An often-overlooked aspect of content creation is tone of voice. If many people across your business are creating content, or you’re using freelance copywriters or ChatGPT, how can you make sure it all sounds the same? That’s where tone of voice comes in.
In this article we share some basics, analyse professional services real-life examples and provide advice on where to start…
What is a tone of voice?
A quick Google of ‘tone of voice professional services’ brings us to this AI snippet:
“In professional services marketing, the tone of voice should be professional, credible, and knowledgeable, reflecting the expertise and values of the brand while also being relatable and engaging.”
We feel this comes up a little short. How can a tone of voice be ‘professional, credible and knowledgeable’?
Your content marketing can and should allow your professionalism to shine, build credibility and demonstrate your knowledge, but can a tone of voice do this? We think not.
A ‘tone of voice’ is the way you say things and it’s a vital part of your company brand. It’s how you sound.
Why is tone of voice important for professional services businesses?
It needs to be consistent across all your marketing touchpoints, throughout the client journey to build a strong brand, recognition and trust.
It also allows everyone in your company to gain confidence and clarity on how to sound in written communications.
While those responsible for marketing will be creating content for official channels such as LinkedIn, you may have consultants writing articles, and there will always be wording on client presentations or webinar slides. It’s so important for everyone across the business to understand and use a consistent tone of voice.
Here’s an example of tone of voice training we did with a global professional services organisation – because it’s not enough to have a tone of voice. Everyone has to use it.
In general, many professional services and management consultancies sound very similar: There’s lots of talk about transformation, service lines and solutions.
Your tone of voice can be a point of differentiation. It can make your brand stand out.
How should your business ‘sound’?
That’s for you to decide. But it’s likely it will align with your values and it should resonate with your target audience. Your audience needs to feel you understand them and you literally speak their language.
Professional services tone of voice examples
How can you make your brand language work harder for you? Let’s look at some examples…
Tone of voice: confident and personable
Deloitte articulate their purpose as:
We exist to make an impact that matters
In other words, we’re here to make a positive difference on the things that matter most.
The things that matter to our clients. Our people. And society.
We’ve been around for more than 175 years. What’s mattered has changed a lot.
What hasn’t is that our clients trust us with supporting them on their most complex and important work.
Boldly, some sentences feature only two words. That’s confidence.
And they use contractions (you’re, hasn’t, we’ve) which feels conversational and very human. There are no complex words and it’s likely to resonate with their UK audience.
However, a quick glance at their US website reveals this sentence in prime position on the homepage:
Our reinvigorated brand position expresses the collaborative spirit we’ve long embodied to help solve today’s biggest business challenges.
It’s more formal and that is one seriously long sentence.
Consistency can be hard to crack – and for a global organisation there are cultural differences to consider as well as diverse audience needs. Perhaps this language works for their US audience.
Tone of voice: conversational, modern, playful
Revolut are one of a wave of new digital banks and, although they only began trading in 2015, they’ve already gained more than 15 million customers globally.
Their current homepage copy reads:
Change the way you money.
Using ‘you’ makes you feel like they’re speaking to you directly. It’s informal. And they’re using language in a disruptive way – money – is used as an adjective instead of a verb. The language and wording leads you to expect something different if you bank with them.
How we can help you with tone of voice
At Honest, Clare Wener is your word wizard. As part of any content creation or copywriting project, she will talk to you about tone of voice. If it’s something you haven’t considered before, these are questions she may ask you:
If it’s something you’d like to explore further, we can create tone of voice guidelines and offer training and coaching.
She can also advise on using AI to embed tone of voice too.
Final thoughts
If you’re serious about growing your business, a tone of voice isn’t just a ‘nice to have’.
It’s a tool for consistency, clarity and connection and one of the easiest ways to sharpen your brand without a major overhaul.
