Boost your startup’s brand with a copy style guide
95% cheaper and weeks faster than using a branding consultant or agency
Used by…
Create a professional and trustworthy brand
Elevate your startup’s image with a style guide that helps establish a strong and memorable brand identity.
✔ Increase brand recognition and recall
✔ Appear credible and trustworthy
✔ Boost customer, partner and investor confidence
Streamline your internal copywriting process
Maximise operational efficiency with a style guide that empowers everyone, from customer support to the CEO, to write on brand.
✔ Reduce tone, grammar, and formatting errors
✔ Minimise uncertainty and disagreements
✔ Onboard employees and freelancers faster
Avoid a backlog of ‘tone of voice debt’
Save time and money with a style guide that helps your team write consistent content now, rather than editing inconsistent copy later.
✔ Allocate your budget to higher-value activities
✔ Keep up momentum and produce new content faster
✔ Keep your team happy and motivated
Priced for startups
While consultants and agencies offer comprehensive services that often go beyond what early-stage startups need, we give you all the essentials within a budget that’s more manageable.
CopyStyleGuide.com
£149
- ✔ Instant turnaround
- ✔ 10mins of your time
- ✔ Online guidance
- ✔ Detailed style guide
- ✔ 16 tone of voice options
Branding consultant
£3,000+
- ✔ 2-4 week turnaround
- ✔ Hours of your time
- ✔ Face-to-face guidance
- ✔ Tailored style guide
- ✔ Unlimited tone of voice options
Branding agency
£8,000+
- ✔ 4-8 week turnaround
- ✔ Days of your time
- ✔ Face-to-face guidance
- ✔ Comprehensive style guide
- ✔ Unlimited tone of voice options
Yours in minutes
Why wait weeks for a consultant or agency when you can start using your style guide today?
1. Take the tone of voice test
Answer 24 simple questions to find out which of the 16 tone of voice profiles matches your brand.
2. Review your results
Learn about your tone of voice profile and discover companies that share a similar tone of voice.
3. Buy your style guide
Get an editable Word Document that you can refine and expand as your startup grows (see example).
Includes everything you need
✔ A Microsoft Word version that you can edit and customise as you grow.
✔ A PDF version that you can quickly and easily share with your writers.
✔ A one-page summary to help your writers understand your tone of voice in minutes.
✔ Comprehensive tone of voice guidelines that explain every aspect of your tone of voice in-depth and act as your single point of truth.
✔ Writing examples with explainers to help you understand and communicate your tone of voice easily.
✔ General writing guidelines to help you create compelling and professional content that resonates with your audience.
✔ A tone of voice formula to help you turn any text into your own tone of voice in four simple steps.
Recommended by founders
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“We’re saving so much time getting freelance copywriters to write in our brand’s language now that we can hand over a style guide rather than spend time explaining how we want them to sound.”
Ed Schofield, Founder of Digital People
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“These style guides are a perfect example of doing more with less - you no longer need a big budget to sound like a professional brand! We’re now encouraging many of our smaller clients to get one to match the visual work that we do.”
Rupert Mason, Founder of Sidekick Studios
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“As an SEO agency, it’s imperative that we understand our clients’ tone of voice. These style guides are a game-changer, allowing us to write on-brand content for our smaller clients without needing numerous revisions.”
Yaser Ayub, Founder of Yaser UK
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“This is an incredible asset to empower startups, teams and content creators to communicate more effectively than ever. I can't wait to recommend this to my clients!”
Jordan Mary, Founder of Jordan Mary Photography
Hi, I’m Oli West
For over 10 years, I've written copy for some of the UK's most successful startups. I’ve led content teams and have developed multiple brand guidelines. I’ve grappled and dealt with the common thread that unites all startups: the challenge of building trust with a new audience.
A consistent writing style can help build trust, but many startups don’t have a style guide in place. So I created CopyStyleGuide.com to help.
Gives your startup a professional edge
With a copy style guide...
✔ Your company’s voice and tone will be consistent, helping people easily identify and remember your brand.
✔ Employees can create content that’s cohesive and aligns with your brand's identity.
✔ It will be easier to maintain a clear and strong brand identity.
✔ The likelihood of grammar, punctuation and formatting errors will be reduced.
✔ Team members will have clear guidelines to follow, minimising disputes.
✔ New employees can quickly adapt to your brand's communication style, increasing efficiency.
✔ Freelancers will quickly grasp your brand’s style and tone of voice, allowing them to work independently and effectively.
Without a copy style guide...
✘ Your brand’s voice and tone can be inconsistent across different platforms.
✘ Employees may struggle to create cohesive and professional content.
✘ It can be difficult to maintain a clear and strong brand identity.
✘ Errors in grammar, punctuation and formatting may be more common.
✘ Disputes over writing style and content may arise among team members.
✘ New employees may take longer to adapt to your brand’s communication style.
✘ Freelancers will find it difficult to write in your brand’s tone of voice, and require regular feedback and clarification.
A research-based approach
Our copy style guides are based on extensive research into the characteristics that define a company’s communication style. Our approach draws upon a groundbreaking 2016 study that identified four key dimensions of tone of voice. We’ve built upon these findings with our own analysis and approach to create 16 tone of voice profiles. By answering a quick 24-question assessment, startups can now effectively identify and implement a consistent, authentic brand voice that resonates with their target audience at every touch-point.
Copy style guide FAQs
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A copy style guide is a document that outlines a company’s standards, conventions and rules for writing and formatting content. It helps to maintain consistency in language usage, punctuation, grammar and style across all written materials. It helps keep the company’s messaging cohesive and unified.
To learn more, read: What is a copy style guide?
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A brand style guide is a broader set of guidelines that includes not only copywriting but also the visual elements, such as logo usage, typography, colour palettes and imagery. It helps to make sure that all aspects of a brand's identity are consistent across various channels and touchpoints. A copy style guide can sit within a brand style guide.
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Tone of voice is essential because it conveys your company’s personality and emotional resonance to your target audience. It helps establish a connection with your audience, differentiates you from competitors and builds trust by creating a consistent experience across all communication channels.
To learn more, read: What is tone of voice?
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Although there are many hundreds - if not thousands - of possible tones, research conducted by Nielsen found that there are eight fundamental tones of voice:
These eight tones can be combined to make 16 tone of voice profiles.
You can find out about each one on the Tone of voice profiles page.
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Some tone of voice brand examples include:
Apple: Their tone of voice is simple, minimalistic and innovative. This reflects their design philosophy and commitment to user-friendly technology.
Nike: Nike's tone of voice is inspirational, motivational and empowering. This aligns with their ‘Just Do It’ tagline and positions the company as a leader in athletic performance.
Mailchimp: This email marketing platform uses a conversational, friendly and sometimes quirky tone, making their service approachable and easy to understand.
The New Yorker: The prestigious magazine maintains an intellectual, sophisticated and informed tone. This reflects its status as a source of in-depth cultural analysis and commentary.
To learn more, read: What is tone of voice?
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Yes, anyone can create their own style guide for writing. Here’s a quick how-to:
Define your brand's personality, values and target audience.
Establish guidelines for tone of voice, grammar, punctuation, formatting and any industry-specific conventions.
Add examples and explanations to help clarify your expectations.
To learn more, read: What is a copy style guide?
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While hiring a consultant can be a great way to create a completely unique tone of voice profile, it can also be time-consuming and expensive. So it’s not always the right option for early-stage startups that are conscious of time and cost.
In contrast, our style guides provide a quick and affordable solution for startups that want to create consistent, compelling, on-brand copy quickly and affordably.