How to Create a Voice & Tone Guide for a Company
Voice and Tone are not synonyms, but different layers
Confusion between voice and tone is the source of half of useless guides. Voice is the brand's personality, it does not change from channel to channel or from the client's mood. Tone is the volume and coloring of this personality in a specific situation. Slack is always friendly and slightly ironic (voice), but will not joke with an irritated user in a support ticket — the tone will become calm and professional, while on the page launching a new feature the same brand includes enthusiasm.
| Parameter | Voice | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| Stability | Constant across all channels | Changes depending on the situation |
| What it describes | Brand personality | Emotional coloring of the message |
| Example | Mailchimp — a smart, slightly sarcastic assistant | The same Mailchimp writes seriously when a mailing fails |
| How it is recorded in the guide | One page of principles | Matrix channel × scenario |
If voice and tone are mixed into one list of rules in the guide, the team does not understand what can be changed depending on the situation and what should not be touched. This is the first technical reason why the document stops being opened.
Abstract formulations versus concrete replacements
"Be more human", "write simply", "sound friendly" — three phrases that appear in 9 out of 10 guides and give no editor a single hint of what exactly to type. Copywriter Ben Matthews formulates the problem precisely: the guides are not wrong in content, they are simply too abstract. His example illustrates the difference clearly: instead of "We are committed to delivering exceptional value" — "We work to be worth the investment."
A working guide does not describe the principle in words; it provides a couple of "before / after" examples based on real phrases from the company's correspondence. This replaces abstraction with demonstration:
- Instead of "avoid jargon" — a specific sentence from a letter and its rewritten version.
- Instead of 'be empathetic in support' — a phrase for refusing a refund with a refusal statement that does not include 'unfortunately, we cannot'.
- Instead of 'maintain professionalism in social networks' — a response to a negative comment, written in full, rather than described in a thesis.
Why the document exists, but the team does not open it
Here is where the main gap lies between what is written about Voice & Tone Guide in most materials, and what actually prevents its use. Lucidpress identified this gap as early as 2019: 85% of organizations had guides, but only 30% followed them. By 2024 year, guides exist almost everywhere — but they are used even less frequently.
The issue is not with the guide's text, but with three organizational failures:
- There is no designated responsible person. AP Stylebook works not because it is well-written, but because a live copy editor is responsible for maintaining style in each edition. A document without someone who checks the texts is simply a file on a disk.
- The guide is not integrated into the workflow. If checking for tone consistency is not part of the text approval process — like code review or spell-checking — it is skipped under deadline pressure.
- The guide is positioned as a list of prohibitions, not as a help tool. The team perceives the document as top-down control and only opens it when something goes wrong, rather than when they need to quickly find the right phrasing.
Guide formats: why being thicker does not mean better
The generally accepted recommendation in most articles is 8–12 pages. This is a compromise that attempts to fit everything in: mission, values, examples by channels, glossary of forbidden words. The problem is that a document of this size is opened once during hiring and then never returned to.
| Format | Volume | Real usage |
|---|---|---|
| Classic guide | 8–12 pages | Read during onboarding, forget within a month |
| Compact guide (Comms With AI recommendation) | up to 2 pages | Keep open while working on text |
| Optimal structure (SynthQuery) | 1 pages of voice principles + 1 pages of tone matrix, separately | Quick search without reading the entire document |
The rule is simple: the thicker the document, the less often it is referred to during actual work on the text. The guide is not meant to be read from start to finish, but for point-based consultation — 'how do we write this letter to the client right now'. Therefore, the minimum practical set is principles of voice on one page, examples of 'before/after' and a separate tone matrix that can be opened in five seconds.
How to build a tone matrix that is used
Nielsen Norman Group suggests describing tone through four dimensions, and the key requirement is that each of them should be clearly positioned on the spectrum, not left neutral:
- Funny ↔ Serious
- Formal ↔ Casual
- Respectful ↔ Irreverent
- Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact
A neutral position on all four axes is the absence of a decision, not flexibility. A brand that is 'a little formal and a little casual at the same time' becomes nothing in real text.
Next, these four dimensions need to be overlaid on real intersections of channel and scenario — this is the tone matrix, the second mandatory page of the guide:
| Channel / Scenario | Support: complaint | Social media: product launch | Email: newsletter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal ↔ Casual | closer to formal | casual | in the center |
| Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact | matter-of-fact | enthusiastic | moderately enthusiastic |
| Example of a phrase | «We will figure out what happened and refund the money within a day» | "We did it. And you'll like it" | "New update — we tell you what's changed" |
Such a matrix is not assembled abstractly, but based on real hot spots of the company: they describe 5–8 scenarios that the team writes every week — refusal, apology, launch, gratitude — and for each they record a ready phrase, not a description of the mood.
What ultimately distinguishes a working guide from a dead document
Harvard Business Review shows that a customer who feels complete brand alignment with themselves — differentiation plus satisfaction — is 52% more valuable than a simply 'satisfied' customer. Voice and tone are not a decorative part of branding, but one of the few tools that directly influences this difference in every email, ticket, and post.
But the effect appears only when all three conditions are met simultaneously: the document is short and divided into voice and tone matrix, the examples are specific rather than principles, and there is a person responsible for compliance—a copy editor from AP Stylebook. Without the last point, even a perfectly written guide will remain a file that was opened only once during hiring.
