This week’s blog topic comes straight from my mailbag…

Louisa from Toast Ale (hey Louisa!👋) got in touch and asked me to talk about the importance of brand voice for internal comms. More specifically, she asked how brand voice should be used in internal documents like contracts and handbooks, etc…

So, without further ado, here we go… 

Before I get stuck into the email: if you haven’t heard of Toast Ale but you like beer and this planet we call home, you’ve gotta check them out.

They use surplus bread from factories (and local bakeries) that would otherwise have been tossed out and turn it into awesome craft beer. (And all their beer names are bread puns too, which I’m a sucker for.)

Anyway, before I talk about beer for another 200 words…

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRAND VOICE FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS 💌 

It’s not uncommon to see a brand go from funny and conversational in their day-to-day internal emails to cold and formal when they’re writing important documents.

In fact, I’d say it’s almost universal to find that a brand’s voice stops at the “serious” stuff.

(👆 Brands’ formal documents be like…)

That’s why, when I get involved with a brand voice project, I always stress that it’s not something that should just be tacked onto external communications.

Your voice should be part of the fabric of the brand.

It should be present in everything from the way you talk to your staff to the way you talk to your customers, from the signs around the office to the nitty-gritty of your terms and conditions.

LET’S LOOK AT A BRAND THAT ARE A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THIS DONE WELL: innocent.

Everybody already knows how great Innocent’s brand voice is for marketing stuff.

It ticks all of the boxes and helped launch their brand into the stratosphere very early on. (And spawned a host of imitators and a billion articles about their tone of voice, of which I may have written a few…)

But one of the things I really admire about innocent’s brand voice is how integral to their brand it is.

Their offices have their trademark humour everywhere (signs over their doors that are marked for fruit, people and burglars, for instance…), their employees’ contracts say that they’re entitled to “as many free smoothies as you can shake a stick at”.

Even in documents that would usually be filled with formal, corporate language (like this Modern Slavery Statement) they maintain their innocent voice and personality.

Of course, their contracts and the Modern Slavery Statement don’t dial all aspects of their voice up to 11.

There aren’t puns galore or the absurdist humour, but there is always that one-to-one tone. Anything innocent writes reads like people chatting amongst themselves, even if it’s about important stuff.

Put another way, their voice is an integral part of their brand that can’t just be taken away or added back on.

And that’s huge.

So, while things like contracts and staff handbooks might not seem like the most important places to dial up your voice, it’s important to think of two things:

FIRST, THINK OF THE ROLE OF THESE DOCUMENTS IN THE JOURNEY OF THE PERSON SIGNING OR READING THEM…

Whether you’ve written a contract for a new member of staff or a document for somebody outside the organisation, that thing is likely to be one of the first real interactions they have as a member of your inner circle.

In a way, it sets the tone for the rest of their time with you. (You only get one chance at a first impression and all that…)

Of course, one formal contract isn’t going to derail the whole thing if all their other experiences as part of the team are on-point, but if your handbooks and other touchpoints are written that way too, it can quietly give the wrong message, right from the off.

When you write formally in your contracts and handbooks and important emails, it says: “this is how we talk when we talk about important stuff” and “we might joke around in the office and have a great culture, but when things are serious, we forget all about that and talk like this”.

This undermines the integrity of your brand voice.

It sends the message that your voice isn’t an integral part of your brand, but something that you choose to use as and when you see fit.

SECOND, THINK OF THE KNOCK-ON EFFECTS OF USING THIS LANGUAGE…

If you’ve got contracts and staff handbooks written in this formal language, when it comes to external communications, it can have a knock-on effect.

Earlier in my career, as a writer working in-house for a few brands, I saw first-hand how difficult some situations can be to handle.

When addressing complaints, unhappy customers or writing about serious stuff, the stakes are high.

You want to make the customer happy, you know it’s really important and you really, really don’t want to piss off/disappoint your boss.

So, even though I was a confident writer and knew it’d be better to write conversationally, I still used to default to formal language in these situations.

Of course, I’d try and punch it up a bit, but it was formal language with a nice bow on. It wasn’t conversational.

Why did I do this?

