Tone of voice

We recently had a discussion about what we want our tone of voice to be at UbiQuity, i.e. how do we want to come across when we communicate with our customers. Being experts in marketing automation, we see it as being our business to know about the value of a consistent and well-guaged tone of voice, however we are sometimes guilty of not following our own mantra. So, we’ve taken the opportunity to write our thoughts down and share them in this blog post.

Vibe Check

The definition of a vibe check - innate knowledge for millennials and Gen Z - is “to assess the mood, atmosphere, or general feeling of a situation or person”. The process of establishing a tone of voice for your company really amounts to doing a vibe check on your own organisation’s culture. Most organisations communicate in many different ways - your tone of voice is how your company presents itself internally, and to the world, in the most authentic manner possible.

Questions to ask

What is the nature of your organisation’s business? How do you want to express that? Who is your audience - are you responsible for communicating internally, externally, or both? How does your audience like to be addressed? Can you vary your tone depending on what type of message you’re conveying? Do you want to come across as more warm and approachable, or more formal and cool?

These, and similar questions, may seem pretty obvious, nevertheless, when communicating with your audience, it’s important to ask them of yourself regularly, keep your answers front-of-mind, and ideally have them documented.

Language

As a multicultural nation, there are many languages spoken in Aotearoa New Zealand. Our three official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language - there are many other languages that audiences will identify with, the top five being English, Māori, Samoan, Mandarin and Hindi. As a nation we are pretty good at celebrating our multicultural heritage, and a big part of this is recognising the first, second, or third languages that our people speak. Can you use one of your nation's languages in a way that will help you better connect with your audence?

Using AI

There’s an increasing range of generative AI tools available that can be used to rapidly produce relevant text given an appropriate prompt. Whilst it’s important to be aware of and make use of these tools, where appropriate, it’s also important to be aware that audiences are increasingly aware of these tools too. Depending who you’re speaking to, audiences will spot an AI-generated message a mile away. This can have unintended results such as audiences feeling disrespected and undervalued, which may have a surprisingly significant impact on your brand’s mana. Use, and develop competence with these tools, but do so judiciously.

“don’t try to hide something from someone who might already know about it”,

Mick Herron

If you’re using AI to generate content fairly liberally, consider applying a rule-of-thumb used by Jackson Lamb - a character in Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series - that is, “don’t try to hide something from someone who might already know about it”, i.e. consider labelling content and messaging as “AI generated”.

Engagement

Lastly, you’ll tend to get the most engagement from a customer correspondence where you’ve been able to genuinely connect with your audience on some level. Tone of voice plays a key role here. Tone of voice used well can help even the most mundane infomer-style communication be an opportunity to genuinely connect and engage. Investment in developing a your tone of voice using some of the techniques described above might pay dividends in the form of increased readership, response rates, and overall engagement.