Brand Voice Development

Instructions

Define and document a consistent, distinctive brand voice.

Discovery (gather first):

• Who is the target audience? (role, industry, sophistication, pain points)
• What are 3-5 adjectives that describe the brand personality?
• What brands does the client admire and why?
• What is the brand’s core thesis / point of view?
• What tone is explicitly off-limits?

Voice definition framework:

1. Voice characteristics — 3-4 core traits (e.g., “authoritative but approachable”, “direct, not blunt”)
2. Tone variations — how voice shifts by context (sales vs. support vs. thought leadership)
3. Writing style rules — sentence length, jargon policy, active/passive, punctuation conventions
4. Vocabulary guide — preferred terms, words to avoid, industry-specific usage
5. Example pairs — “We say / We don’t say” for 10+ scenarios

Outputs: Brand voice guide, tone matrix by channel/context, vocabulary glossary, editorial style rules, 10 before/after rewrite examples