Transcripts
1. Introduction: Successful marketing isn't
just about what you say. It's about how you say it. That's what defines
your brand and drives clicks, sales and trust. Hello. My name's Ruth. Welcome to my class on
mastering tone of voice. Whether you're running
your own business, building a personal brand, or writing for a company, this class will help you define your brand's voice and
write in a consistent, confident way across
everything you do from web copy to social
posts to emails. I'm a professional copywriter
and copywriting trainer. I'm a member of ProCopywriters, and I've trained
with the Chartered Institute of
Marketing and Google. I'll share practical
techniques from decades of professional copywriting
experience that you can apply straightaway. We'll look at real
world examples, then break down exactly how to apply each technique
in your own writing. What you're about to learn
will take your copy to the next level.
Let's get started.
2. Class and Project Overview: Before we get
going, I'm going to quickly talk you through
how each lesson in this class is organised and also introduce you to
the class project. I'll start each lesson by
giving you an overview of what you'll learn and how these skills are
going to help you. We'll then explore
some key concepts and approaches by looking at real world examples
of brands that are already using
them successfully. For your project, I'd like you to
choose a short piece of copy of 150-300 words that you'd like to improve by reflecting your brand's voice in
it more effectively. It could be your own copy or an existing piece
of business copy, and it could be a rough draft
or something more polished, but it should be representative of the writing you do regularly. I'm going to create
my own project in exactly this way using copy written by my
fictional client, a florist business
called The Flower Yard. Using an existing
piece of copy like this is a great starting
point because you'll be able to see firsthand the difference each of the techniques you'll
learn can make. Download this Cheat Sheet to
help you with your project. It lists the techniques
we'll cover in the class, so you can follow along
during the lessons and use it as a checklist
for future writing. I mentioned that I'll
use real life brands as examples
throughout the class. Links to those brands and their voice guidelines when available are in the
class description, along with links to the
different free online tools and resources I'll introduce
you to throughout the class. Well, if you've got your
piece of project copy ready and you've got the Cheat Sheet to hand, we're ready to go. In our first lesson, you'll find out what we mean
by voice and tone, why they're so important, and what happens when they
go very wrong indeed.
3. Understand Voice and Tone: This lesson we'll
cover what voice and tone are and why
they're so important. Before we go any further, let's clarify what we mean when we talk about voice and tone. These and similar terms are
often used interchangeably, so it can get confusing. But by the end of this lesson, you'll know exactly
what they all mean. To start with, think
about how you speak. You always speak
using the same voice, but you alter your tone, depending on the situation
and who you're with. You're going to use a different tone when you're chatting with a friend over coffee than when you're in a board
meeting, for example. But your voice is going to
be the same throughout. It's the same with a brand. A brand's voice should remain more or less
the same all the time, and its characteristics
are usually defined in a company's
brand guidelines. But the tone that voice speaks
in will be flexed to take account of different
circumstances and audiences. Now, confusingly,
people commonly use the phrase 'tone of voice' to
refer to a brand's voice. That's why tone of voice is
in the title of this class! But while we often
see the phrase tone of voice used in
brand documents, it usually refers to
the brand's voice, the consistent
personality traits, rather than the flexible
element, which is tone. Your brand's voice is
important because it's an integral part of your
brand's personality. As an individual, how you dress, your haircut, how you speak, and how you express yourself generally are reflections
of your personality. In the same way, a brand shows its personality through
its brand colours, its logo, the photographs, and graphics it uses, and through the way it
speaks - its voice. All of these brand elements need to be used consistently for a brand to be seen
as trustworthy, credible, and familiar. That's why all big brands
go to great lengths to make sure their logo is always
displayed in the correct ratio. If you see a famous
brand's logo in the wrong ratio
or color or font, it immediately feels jarring. Your brand's voice
is no different. If it's not expressed
consistently, it dilutes your brand and
reduces engagement and trust. Let's look at an
extreme example. Now, I'll be showing you
lots of positive examples of real life brands totally acing this concept
throughout the class. This is the only negative
one, and as such, I've made it up to avoid
embarrassing anyone. I'm sure you can see what
the problem is here. The headline and subhead are
written in informal slang. The writer is clearly
attempting to use the same casual language
as their target audience. And they're taking a
cue from social media with the hashtag and
the acronym FOMO. Notice also how the subhead
uses the first person "our". In the body text, it's
a different story. It's very formal. It uses the old fashioned idiom
"is delighted to announce", and it uses dated language
choices like "garments", "unerring", "purchase",
and "forthcoming". It also uses the third person for both the company
and the reader, which adds to the formality. None of these choices are wrong on their own, but together, they clash, and that makes for
a confusing brand message. This shows how important
it is to be consistent, and the skills you'll
learn throughout this class will help
you do just that. The most important
takeaway then from this lesson is not
to be intimidated by the concepts of
voice and tone or the different phrases that
are used to describe them. Essentially, we're talking
about a brand's personality, showing it consistently in your writing while flexing
your tone when needed. That's why it's so
important that you have a clear idea of
your brand's voice before you start writing. And if you haven't got
your brand's voice defined yet, no problem. We're going to cover just
that in the next lesson.
