Why your tone of voice document is probably not doing its Job

Most tone of voice documents are very good at describing a brand and very bad at helping anyone write like one.
They will tell you the brand is warm, human, expert and approachable. They will show you a brand personality diagram with four quadrants. They will list the values that the brand stands for and the adjectives that best capture its character.

And then a freelancer will sit down to write a 1,200 word article about managing eczema in winter and produce something that sounds like it was written by a different company entirely.

This is not the freelancer's fault. It is the document's fault.

I have written tone of voice guidelines three times: once for Chemist4U, once for myBMI.co.uk and once for myBMI.ie. The two myBMI sites looked similar on paper but served different markets, so getting them right meant relying on audience insight to work out where the voices genuinely needed to diverge rather than assuming one guide could simply be copied across both.

A good tone of voice document does not tell writers the brand is warm. It shows them exactly what warm looks like in a clinical healthcare context, where the line is between warmth and inappropriate informality, what warmth sounds like in a product description versus a patient guide versus a social media post. It gives examples of the right approach and examples of the wrong approach, side by side, so the difference is unmistakable.

It does not say the brand avoids jargon. It lists the specific jargon the brand avoids and explains what to say instead. It does not say the brand is reassuring. It shows what reassurance sounds like when someone is anxious about a medical condition and what it sounds like when it tips over into condescension.

A tone of voice document that a freelancer can pick up, read in twenty minutes and use to write something genuinely on-brand is a hard thing to produce. It requires the people who know the brand most deeply to do the uncomfortable work of translating that knowledge into specific, practical guidance rather than aspirational description.

Most organisations stop at the aspirational description because it is easier and because it feels like the job is done. It is not done. It is barely started.
If your tone of voice document is not reducing the amount of editing you have to do on content produced by people who are not you, it is not working. Go back to it and ask a harder question of every line. Not “does this describe our brand accurately” but “does this help someone who does not know our brand write something that sounds like us?”

The answer, for most tone of voice documents, will be uncomfortable. Use that discomfort. It is pointing at the work that still needs to be done.

Find out more about how I work across PR, content and social.

If you are looking for senior communications expertise that combines strategic instinct with smart use of AI, get in touch to discuss how I work.