Your tone of voice profile is…
The Composed Analyst
At your company, you maintain a formal and serious tone, providing clients with well-researched, practical solutions. Your respectful demeanour instils trust and confidence, while your matter-of-fact communication style ensures customers understand your objective, data-driven approach to problem-solving.
Your tone-of-voice pillars
In a nutshell, your tone of voice is:
Formal (rather than casual)
Serious (rather than funny)
Respectful (rather than irreverent)
Matter-of-fact (rather than enthusiastic)
We refer to it as FSRM for short.
Keep in mind that your tone of voice should be a natural reflection of your brand's personality, allowing for occasional variations and flexibility as needed to best convey your message. For example, even if your tone is generally formal, there may be occasions when using a more casual tone is appropriate and adds value to your message. See our tone of voice examples for inspiration.
Your brand peers
Do these brands feel similar to one another? No brand is exactly the same, but you might notice that they use comparable language, convey a consistent tone, and even structure their sentences similarly. Perhaps the common thread that connects them is their tone of voice!
While these brands may showcase similarities, it's important to recognise that each has its own distinct flavour. So draw inspiration from these examples to refine your own communication style, but remember to stay true to your brand's essence. Mastering tone of voice means blending inspiration with authenticity.
Learn more about Microsoft’s tone of voice.
The Composed Analyst in practice
McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm that offers strategic advisory services to businesses and organisations across various industries. Note how the language is precise, the tone is authoritative and the message is insightful.
Get the full copy style guide
Incorporate the Composed Analyst tone of voice into all your written content with a style guide that you can share with your whole team.
✔ 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.
Every startup and small business needs a copy style guide, but far too few have one! Stand out from the crowd with well-written copy that's on brand.
Recommended by founders
“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
“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
“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
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.
✘ Customers might find it harder to understand and connect with your brand.
✘ 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 style and tone of voice, and require regular feedback and clarification.
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.
✔ Customers can easily understand and connect with your brand's message.
✔ 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.
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 tone of voice can help build trust, but many startups don’t have a style guide in place. So I created CopyStyleGuide.com to help.
Discover your company’s tone of voice
Empower your team to write consistent, compelling, on-brand copy by investing just 10 minutes of your time.