4. Define Your Brand's Voice: To get the most out of the
rest of this class you'll need a clear idea
of your brand's voice. You might have this already. If you're writing for
your own business, maybe you've defined
your voice yourself. If you're writing
for someone else, a client or a company, they could have existing
guidelines you can refer to. These could be in a
dedicated document, or they might be tucked
into a wider brand guide alongside things like those logo rules
and color palettes. Look out for a short
list of traits, usually 3-6 that describe
how the brand should sound. It might be called
something like brand personality or
brand characteristics. Here's an example from Shopify. They start by
personifying their voice. They describe it as a business
mentor with zero ego. That's a useful
trick, by the way. Imagining your brand
as a person can make it much easier to pin
down how it speaks. They then break it
down into four traits, real, proactive,
dynamic, and guiding. They also explain
what the voice isn't like making sure proactive
doesn't slide into pushy. That kind of detail is gold when you're trying to keep
things consistent. You do have a voice
guide already, brilliant. Keep it handy. If not, I'll walk you through a simple exercise to
define it for yourself. Using the Shopify
approach as inspiration, I'm going to do
this exercise for my fictional client,
The Flower Yard. Start by imagining your
brand as a person. If it walked into a room, what kind of energy
would it bring? How would it talk to people? Is it warm and approachable
or slick and confident? For example, The Flower Yard would be a person who is calm, friendly, and full
of natural charm. Once you've got a feel for that, try to pin down three
to five adjectives that sum up that personality. Think about how you
want your audience to feel about your brand when
they read your words. The Flower Yard, for example, includes "clear" in its guidelines because they want
their audience to feel that ordering and
communicating with them is simple and
straightforward. Then for each of those traits, add a short explanation
of what you mean. So if you describe your
voice as friendly, what kind of friendly
are we talking? Casual and chatty or more
gently supportive? The Flower Yard's clear
voice, for instance, shows in how they use simple
language and avoid jargon. You can also do what Shopify did and include some
quick notes about what your brand's voice isn't. This helps avoid
misunderstandings, especially if more than
one person is writing. So while The Flower Yard wants
to appear knowledgeable, they don't want that
to tip over into sounding arrogant
or patronising. When I do this
exercise with clients, they often say it's
helped them get clearer on what makes
their brands stand out, and that's useful in all kinds of ways beyond just writing. Here's The Flower
Yard's finished guide. It's made up of five of
the most common types of characteristics you'll see
in many voice guidelines, clear, warm, knowledgeable,
positive, and humorous. Every brand's voice is unique, but most of the traits
people choose tend to fall into a handful of broad
categories like these. So even if your exact
wording is different, you'll probably recognise
these qualities in your own brand's voice, too. And that's helpful because
in the next five lessons, I'll walk you through how to write in each of
those five ways. That's where we'll start
putting your voice into action. In the last video, I asked you
to choose a short piece of copy for your project that you'll work on
during this class. Here's the piece of Flower
Yard copy I'll be working on. The business is
launching a new product, and they want to promote it on their website and
social media feeds. This draft says all
the right things, but it doesn't sound
like The Flower Yard. I'll change that by rewriting it to better
reflect the brand's voice, and you can do the same
with your own copy using the voice guidelines
you've just created. We'll start with some tips
for writing in a clear voice.
5. Write in a Clear Voice: If your reader has to
work to understand you, you've already lost them. In this lesson, we'll
look at how to write in a voice that's clear
and straightforward. It's one of the
most common traits in brand voice guidelines. Sometimes it's called clear, sometimes direct, simple,
honest, or plainspoken. Whatever the label, the
aim is the same to help your reader understand
your message quickly and without
ambiguity or confusion. Clear copy keeps attention. Confusing copy doesn't. Here is Uber's brand guidelines. You can see that
simple and direct makes up one of their
three core principles. And here's an example
of what that looks like in action on
Uber's website. Set your own schedule.
You're in charge. You can drive with the
Uber app day or night. Fit driving around your life,
not the other way around. There are a few things in particular I want
to point out here. First, notice the lack of unnecessary words,
especially modifiers. A modifier is a
word or phrase that adds detail or description
to another word, like an adjective or adverb. For example, in the sentence, you're completely in charge, completely is a modifier. Modifiers are useful,
but overusing them can clutter your writing
and make it feel vague. There are no modifiers in
Uber's snippet of text. Indeed, there are
no words you could remove from it and still
have it make sense. That clear, stripped back way
of writing is so powerful, especially online when people
have short attention spans and you need to get your
message across quickly. Look also at the specific
words and phrases used. They're all very
simple and unfussy. Imagine the difference in
voice if, for example, the first word set was replaced with the fancier
synonym determine, or if the phrase the
other way around was replaced with the Latin
phrase vice versa. Finally, notice how
short the sentences are. Using three short sentences
instead of one long one is a style choice
that's helped make this paragraph as clear and
easy to read as possible. With Uber as our inspiration, we're going to make our
own writing clearer using three simple but
powerful techniques: Being more direct by
cutting out adverbs, improving clarity by using simple words and phrases in
space of complicated ones, and making copy easier to read by splitting
long sentences. An adverb is a particular type of modifier that adds detail to a verb or an adjective by telling you how
something was done, and they're often overused. So getting rid of
them either by simply deleting them or
by strengthening the verb they're modifying, will make your writing
clearer and more concise. There are a few different
types of adverbs, but the type that's most
important to check are easily identified because they almost always end in the letters LY. I've highlighted
the two LY adverbs in The Flower Yards text. Let's see if they really
need to be there. First, we have the
phrase really pretty. This is a good example
of where we can strengthen the
adjective, in this case, pretty, and by doing so, make the adverb that comes
before it unnecessary. So what's a stronger
word for pretty? How about stunning? And with that nice
strong verb in place, we can get rid of the adverb
without losing any meaning. Next, we have the word
totally before different. Is that extra word
adding anything at all to the message?
