Why You Need a Brand Voice Guide Before Website Copy
Your website copy is like your brand’s first date with potential customers. And just like dating, you need to know who you are before you can charm anyone else.
That’s where a brand voice guide comes in — like the ultimate sidekick helping you strategically sound like the ICON you are.
On average, it takes 5 to 7 impressions for people to remember your brand (Pam Moore). And 61% of people are more likely to buy from companies that deliver unique content (Contently).
Having a brand voice guide in your back pocket will help you deliver a consistent and unique message, so you get noticed, stay in their minds, and have them as recurring customers.
Trying to take the easy way out will only leave you with random website copy that doesn’t align with how you actually sound, or sound like any of the other content you put out there. And you’ll be leaving valuable money on the table.
What is a brand voice guide?
A brand voice guide is like a bible for you and anyone who writes for you to refer to whenever you’re writing or want to communicate something.
It defines the verbal representation of your distinct brand personality, the words and phrases that are unique to your brand, and the guidelines that help you consistently sound that way.
Your brand voice guide can include:
- Your brand voice
- Brand tones of voice
- Dos and don’ts
- Grammer preferences
- Formatting rules
- A dictionary of words and phrases
- Your mission and vision statements
- Brand values
- Your positioning statement
- Website copy and social media examples
- A brand manifesto, and more
Steps to creating a brand voice guide
Your brand voice guide can be concise, comprehensive, and any other flavour of valuable. But however you slice it, a brand voice guide will always have these building blocks:
1. Research phase
Before us word magicians take out our wands and bippity-boppity-boo all over our laptops, we’re using that wand like a shovel to dig deep into data and market insights from across the internet.
Because those insights are how we figure out how to identify your brand voice, and craft the guidelines and messaging assets that keep you on track.
I wrote a feature post for The BTL Copy Blog that goes into detail about the market research process, which you can read here>>>
2. Development process
This is the brunt of the work, and usually involves a lot of pen to paper work and editing the guide until it’s perfect. I spend an average of 10 hours developing a brand voice guide’s content, cross-referencing with what the client told me and what I found during the research phase.
3. Implementation tips
In order to get the brand voice guide to do its job, it needs actionable instructions for how to make sure everything you write — website copy and every piece of content moving forward — sounds on-brand. So, we’ll provide writing guidelines — including all the nitty gritty from grammar to formatting rules.
4. Maintenance best practices
It’s not enough to have guidelines, you need examples of what to do and not do. So I like to include dos and don’ts for your writing, as well as copy examples so you can see your brand voice in action!
How a brand voice guide makes website copy better
You want to have a brand voice guide before writing website copy because it serves as your North Star.
Your brand voice guide sets the tone for what you write, establishes your “it”factor, and shortens the time that you stare panicked at the blinking cursor on the blank page.
Or even if you’re not writing your website copy yourself and you hire a copywriter, it’ll:
1. Make the writing process faster
Having clear guidelines and decisions helps your copywriter, and you, make decisions faster when it comes to your website copy. It speeds up the feedback process so there are less revision rounds, and make the approval process a breeze.
2. Make your messaging more consistent
With a brand voice guide, you’ll have the same voice on your website copy, your socials, your email newsletter, and even when you speak at events. Having that consistent, clear, and you-coded brand voice will make it easier for people to recognize your brand. And it’ll make every experience with you feel like a homecoming, not like whiplash.
3. Increase your conversion rates
With a clear positioning, strong differentiation, and a consistent experience, you’ll attract more of the right people and turn dream clients into brand fans.
4. Lower your long-term costs
No more spending hours fixing up copy that doesn’t sound like you, repurposing old content because it sounds ‘off’, or trying to create new content that feels like an Olympic sport. Instead, content creation will be easier, and even things like onboarding (your new copywriter, perhaps 👀) will be simpler.
Plus, according to Marq, a business with consistent branding tends to experience up to 20% greater overall growth and 33% higher revenue compared to one that struggles with off-brand content.
In short: a brand voice guide can help you grow and make you more money than trying to write website copy or content without one.
Costs of skipping a brand voice guide
I dipped my toes into the drawbacks of not having a brand voice guide a bit in the intro, but I need to really dive in to drive this home for you.
As you saw from the Marq finding, you could lose money from having inconsistent messaging. Plus, you’ll confuse your people and waste time redoing your copy to sound like you. Not to mention spending money hiring a copywriter to get it right because you didn’t the first time
No shade, but come on, your wallet and calendar deserve better. Best get it right the first time (cough cough with a brand voice guide).
Signs you need a brand voice guide
- Your copy sounds different everywhere
You want to have people look at your website copy and any of your other content and go:
It’ll make people feel at home with your brand, and make you more memorable.
- Multiple people write your content
Your VA, your intern, the new copywriter you onboard — you want them to have success when writing your copy so the revision and approval process is quicker. Your brand voice guide will streamline the copywriting and content creation process, so there are less bottlenecks.
