The way you tell 'em...

Businesses are paying more and more attention to the way they communicate with customers and potential customers, and not before time. In daily life we’re used to choosing a tone of voice to take with a wide variety of people, whether they’re friends, family, colleagues, children or strangers.

But in business we rarely stop to think: who am I talking to?

What do they already know? Should I shout and talk quickly, or take my time and lower my voice? Would they appreciate formality or familiarity, something rich and evocative or something as blunt and functional as a text? Should they be treated as experts, or led gently through a jargon-maze?

One kind of job we do more often than we used to is not just to write – for example – a homepage, a leaflet or a mission statement, but to create at the same time a language and tone guide, a kind of palette. This begins to equip a business with the tools it needs to make sure all its subsequent writing speaks in the same tone of voice.