I don't think it is. If anything, it's just
making it fussier and more difficult to
read. Let's delete it. Getting rid of those
adverbs was easy, and it's already
made our writing feel clearer and more direct. If you want your
writing to be clear, don't use complicated
words where there's a simple alternative that
means the same thing. Even experienced
marketers are guilty of using uncommon, fussy
words in their writing, where there's a much better, shorter and more commonplace word that gets the message
across more clearly. It's something The
Flower Yard has been guilty of in their copy. Let's swap these words
for simpler ones. Consumed becomes eaten,
diminutive becomes short, utilise, becomes use,
receive becomes get. Long rambling sentences are
a feature of bad writing. They're confusing and
difficult to read, especially online
where readers tend to skim through text rather
than reading every word. Remember how short the sentences were in the Uber example? To spot long sentences
in your copy, you can use the word count
feature on your computer, and you can look for
connecting words like and, but and because. You can also read
your copy out loud. If you run out of breath, it's a sure fire sign a
sentence is too long. When you found a long
sentence, you want to split, do it by adding full stops at natural points between ideas. Those connecting words often
act as useful pointers. These two sentences in
the middle of The Flower Yard's text are both
over 20 words. The first one is
very easy to split. The connecting word "and"
tells us where to do it. We can just remove that "and" and capitalise the
word after it. This second sentence also has two obvious separate chunks. We just need to do a
little more work by reframing the second
sentence slightly, so it follows on
nicely from the first. Simple, straightforward
changes that straightaway have
made our writing clearer and easier to read. Before we finish up, I want to share with
you a brilliant, free online tool that will help you make your
writing clearer. It's called Hemingway. If you copy and paste
your text into Hemingway, it will check it for
common writing errors. The aim is to make your copy as bold and clear as possible. You can see the things it checks for on the right hand side, and some of them are going
to look very familiar. So we've got adverbs,
the passive voice. We're going to cover
that in the next lesson and simple word alternatives. Hemingway also flags up when
sentences are hard to read, something that can
usually be remedied by breaking the sentence
up into shorter ones. Now, there are a lot of AI
language tools on the market, but I keep coming back to Hemingway because
it keeps me honest, highlighting when my
writing gets bloated, vague, or needlessly complex. It's also free to use and
has a simple interface, there's really
nothing not to love, and you'll find a link to it
in the class description. The most important takeaway from this lesson is that while clarity is a common principle
in many brand guidelines, it's so much more than that. It should form the foundation of all your writing because it helps you get your message across quicker and
more accurately. And you can make
your copy clearer and easier to understand
by cutting out adverbs, using simple alternatives
to complex words and phrases and splitting
long sentences. Now's the time to look at
your own copy and make it clearer using the
skills we've just learned. Whatever your brand's voice is, you should find that putting these techniques into practice
has improved your copy and giving you a
clear direct piece of text to continue
working with. In the next lesson, we'll turn up the heat just a little bit by exploring how to write with
a warm and friendly voice.
