05
Brand Messaging & Voice
One documented voice, before you commission the next hundred pages of copy.
For founders and CMOs about to brief a rebrand, a new market, or multiple writers — who need one message before they need more words.
“We handed the voice guide to three different freelancers and got back three drafts that actually sounded like us. That never happened before.”
The problem
Without a documented voice, every page reinvents tone. One writer leans formal, the next leans breezy, a freelancer picks up the slack with a style borrowed from whatever they wrote last week. Nobody decided any of this — it just accumulated.
A fast-scaling company can end up sounding like five different companies across its own site within a year, and nobody notices until a customer points it out, or a new hire asks which version is “actually” the brand.
We build a positioning statement, messaging pillars, and a practical, usable voice guide — with real do/don’t examples against your own copy, not a mood board of adjectives. It’s the foundation the other six services are built on: the reason every page after this one is cheaper and faster to get right the first time.
“We handed the voice guide to three different freelancers and got back three drafts that actually sounded like us. That never happened before.”
What's included
- A positioning statement, tested against your actual competitors, not written in the abstract
- 3–5 messaging pillars, each with a proof point
- A voice guide with concrete do/don’t examples, rewritten from your own existing copy
- A vocabulary list: words to use, words to ban, industry jargon to translate
- Guidance for briefing future writers or freelancers so the voice holds without you in every review
- A proof pass checking the guide itself is usable, not just accurate
How it works
Brief.
A structured interview: your market, your competitors, your existing copy.
Manuscript.
Positioning, pillars, and a first voice-guide draft with examples.
Proof.
Tested against real pages — does the guide actually produce the voice?
Set.
Delivered as a usable reference document, not a slide deck.
In practice
“We’d briefed four freelancers over a year and got four different voices back. The guide gave us one — our next agency brief took a third of the usual back-and-forth to get right.”
— Christoph, Founder, B2B Industrial Supplier, ~120 staff
Packages & pricing
Starter
Positioning statement + 3 messaging pillars + a compact voice guide (tone, 10 do/don’t examples), 1 revision round, turnaround 8 working days.
- Positioning statement
- 3 messaging pillars
- Compact voice guide, 10 do/don’t examples
- 1 revision round
- Turnaround: 8 working days
A small team that needs alignment fast, before the next website copy project.
Standard
Full positioning + 5 messaging pillars + a complete voice guide (tone, vocabulary list, 25 do/don’t examples), 2 revision rounds, turnaround 14 working days.
- Full positioning + 5 messaging pillars
- Complete voice guide with vocabulary list, 25 do/don’t examples
- 2 revision rounds
- Turnaround: 14 working days
A company briefing multiple writers or preparing a rebrand.
Premium
Full positioning + 5 pillars + a complete voice guide + per-channel adaptation + a writer-briefing template, 3 revision rounds, turnaround 20 working days.
- Full positioning + 5 messaging pillars
- Complete voice guide + per-channel adaptation (website, email, social, sales)
- Writer-briefing template
- 3 revision rounds
- Turnaround: 20 working days
A multi-market or multi-brand company standardising voice across teams.
Frequently asked
Skipping this doesn’t save money — it moves the cost to a rewrite later, once the inconsistency is visible to customers. Even the Starter package pays for itself the first time it stops a rewrite.
No adjectives-only mood board. It’s do/don’t examples rewritten from your own existing copy, a vocabulary list, and guidance for briefing someone else — a document a new hire could use on day one.
Yes — that’s the point. The Standard and Premium packages include a writer-briefing template specifically so the voice holds without you reviewing every draft.
This service is the guide itself. Applying it to your site, emails, or campaigns is any of the other six services — commissioned separately, faster and cheaper because the guide already exists.
Voice tends to hold for years; positioning is worth revisiting after a major pivot, rebrand, or new market — most clients don’t need to redo this more than once every few years.