of voice?
Finding the right tone of voice can be challenging. This is especially true if you’re producing more long-form engineering articles for the first time.
Contact us to find out how we can help.
Tone of Voice FAQs
What are the elements of tone of voice in writing?
Tone of voice refers to the way in which a message is communicated. It’s not so much about what you say, but how you say it. In a written context, tone of voice would incorporate both the actual words used and the writing style, but it could also incorporate more stylistic choices like paragraph length and whether or not you’ll use emojis.
Can I change the tone of voice depending on the type of content or platform?
There should be an overall consistency in tone of voice, but this doesn’t mean you can’t adapt and adjust your copy to suit certain platforms better. If you’re publishing a technical manual on a product, for example, your copy will likely read very differently from when you’re pushing content on TikTok.