6. Write in a Warm Voice: No one likes talking to a robot, so why let your writing
sound like one? In this lesson, we'll
look at how to write in a voice that feels
warm and friendly. It's a common feature
in brand guidelines, often described as
conversational, informal, genuine,
real, or human. The goal is to use language that feels natural - like you're
speaking to a friend. Writing this way helps
build trust and connection, making your audience more likely to engage with
what you're offering. Here is Virgin
Mobile's brand guide. You can see that friendly
and natural makes up one of their five key
voice characteristics. And that's reiterated by the
instruction to be human. Here's an example of
what that looks like in action on Virgin
Mobile's website. Upgrade early, say bye bye to your old phone and
hello to a new one. You can send us
your old phone and use it to help pay off
your current contract. Sound good? Chat with
us to get started. First, notice how this is
written in the active voice. That's a big part
of what gives it such a direct
conversational feel. Don't worry if you're
not totally sure what the active voice
is and how to use it, we're going to cover
that in a bit. Look also at how Virgin has
used "your" and "you" a lot in this snippet of
text and how they refer to themselves with
the first person "us". Imagine the difference if they'd use the third person, referring to customers and Virgin
mobile, instead of you and us. Not only would the
copy be much longer, but it would feel very
cold and standoffish. Finally, notice the overall conversational natural
feel of the copy. As a reader, we feel involved
and invested in things. One of the reasons for this
is that we've been asked a direct question - Sound good? With Virgin Mobile
as our inspiration, we're now going to
make our own writing friendlier using three
more practical skills: Sounding more natural by
using the active voice, making our writing feel
personal by using and I, and writing conversationally
by asking some questions. The active voice describes
a sentence where the subject performs the
actions stated by the verb. It follows a simple subject
verb object format. With the passive
voice, the subject is acted upon by the verb. Here are some sentences written first in
the passive voice, then in the active voice. With the passive voice, the doer comes after the
thing that is done. You can see straightaway that the active version comes across
as warmer and more human. On the other hand, the
passive examples are more bureaucratic
and long winded. Luckily, once you've
identified the passive voice, it's really easy to fix. It basically just involves rearranging the words a little. This sentence is in
the passive voice. The doer, food bloggers, comes after the thing
being done, loving. Fixing it is as easy as
rearranging the words, so they follow that simple
subject verb object format. Another thing that makes
writing sound cold and formal is when you
use the third person. When you write from a
third person perspective, you write as if both you and your reader were unconnected, objective observers of
everything you're writing about. Look at the examples I've highlighted in The
Flower Yard's copy. In them, The Flower
Yard full names itself, and it refers to
its target audience as the recipient
and the customer. Let's swap The Flower Yard for
our and recipient for you. And finally, let's just get rid of customers who completely. That also means we can shorten
the rest of this sentence. The result is not only
warmer and friendlier, it's also made our call to action stronger and more direct. When you talk to someone face to face, it's a two way thing. You focus on the other person, you ask them questions, and you give them time to respond and give their
opinion on things. Replicating this conversational
approach in writing is challenging
because the person you're conversing
with isn't with you, so they can't join the
conversation directly. As a result, writing can come across as unfriendly
and one sided. From a reader's point of view, the conversational
equivalent is being on the receiving end of
a long monologue. Asking questions is a technique I use a lot when
I'm writing copy. It encourages people
to think about what you're telling them and
how it relates to them, just like it does
in conversation. And it's a technique that it's
easy to put into practice. Remember the "Sound good?" from
the Virgin Media website. Let's try something
similar ourselves. How about editing
this subheading, so it's made up
of two questions? That's an effective way of drawing our reader
into our copy, and it also adds a bit of punchiness to what was
quite a boring subheading. Before we finish up this lesson, I want to share with
you a brilliant free online tool that will help make your writing warmer
and more natural sounding. It's called Otter, and it transcribes your
speech into text. This app could be especially useful if you find that you can talk very fluently and
passionately about a subject, but you struggle to translate that enthusiasm into writing. Record yourself talking
about your subject and let the app
transcribe your words. Then write about your subject using the transcript
as inspiration. And if you feel awkward
talking to yourself, you could always ask
a friend to ask you questions so it all feels
a bit more natural. This lesson's most
important takeaway is that it's actually
quite quick and easy to make your writing sound more friendly just by using
two simple techniques: The active voice and
the words you and I. In addition to that, asking a few questions can help you engage your reader even more. Now's the time to look at
your own copy and make it warmer using the skills
we've just learned. You should then have
a piece of copy that's clearly written
and has a warm, human feel to it, which is a
great achievement in itself. But there's still
more we can do, including adding a touch
of professionalism. Find out how in the next lesson about writing in a
knowledgeable voice.