- You struggle to write anything
That brand voice guide of yours will be a huge help to you, too! You’ll have guidelines for what to talk about, know how to make sure what you write sounds like your brand voice, and speed up the writing process.
- Your messaging doesn’t connect
If there’s a gap between what you’re trying to communicate and what your target audience is getting, then a brand voice guide will help you define just how vital your brand and offers can be to them.
- You’re about to invest in website copy
With your brand voice guide, your website copy will be more on-brand, more compelling, and it’ll get done much faster.
Real results from my clients
1. Day to Day Assist
Jennifer was DIYing her copy for her operations agency, and felt like it was beginning to sound like everyone else. The biggest thing that frustrated her was she didn’t feel like her brand voice was standing out, and she felt like she had to “call her audience out” to get their attention.
FFWD through a Copy Retainer that gave her a new brand voice guide, new website, and copy for her client processes…
Day to Day Assist now has a voice that feels good to Jennifer and stands out amongst the competition. Best part? She didn’t have to stress herself out trying to figure this out herself.
“Working with you was definitely worth the investment! I love the way your copy retainer works and how quickly you were able to get things done. I also feel like you listened to what I wanted. My copy feels 100% aligned with who I am. I feel relieved & confident about how I show up in the world. I also feel better prepared to hire a content writer in the future b/c they have a brand voice guide to follow.”
2. Nuola Events
Nuola Events is a wedding and event planner for main characters who come from the cultural diaspora and live in Calgary, Banff, Canmore, and surrounding areas.
Problem is, her website copy was giving BARE. So, she came to me after creeping my socials for a year and building a relationship in the DMs. We developed her brand voice guide so she’d never wonder what to say or how to say it.
It was super prescriptive, and her response… I couldn’t even capture in words. You just have to see it yourself:
“I felt like you knew exactly what I was trying to say and how to convey it in a way that resonates with my intended audience. I cannot overstate how much clarity and confidence the service you provided has given me. Like I know exactly who Nuola Events is and how to show up in this market. I’m much more excited to show up and show the f out!”
3. Bell and Wether
Ashley — Squarespace designer extraordinaire — is fairly experienced in copywriting, so when she was launching her new business Bell and Wether, she thought of doing it herself.
But what she really needed was another set of eyes on her business to give a strategic point of view from the outside, and to do the research on her ideal client that she hadn’t focused on yet.
She decided to hire an external expert for the brand language and copywriting so Bell and Wether would have longevity as it’s own entity and not just be her own voice — ME!
I’m happy to say that from the very beginning of working together, Ashley got so much more clarity in her business. I asked her questions that my clients can vouch for as being SUPER in-depth, and her business crystallized into something more solid than a dream.
We started with the brand language document and, you know what? I’m just gonna let Ashley speak on this part:
“PERFECTION. How was your brand language document longer than the brand strategy one??! Answer: because your brand language research and presentation was so thorough and provided me assets that I never even thought of asking for (like the brand manifesto) that I will use for years to come to market my brand agency. The value of that alone is probably worth your entire fee. To be honest there were points where I questioned whether I hired someone who was too young (I mean, I think you’re a completely different generation letter than me? LOL, I’m old) and who wouldn’t totally get what I was going for, but when you delivered my brand language document I was like “daaaaaaaaaaaamn, this looks super professional”. So kudos for kicking my questions to the curb and showing me who was the true boss of my brand language.”
But of course, we didn’t stop there! We also did copy for her 7-page website, plus launch copy for her two Instagram pages. All in all, Ashley considered the project “100% worth the investment” and I for one cannot WAIT to work with her again.
Wrapping it up
So! To recap: a brand voice guide is always best to have before writing website copy because it speeds up the writing, revision, and approvals process, streamlines content creation, helps you deliver a consistent experience to your people, can help increase conversion rates, and lower long-term costs.
And after having a successful track record crafting brand voice guides for my client, I’ve found an efficient and comprehensive process for giving you the kind of messaging bible you need to achieve these wins.
In the past 4 years I’ve cut my teeth strategizing & writing award-worthy, revenue-increasing, results-snatching copy. But what really lights my fire is writing for woman-owned and BIPOC-led brands. I’m talkin’ first day after a braiding appointment type of excited.
If you saw this post and my client results and thought “OMG I’ve been waiting for something like this!” then my Premium Website Copy Package would be perfect for you.
With comprehensive research, brand voice & messaging development, a comprehensive brand voice guide, up to 10 pages of website copy, new content marketing assets, and audits on some of your existing content to show you how to sound on-brand all the time, I’ll make sure you sound consistent, compelling, and cool wherever you show up online.
I’m booking for January 2025, and would love to add you to my calendar. Inquire about my premium website copy package >>>