Because I didn’t feel confident enough that what I was doing was right for the brand AND because our voice wasn’t well defined or used internally for “serious” conversations. As a result, I wasn’t sure I’d have the support of my team if it backfired.

In those moments, when it seemed too risky for the brand AND for my reputation, I defaulted to the perceived safety of stiff formality, like this…

That’s why if you’ve got very formal, stilted language in your onboarding documents and in “important” documents — documents that are implicit orders from upon high, you need to ask yourself:

What are your staff going to default to when things get tricky and they’re not sure how to proceed?

Are they going to use the brand voice or the way they’ve seen your higher-ups speak when things are serious and important?

It’s also important to remember that nowadays, everybody writes for your brand.

Your marketing team or copywriter might write the really important stuff, but what about the service emails to customers?

Or the terms and conditions? The tiny bits of copy? Product descriptions? Shipping emails? The live chat on your site? The communications with suppliers?

The best way to make sure the whole team talk the same way (so the brand always sounds the same) is to make sure that they’re picking up the voice through osmosis.

In other words:

So, if there’s an important document, use it show them that it’s OK to still have some personality, even in the stickier situations.

Don’t make them turn to the brand voice guidelines at every opportunity, lead by example and help them intuitively know how to write for your brand in every situation.

Because using your brand voice internally isn’t just about making sure that the people who work for (and with) you live and breathe the brand.

And it’s not just about joining up your voice at every single customer touchpoint, either.

It’s also about giving your team the confidence and freedom to speak on the brand’s behalf without second-guessing themselves.

(Because second guessing almost always equals stilted, safe and boring language.)

In fact, I’ve heard that innocent do a week-long training session for all new members of staff to get them up to speed with their brand voice, whether they’re in marketing or not, because they know how important it is that everybody knows it inside out.

WANT TO PUNCH UP YOUR “SERIOUS” INTERNAL DOCUMENTS? 🥊

Here are my top three (and a half) tips for making sure your brand voice is consistent everywhere:

1. Don’t be afraid to wrangle with your legal department.

Innocent and Virgin (two of the UK’s brand voice big dogs) use their brand voice in contracts, so it’s not without legal precedent at all.

Speak to your legal eagles and work together to get something that’s legal binding without being yawn-inducing or lacking your brand’s personality.

Remember, this is the first real touchpoint for many team members.

Kick it off with a bang, make them immediately realise they’ve made the right decision to work with you and show them (don’t tell them) that they don’t need to write like a robot in any situation, ever.

2. Make sure everybody uses the voice (especially those higher up).

Internal comms is complicated.

It’s not just about culture, but about power dynamics and hierarchies and all of that stuff that can get messy and complicated…

If you get an email from your boss written in a certain way, it’s only natural to start to mimic it (even subconsciously).

Pretty soon, this trickle-down dreck-onomics has everybody being a little less chatty and friendly and all that other good stuff…

But by making sure everybody adopts your brand’s language — even if they aren’t in the marketing department — it helps stop doubt and inconsistency creeping in and keeps your brand voice (and team) super tight.

Quick tip: do a chatty check before you send all of your emails.

Don’t just look for spelling mistakes or typos, but think “does this sound like something I’d say if I was standing at their desk?”.

If the answer’s no, change it up a little so it sounds more conversational, no matter the subject matter.

3. Make sure all of your handbooks and internal documents lead by example.

This plays into the “do what I say, not what I do” theme that’s been popping up all over this post, but I can’t tell you how many brand guidelines say “we’re friendly, conversational and transparent” but have guidelines written in language that ticks none of those boxes at all.

When you’re using your voice internally, you want to be sure that you’re leading by example, not just laying down the rules and expecting your team to follow them.

Oh and one last thing: if you’re at the stage where you’re thinking about how your voice manifests itself in contracts and staff handbooks and how you could do that better, you’re already in the top 1% of brands.

(I made that figure up, but I’ll stand by it.)

Lots of brands don’t think about their external voice in this much detail, let alone their internal stuff. Mad props.

PS. If you want to start thinking really deeply about your brand voice, whack your deets below and jump on my free 5-day email course!