7. Write in a Knowledgeable Voice: If you don't sound confident
in what you're saying, why should anyone believe you? In this lesson, we'll
look at how to write in a voice that feels
knowledgeable and professional. This style often shows up in brand guidelines as trustworthy, expert, businesslike,
or thoughtful. The goal is to build
credibility and help your reader feel
they're in safe hands, especially when
they're weighing up a decision or
considering a purchase. Let's revisit
Shopify's brand guide. Remember how they
define their voice as a business mentor with zero ego? If we read on, we can see
that this refers to sharing expertise and experience and
giving guidance and insight. Let's see how they put that
into action on their website. First, look at these
statistics Shopify uses to demonstrate the
popularity of its product. Their claim that it powers ambitious entrepreneurs all over the world could be seen as empty rhetoric if
it didn't immediately back that up with proof
in the form of hard data. Look also at the way Shopify links the features
of its product to the benefits they
bring to the user in each of these short snippets. For example, we're
not just told about the Drag and Drop Store
Builder feature. We're given the precise benefit
this feature brings us, the fact that we can
build our online store with ease and without
any design skills. Finally, look at
the testimonials from existing customers. As a potential customer, it gives you the feeling that this brand can be trusted and also that it cares about the
experience of its users. With Shopify as our inspiration, we're going to explore
how to write in a knowledgeable voice using three more practical
and actionable skills: Demonstrating credibility
by providing evidence, linking features to benefits, and building trust by
sharing success stories. When it comes to appearing
knowledgeable and credible, having evidence to back
up your claims is vital. Without that, you're asking your reader to take
your word for things. When we think of evidence, we probably think of statistics
and research results, but there are plenty of other
sources of evidence you can use to add credibility
to your marketing messages. When it comes to The
Flower Yard's new product, the most obvious
evidence we should use isn't actually
copy related at all. With a very visual
product like this, we will, of course,
include a photo of it. That will act as evidence
for all the places in the copy where we talked
about what it looks like. Aside from that, I
notice here that The Flower Yard
has mentioned that photos of dishes that include edible flowers do really
well on Instagram. For a target audience
of food bloggers, that's a great reason to buy, but it would be much
more compelling if we had actual evidence of that. Less than a minute's
worth of research on Instagram has given me
just the information I need to beef up this statement and turn it into something
far more compelling. From just a vague claim
to a cold hard fact that's far more likely to
persuade potential customers. Linking features to
benefits is one of the most powerful copywriting
techniques in existence. A feature is an aspect
of a product or service while a benefit explains
what's in it for the customer. Benefits sell your
product or service because benefits connect
with your reader's desires, but you also need features to help customers
justify the purchase. So starting with a feature, then explaining the
benefit of that feature is a foolproof way to appeal to both the head and the
heart of your reader. Remember Shopify, they
told us about a feature, the Drag and Drop Builder, then explained the benefit, the fact that we could use
it without design skills. A great way to identify places in your copy
where you've described a feature but failed to link it to a benefit is by
asking the question, "So what?" as you read your copy. For example, in The
Flower Yard copy, we have this statement about
the flowers in the bouquet being long lasting and
low maintenance. So what? What's the actual
benefit to the customer? Well, it means they can enjoy
it for longer and don't have to water it as
often. Let's add that in. Finally, a real quickie about success stories because
success stories, case studies, testimonials and customer quotes are an unbeatable way to
demonstrate credibility. That's because we
naturally trust a product or service
that our peers have used and recommended over one that lacks
that social proof. I want to show you a
few more examples from Shopify's website because they
do this particularly well, and they use a few different
techniques to tell their customer's stories
that not only builds trust, but also positions them as a brand that's very
customer focused. It starts right at the top of this page with the
choice of photos. We're not seeing screenshots of Shopify's product or their
employees or their office. We're seeing photos of
customers and their businesses. Next, we have a series of traditional testimony or quotes. And these can be so
powerful on their own, but notice how it's
also backed up by a longer log and
a written story. The Flower Yard sent a sample of their edible flower bouquet to a local influencer
who has given them a positive review to
use on the website. So I'm going to include
that in the project copy. And I also want
to share with you a guide and a series
of templates that will help you collect and use
case studies effectively. This Hubspot guide
gives a practical, actionable overview of how
to collect the kind of in depth case studies that work
so brilliantly for Shopify, along with a
collection template. It's a brilliant place to
start if you want to go one step further than the
usual testimonial quote. In this lesson, we found out that writing in a
knowledgeable voice is as much about what you choose to say as how you say it. By backing up your marketing
claims with evidence, showing readers the
benefit of your product or service and using
success stories, you can build credibility. Now go through your own copy and look for places where
you can add proof, highlight benefits,
or sprinkle in some real life stories
or testimonials. Dial the knowledgeable
factor up or down, depending on what's the
best fit for your brand. In the next lesson, it's
time for an energy boost as we prepare to write
in a positive voice.
8. Write in a Positive Voice: Energy is contagious, so make sure yours
is worth catching. In this lesson, we'll
look at how to write in a voice that feels
positive and enthusiastic. You might also see it described in brand guidelines as upbeat, inspiring, dynamic,
fresh, or energetic. The aim is to bring
energy into your copy and share a sense of your
enthusiasm with your reader. It encourages action,
builds confidence, and leaves a lasting
good impression. Here's an article by Airbnb where they talk
about their voice. One of their voice
principles is spirited. Here's how that spirited, positive voice manifests
itself on the Airbnb website. Notice in this snippet how Airbnb have accentuated
the positive. They say that it's
easy to become an Airbnb host in most areas, for example, instead of we only accept hosts in certain areas. And at the end, they talk
about helping hosts earn great reviews rather than
helping them avoid bad ones. They also set themselves
up as problem solvers. What problem are potential
Airbnb hosts looking to solve? Well, they want to
make money from their property
easily and safely. Airbnb recognise this, and they take every
opportunity in their copy to tell potential customers how Airbnb can help them
solve their problem. Airbnb makes it
simple and secure. We have your back. List
your space for free. We're there to help.
