HarrisonAmy Copywriting

Sales Copywriter, Consultant and Speaker

  • Home
  • Sales Copywriting
  • Coaching
  • Workshops
  • Speaking
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

CMS! Episode 6: Choosing Your Tone of Voice in Content Marketing

May 21, 2013 by Amy Harrison 7 Comments

It’s not what you say but the way that you say it right?

Never is this more true than in content marketing.

The tone of voice you choose in your blog posts, sales pages, or promotional reports can damage results if it doesn’t suit the style of your reader. Watch this week’s episode of Content Marketing… Stripped! to find out more.

How do you talk to customers face-to-face?

It’s easy to forget when you’re writing, that content marketing is a conversation with your customer. When working with clients who are struggling to find the right tone of voice I ask them to describe how they would talk to that customer face to face.

Well, they’re young students, and their English isn’t great so I have to make sure I speak clearly and simply.

Our engineer customers are pretty straight-forward. They want you to get to the point and talk to them clearly and directly. They like to know within seconds that the software can do what they need it to do.

My coaching clients are often quite unsure, even nervous so I have to be gentle, soothing and give them lots of reassurances that trying out coaching with me will be fun.

Straight away we can see how we might use individual writing styles with these different customer groups.

But why is it so hard to achieve this in writing?

Why business marketing struggles with tone-of-voice

What makes writing so difficult is:

  1. Your customer isn’t in front of you
  2. Your writing skills were developed at school and work

When you write your content marketing materials it’s just you, your head and a keyboard or pen. Your customer isn’t with you actively responding to your words as they would be if they were sitting opposite you having a chat.

What’s more, most of us learned our writing in school or at work and so we’re used to being rewarded for content that looks like an essay or a formal report.

As a result many business owners find it difficult to shake their previous ‘corporate voice’ developed from writing internal memos. But as we’ve already mentioned, your marketing is not a memo, it’s a conversation.

And unless you can mimic the style of conversation you would have in person with your customer, your blogs and content marketing pieces will miss the mark.

Using a personality ‘snap-shot’ to help

I’ve already talked about how having a quick version of your customer profile to hand can help you write marketing content that addresses the needs of your reader. It’s also useful to do this to stay on target with your tone-of-voice.[signup-form id=”12713″]

Take an index card and split it into the following 4 columns:

  • Who is my customer?
  • Personality traits? 
  • What are they looking for?
  • How would I talk to them face-to-face? 

For example:

Tone of Voice Cheat Sheet
Who is my customer? Personality traits? What they're looking for? How would I talk to them face-to-face?
VP of Finance straight-forward / no-nonsense Facts / benefits and proof this product will solve their problem Be direct / provide facts and figures/ explain who else uses the product / emphasise the results
Life-coaching client creative / sensitive reassurance / comfort / guidance soothe concerns / show I understand their emotions / tell them not to worry / gently explain how it works

Having this snapshot reminder shows you what to focus on when writing your content so in the above examples we might write:

Our ERP software increases efficiency on average by  25% in all our retail customers with each client experiencing increase revenue as a direct effect… 

We’re getting straight to the point. We’re not asking this particular client to “imagine a world where your ERP software integrates beautifully…” it just wouldn’t work for this style of client.

However, for our life-coaching client we would want a less-direct, more emotionally in tune style of writing:

Not knowing which way to go when you’re facing a big decision can be scary, but you don’t have to make it alone… 

Here we’re not jumping into the facts and figures, but spending a little more time on reassuring our customer as our snapshot suggests we should do.

What about your customer? Are you using the tone of voice they need to hear or do you need to tweak your content to match their personality? Let me know in the comments below!

Related Posts

  • Are you being a terrible shop assistant to your customers?Are you being a terrible shop assistant to your customers?
  • 10 Twitter Headline Styles Readers Love to Click10 Twitter Headline Styles Readers Love to Click
  • CMS! Ep15: Prove You’re a Leader (Without Insulting Your Reader)CMS! Ep15: Prove You’re a Leader (Without Insulting Your Reader)
  • Easter – Regroup and Refocus Your ThoughtsEaster – Regroup and Refocus Your Thoughts
  • How one simple change can make your web copy more charmingHow one simple change can make your web copy more charming
Tweet

Share this!

  • Tweet

Filed Under: AmyTV, Copywriting, Corporate Content Marketing

About Amy Harrison

I am a copywriter, content-trainer, speaker and filmmaker teaching businesses how to avoid drab business content and write copy customers love to read. You can also find me hanging out and sharing content over on Google+.

Comments

  1. David Bourne says

    May 21, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    This is awesome. Funny, and I love the “anti-tone” clips. They help define “tone” well by being the opposite of what we expect.

    And that reminds me: when you are thinking of your idea customer, it’s good to think of your “much-less-than-ideal-annoying” customer profile, too. Don’t write that that one.

    Reply
    • harrisonamy says

      May 21, 2013 at 3:22 pm

      Thanks David – so glad you liked it. And you’re totally right, it’s a great idea to know exactly who you DON’T want to attract. Think most of us learn this by experience! 🙂

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. AmyTV #35: What Happens When You Use Exclamation Marks in Marketing… | HarrisonAmy Copywriting says:
    April 22, 2016 at 1:29 pm

    […] sound in your reader’s head. Instead of sounding passionate and enthusiastic, your written tone-of-voice can seem […]

    Reply
  2. Finding Your Brand Voice (Without Losing Your Mind) | iAcquire Blog says:
    January 6, 2014 at 4:02 pm

    […] this piece, Amy Harrison makes a brilliant point: For most of us, our only exposure to writing “training” […]

    Reply
  3. Which of these Copywriting Phrases Will Turn Your Customer Cold? | HarrisonAmy says:
    August 30, 2013 at 8:16 pm

    […] a valid concern. If you don’t get your marketing tone-of-voice right for your audience and your product, your sales copy is going to fall […]

    Reply
  4. How to Start Your Content Marketing | HarrisonAmy says:
    June 5, 2013 at 9:11 am

    […] Stripped! We’ve looked at creating a customer profile, choosing topics for starter content, choosing the right tone of voice and setting content marketing […]

    Reply
  5. 20 Phrases for Building Suspense and Flow into Your Sales Pages | HarrisonAmy says:
    May 24, 2013 at 10:50 am

    […] it’s important to choose the right tone of voice for your customer, so tweak and change these phrases to suit your readers. The more you write and practice, the more […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply to David Bourne Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Want to laugh and learn? Watch AmyTV

  • Comedy and copywriting in one place

Get the newsletter… and more

What do you need help with?

  • Copywriting
  • Business Blogging
  • Content Marketing
  • Landing Pages
  • Sales psychology
  • Web Content
  • Email Marketing
  • Resources
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Dynamik-Gen on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in