Voice and Tone are not synonyms, but different layers
Confusion between voice and tone is the source of half of useless guides. Voice is the brand's personality, it does not change from channel to channel or from the client's mood. Tone is the volume and coloring of this personality in a specific situation. Slack is always friendly and slightly ironic (voice), but will not joke with an irritated user in a support ticket — the tone will become calm and professional, while on the page launching a new feature the same brand includes enthusiasm.
| Parameter | Voice | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| Stability | Constant across all channels | Changes depending on the situation |
| What it describes | Brand personality | Emotional coloring of the message |
| Example | Mailchimp — a smart, slightly sarcastic assistant | The same Mailchimp writes seriously when a mailing fails |
| How it is recorded in the guide | One page of principles | Matrix channel × scenario |
If voice and tone are mixed into one list of rules in the guide, the team does not understand what can be changed depending on the situation and what should not be touched. This is the first technical reason why the document stops being opened.
Abstract formulations versus concrete replacements
"Be more human", "write simply", "sound friendly" — three phrases that appear in 9 out of 10 guides and give no editor a single hint of what exactly to type. Copywriter Ben Matthews formulates the problem precisely: the guides are not wrong in content, they are simply too abstract. His example illustrates the difference clearly: instead of "We are committed to delivering exceptional value" — "We work to be worth the investment."
A working guide does not describe the principle in words; it provides a couple of "before / after" examples based on real phrases from the company's correspondence. This replaces abstraction with demonstration:
- Instead of "avoid jargon" — a specific sentence from a letter and its rewritten version.
- Instead of 'be empathetic in support' — a phrase for refusing a refund with a refusal statement that does not include 'unfortunately, we cannot'.
- Instead of 'maintain professionalism in social networks' — a response to a negative comment, written in full, rather than described in a thesis.
Why the document exists, but the team does not open it
Here is where the main gap lies between what is written about Voice & Tone Guide in most materials, and what actually prevents its use. Lucidpress identified this gap as early as 2019: 85% of organizations had guides, but only 30% followed them. By 2024 year, guides exist almost everywhere — but they are used even less frequently.
The issue is not with the guide's text, but with three organizational failures:
- There is no designated responsible person. AP Stylebook works not because it is well-written, but because a live copy editor is responsible for maintaining style in each edition. A document without someone who checks the texts is simply a file on a disk.
- The guide is not integrated into the workflow. If checking for tone consistency is not part of the text approval process — like code review or spell-checking — it is skipped under deadline pressure.
- The guide is positioned as a list of prohibitions, not as a help tool. The team perceives the document as top-down control and only opens it when something goes wrong, rather than when they need to quickly find the right phrasing.
Guide formats: why being thicker does not mean better
The generally accepted recommendation in most articles is 8–12 pages. This is a compromise that attempts to fit everything in: mission, values, examples by channels, glossary of forbidden words. The problem is that a document of this size is opened once during hiring and then never returned to.
| Format | Volume | Real usage |
|---|---|---|
| Classic guide | 8–12 pages | Read during onboarding, forget within a month |
| Compact guide (Comms With AI recommendation) | up to 2 pages | Keep open while working on text |
| Optimal structure (SynthQuery) | 1 pages of voice principles + 1 pages of tone matrix, separately | Quick search without reading the entire document |
The rule is simple: the thicker the document, the less often it is referred to during actual work on the text. The guide is not meant to be read from start to finish, but for point-based consultation — 'how do we write this letter to the client right now'. Therefore, the minimum practical set is principles of voice on one page, examples of 'before/after' and a separate tone matrix that can be opened in five seconds.
How to build a tone matrix that is used
Nielsen Norman Group suggests describing tone through four dimensions, and the key requirement is that each of them should be clearly positioned on the spectrum, not left neutral:
- Funny ↔ Serious
- Formal ↔ Casual
- Respectful ↔ Irreverent
- Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact
A neutral position on all four axes is the absence of a decision, not flexibility. A brand that is 'a little formal and a little casual at the same time' becomes nothing in real text.
Next, these four dimensions need to be overlaid on real intersections of channel and scenario — this is the tone matrix, the second mandatory page of the guide:
| Channel / Scenario | Support: complaint | Social media: product launch | Email: newsletter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal ↔ Casual | closer to formal | casual | in the center |
| Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact | matter-of-fact | enthusiastic | moderately enthusiastic |
| Example of a phrase | «We will figure out what happened and refund the money within a day» | "We did it. And you'll like it" | "New update — we tell you what's changed" |
Such a matrix is not assembled abstractly, but based on real hot spots of the company: they describe 5–8 scenarios that the team writes every week — refusal, apology, launch, gratitude — and for each they record a ready phrase, not a description of the mood.
What ultimately distinguishes a working guide from a dead document
Harvard Business Review shows that a customer who feels complete brand alignment with themselves — differentiation plus satisfaction — is 52% more valuable than a simply 'satisfied' customer. Voice and tone are not a decorative part of branding, but one of the few tools that directly influences this difference in every email, ticket, and post.
But the effect appears only when all three conditions are met simultaneously: the document is short and divided into voice and tone matrix, the examples are specific rather than principles, and there is a person responsible for compliance—a copy editor from AP Stylebook. Without the last point, even a perfectly written guide will remain a file that was opened only once during hiring.
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