Similarly, Airbnb recognises what people's main objections are likely to be. What's most likely to stop
them becoming a host, and it addresses them. So we see a lot of copy devoted to reassuring
people that they're in control of things like
price setting and house rules and highlighting
security measures, such as the host guarantee and the requirement for guests
to provide identification. With Airbnb as our inspiration, we're going to explore
how to write in a positive voice using three simple but
powerful techniques: Banishing negativity
by converting negative statements
into positive ones, solving your reader's problems, and keeping them on your side
by overcoming objections. Your reader doesn't want to
hear what they're lacking. They do want to
hear what they can gain when they use your
product or service. So you need to aim to frame information positively,
not negatively. Here are a few examples. You might recognise
that last one from the Airbnb webpage we
looked at earlier. Research has shown that framing
products and services in a positive way increases
conversions by as much as 50%. So this technique isn't just about appearing
chirpy and upbeat. It makes good business sense. Let's look again at
The Flower Yard copy and two ways to pick out negative framing are by looking for obvious negative
words like no, not, stop, and avoid, and by looking for words with more general negative
connotations. Here we've got the
negative adverb "not" and a word that has
a negative connotation - "ill". Let's turn things around by focusing on what
the flowers are (edible), instead of what
they're not (poisonous). As a marketer, a big part
of your job is to work out why your reader has
started to read your copy, why they're on your website, your social feed, or reading
your advertisements. In other words, what's the problem they're
looking to solve? Once you've identified
the problem, you then need to solve
it for your reader. The Flower Yard knows that
a lot of people who buy their flowers do so because they're looking for
a last minute gift. That's why they offer
free next day delivery. But right now, that
information is hidden down at the bottom
of the call to action. Having identified this as a major selling point
and problem solver, I'm going to include
it right here in the first paragraph and link it directly to the benefit
felt by the user. Problem solved. Remember
Airbnb's web page about becoming a host and the lengths
that Airbnb went to to reassure potential hosts
about things like security, safety and control over
bookings and finances. Airbnb had clearly
done a lot of research into what stopped people
from becoming hosts. In other words, what
their objections were and devoted a lot of their
copy to overcoming them. Overcoming objections,
like solving problems is another feature
of a positive voice, but it also makes
good business sense. The trick is to put yourself
in your reader's shoes. Why might a potential customer decide not to buy your
product or service? There are two phrases I find
helpful when doing this. "I'm interested" and "That's okay because". I've used The Flower Yard's product
as an example here. So a potential buyer might
say, I'm interested, but it might not arrive on time, to which we can
reply, That's okay because next day
delivery is guaranteed. Having a conversation with an imaginary reader like
this is a useful way to draw out potential
objections and demonstrate a positive voice by overcoming them in your copy. And if you're interested in
taking this approach further, one of my favourite
fellow copywriters, Belinda Weaver, has
written a blog post on the subject on her
website, Copywrite Matters. In it, she adds
two extra steps to the Problem-Solution
formula we've just used. The resulting framework
is really effective, and I use it all the time. The most important learning from this lesson is that writing positively isn't just about
making your reader feel good. It's also an extremely
powerful sales tool. When you convert
negative statements, solve customers' problems and
overcome their objections, you're giving readers a lot of reasons to trust you
and buy from you. Which of these techniques
resonated most with you? Look at your own copy
now and make it sound more positive using the
skills we've just learned. Use your own voice
guidelines to adjust how much or how little
positivity you choose to inject. In the next lesson, we'll engage our funny bone and get to grips with techniques for
writing with a humorous voice.
9. Write in a Humorous Voice: If you can make someone smile, you're already halfway
to winning them over. In this lesson, we'll
look at how to write in a voice that feels
humorous or eccentric. It's a feature in many
brand guidelines, often described as witty, quirky, playful, or fun, and it's one of the hardest
styles to pull off well. The aim is to bring
a lightness to your copy that makes people
laugh - or at least smile. When it works, humour makes
your writing memorable, relatable, and very human. This is Mailchimp's style guide. In their voice section, they have four characteristics to guide their copywriters. One of them is "Our humour is dry", and they also refer to
being eccentric and weird. Let's see how that manifests itself in Mailchimp's
marketing material. The first thing to notice
is that in terms of copy, Mailchimp's main web pages
aren't brimming with humour. Look at these pages, and you'll see that
they're very much focusing on clarity, warmth,
knowledge, positivity. In fact, all the principles we've already covered
in this class. Humour certainly comes
across in the images, but to find it in the copy, which is what we're
interested in, we have to dig a little deeper. This is the message you see when you sign up to Mailchimp. The funny headline immediately gets your attention
and makes you smile. Most error pages are pretty
boring and standard. Mailchimp have used theirs
to demonstrate a little of their trademark
wit and introduced a bit of humour where
it's not expected. But advertising is where Mailchimp really tries
to tickle our funny bone. And the best example is its long running "Did
you mean?" campaign, which relies on gentle wordplay
to raise brand awareness. With Mailchimp as
our inspiration, we're going to explore
how to write in a humorous voice using three fun and
foolproof techniques: Write witty headlines that
get your reader's attention, introduce the unexpected, and use wordplay to give your
message a playful feel. Headlines and subheadings
or titles and subtitles are good places to
introduce a little humour. A funny or unusual
heading can catch your reader's attention
and make them want to keep reading to find out
what you're talking about. Let's revisit The
Flower Yard's copy. The content of this subheading
is repeated further down, so I think we can safely replace it without
losing any meaning. I don't think this
is going to have anyone rolling on
the floor laughing, but it might raise a smile. One thing we saw from
Mailchimp's approach was that rather than trying to be witty and clever in their
main messaging, they hid their funny asides
away in unexpected places. And this is an important point. When it comes to
humour, be selective. Not every piece of copy needs to be funny to reflect
a humorous voice. So don't feel like
you have to shoehorn a joke onto every product
page, for example. Anyway, back to Mailchimp. Remember the cute error page and the irreverent
message asking us to confirm we were human that
we got when we signed up? This is a very clever
way of leveraging humour. It allows you to keep
your main messaging clear, concise, and friendly. Meanwhile, you're
able to show off your quirky brand personality in places where the stakes
are a little lower, and the chance of accidentally offending or confusing
your reader is smaller. Inspired by Mailchimp,
I've written this copy for The
Flower Yard's error page. If you don't know what your own company's error page says, have a look and think about
if it would be appropriate to inject a little humour in there and how you might
go about doing it. It's a useful exercise. Gentle wordplay is one of the most low risk ways of experimenting with
humour in your copy. The idea is to use techniques
like puns, rhymes, metaphor or alliteration to
build in a little playfulness. Well, I think we can safely
say we've covered puns. So let's try rhyme and alliteration in The Flower
Yard's product copy. A method I find useful for coming up with ideas for this is to list synonyms for the key
verbs and nouns in my copy. Then seeing where
there are words in each group that either rhyme or have similar sounds in them. "Munch and bunch" has potential. Let's adjust this first
sentence to give us an opener that's altogether
quirkier and more fun. And as an added advantage, making that change
means we're not repeating the words
bouquet and eat, which already appear a
lot within the text. This technique of using
synonyms to avoid tedious repetition
of the same words is called elegant variation, and it's used a lot
by journalists. If you work for a
company that uses certain words a lot
in the way that The Flower Yard uses the words
flower and bouquet a lot, read up on the elegant
variation technique and see if it can help
you vary or copy. Before we move on, I've got another free online
tool for you, and this one is going to
help you write headlines. That's all headlines,
not just funny ones. The CoSchedule
Headline Analyser is a simple but useful
little tool that analyses your headline and gives you tips for how to improve it. I've popped The Flower
Yard headline in here, and you can see the
detail we get back. Word balance, headline type, links to useful blog posts, and analysis of the
length and sentiment, and even a preview of
what your headline will look like on Google
Search and email. Like any automatic online tool, you need to take the results
with a pinch of salt, but I find it very handy to
quickly run headlines through this to see if it gives me any easy pointers for
how I can improve them. I've used a tool to
reshape The Flower Yard's headline into
something a bit more punchy, and I've managed to squeeze in a bit more alliteration
for good measure. The one thing I'd most
like you to remember from this lesson is that writing with humour is something
that everyone, even seasoned writers,
find difficult. So don't be disheartened
if you struggle with it. Hopefully, by writing
the odd witty headline, looking for ways
to introduce the unexpected and experimenting
with wordplay, you'll build your confidence. Take some time to
look at your own copy and make it sound more humorous, using the skills
we've just learned. Use your judgment and
your knowledge of your brand to decide how much
humour you should introduce. In the next lesson,
we'll move from voice to tone and how to vary your tone for
different audiences, mediums, and situations.
10. Flex Your Tone: Even the most carefully
honed voice falls flat if the tone isn't
right for the moment. At the start of this class, we looked at the difference
between voice and tone. A brand's voice stays consistent. Tone adapts. It changes to suit
the situation, the audience, or the platform. You can think of it as
dialing different parts of the voice up or down
depending on the context. In this lesson, we'll look at
how to do that effectively. You can see that
Salesforce describes its voice as honest, clear, fun, and inspiring.
Words that all fall into the broad categories
we've already discussed. And it goes on to talk about
tone and how the tone of the voice should be tailored for the audience, medium
and situation. Let's see what
that looks like in action on Salesforce's website. This is an article promoting Trailhead, Salesforce's
gamified learning platform. Its audience is young people, mainly students, who
are new to Salesforce, and the tone it's written
in really ramps up the fun and inspiring elements
of the brand personality. I've counted seven
exclamation marks in this one short article. And look at the language
used, skilled up, kicked off, true grit, get in on the action. The writer is emulating the language used by
the target audience. Contrast that with this page, which has a target
audience of developers. The Salesforce platform
empowers developers to quickly build and deploy trusted cloud applications
that are rock solid, secure, and scalable
without worrying about hardware provisioning
or application stacks. Phew! No exclamation marks here. Instead, Salesforce
is drawing more on the honest and clear
elements of its voice. And again, it's using the
language of its readers, in this case, developers,
by using industry terms. Salesforce flexed its
tone in those examples, but remained true to
its chosen voice. Both examples are honest,
clear, and inspiring, although maybe you have to be a developer to find
the second one fun! But that's the key here. Tone is flexible. Voice is constant. To write for
different audiences, first define your
audience segments, then explore the
kind of language they'd use when talking
about your products. Let's take The Flower
Yard as an example. Here are some examples of
the different language that might be used
from audience of lifestyle bloggers compared to florist industry
professionals. Now think about
your own audiences and how you might need to flex your tone and language to suit them while remaining
true to your brand. We've explored Salesforce's
online presence, so let's see how it flexes its voice on a different medium. In this case, social media. This is its main
Instagram account. Notice the use of emojis and trendy abbreviations
like GOAT. They're using more exclamation marks than on their website, and the overall tone is
lighter and more playful. Even if you work for a
serious corporate brand, you need to soften your tone and make it lighter on social. That's because the
main reason people use social media is to
connect with friends. So it helps to emulate that
casual tone in your posts. Remember, too, that while
generally more casual, your tone should be adjusted
for different platforms. For example, on LinkedIn, the professional network, a typical Flower
Yard post might say, our team at The Flower Yard
has put together a list of the best floral
centerpieces to make your corporate event
stand out from the crowd. Click below to find out more. And on Facebook, which is more social and
less professional, that might be tweaked with
a few more colloquialisms, exclamation marks, images, and generally more
casual language. As well as taking audience
and media platform into account when
flexing your tone, we also need to consider
the situation or context, the content of our messaging, and crucially, how our reader
is likely to be feeling. Let's look at Salesforce's
support Twitter feed. This is where people come for help when they have a problem. The audience may well be
the same audience that's reading Salesforces web copy or
following them on Facebook, but the situation
here is different. These people have a
problem with the product they haven't been able
to resolve themselves. They're likely to
be feeling annoyed, impatient, and possibly
embarrassed or just plain angry. Salesforce is flexing its tone in a few ways to avoid making these tricky situations more so and diffuse them as
quickly as possible. For a start, it's apparent that this isn't the place
to be stressing the humorous element of the brand's personality. That's kept firmly under
wraps and instead, the focus is on
clarity and honesty. Once again, Salesforce isn't introducing anything
new into their voice. It's adjusting its tone, dialing different
elements up and down to suit the audience,
medium and situation. Notice also how
whoever is monitoring the feed uses the customer's first name whenever possible. And instead of using
the collective "we", they use the singular "I" and finish each tweet
with their initials. These are useful
ways of diffusing potential conflict because they make the exchange feel more like a face to face
offline conversation, and they also humanise the
person behind the feed. Earlier on in this class, we talked about problem solving. That's really in
evidence here, too. There's a real emphasis on positive solutions
and resolving issues. We've talked a lot
about understanding our audience in this lesson. Well, I've got another
free online tool that's going to help
you do that better. It's a guide to marketing
personas by Buffer. A marketing or
audience persona is a snapshot of a segment
of your audience. The process of creating personas helps you understand
your audience better, their age, interests,
and outlook. Building a clear
picture of who you're writing for is the best
way to make your copy more audience focused
and understand when and how to flex your tone
to get the best results. This guide comes complete
with free templates and links to lots of other
really useful resources. In this lesson, we
explored how to flex your tone without losing
your brand's unique voice. The main takeaway
is that while tone is flexible, voice is constant. To write effectively for
different situations, start by understanding
your audience, then adapt your tone accordingly while staying
true to your core voice. Have to think about the
different contexts your copy is used in and how
you might need to flex your tone to suit them. This is especially important for potentially tricky
situations such as customer problems
and complaints. The next lesson, we'll
recap what we've learned and talk about
our class project. I've also got one fine brilliant
free resource for you, so don't even think
about skipping it.
11. Next Steps: Thank you for choosing this
class, and congratulations! You've learned
practical techniques you can use
straightaway to define your brand's voice
and write in a more confident, consistent way. Now it's time to put
those skills into action by completing
your class project. Choose a short piece
of copy somewhere around 100-300 words and rewrite it to better reflect
your brand's voice. Use the techniques
we've covered in this class and share
your improved version. For inspiration, take a
look at my example project, and don't forget to download the Cheat Sheet from
the class resources. You'd like feedback on something specific or have any questions, feel free to reach out. I love reading your projects, and I can't wait to see how
you bring your voice to life. If you found this class helpful, I'd really appreciate
your honest review. Your feedback helps me
improve future classes and helps other students find the right
training for them. Thank you for being part of such a positive and
supportive community. Now, I promise you one more
extra copywriting resource, didn't I? Well, here it is. This mammoth guide from
Copyhackers lists every copywriting
formula you'll ever need from AIDA to SCAMPER
and plenty in between. Each formula is explained and brought to life with
real world examples. It's one of my go to resources, and I think you'll find it
incredibly useful, too. Now, what would you
like to learn next? If you'd like a broader overview
of digital copywriting, my Digital Copywriting
Basics class is full of practical tips, strategies and tools to
sharpen your skills. Or if you want to
focus on social media, check out my dedicated class packed with real
life examples and platform specific
techniques to help you connect with your
audience and get results. Visit my profile to explore all my copywriting classes and hit Follow to
hear about new ones. Thank you again for joining me. It's a real privilege to support you on your
professional journey. Now go out there, trust your voice and write
something brilliant.
Ruth Clowes, Professional Copywriter
