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The most successful websites don’t do well just because they have been optimised for the search engines. In fact, optimising for the search engines often leads to keywords being prioritised over copy. And then the ‘target audience’ is just seen as a group of people who use certain keywords when they’re searching for something.
Identifying and understanding the people your website is designed for is key. This is not just so you have a visual brand or keywords to draw people in. Knowing your target audience means you can write for them, not just for ‘anyone’. Getting the tone of voice right is a vital part of audience connection and the copywriting process.
Finding your audience – it’s not just about keywords
As a business, it’s very easy to write about what’s important to you. Your values, your beliefs, your needs. A ‘business-centric’ perspective can give potential customers an insight into your company, and your hows and whys. And this is great – if that’s what they want to know, you both speak the same language, and it’s confined to an About page.
The chances are, however, this old-fashioned business-centric approach is likely to bore or confuse people at best and alienate them at worst. We’re no longer living in a world where companies provide a service – and people just have to take what they get given
Business messaging that resonates
The corporate world and some industries may still be dominated by organisations who get away with truly awful practices. But that just means more opportunity for smaller companies to really make a difference. They represent choice and a way to fight back.
With the internet we can look outside our local vicinity these days. We can search nationwide or even internationally, and we want to find our ‘tribe’. We do that by searching for businesses whose messaging resonates with us. Our values and our needs. And we generally find them via an online search or a personal referral.
Writing for a specific audience
You’ll be told to ‘address pain points’ and use language that resonates to reach your target audience. In reality it’s a lot more nuanced. There are many layers to writing for a target audience, and website copy needs to address them.
You need to think about whether your messaging:
- Covers relevant topics that address their specific needs, challenges, or goals – not just what you want to say about the attributes of your products or services.
- Uses appropriate terminology that matches their level of expertise or industry language. Don’t assume a similar level of familiarity with your world and avoid jargon.
- Uses wording and phrasing that resonates with the target demographic. If you’re talking to Gen Z social media influencers, it’ll be very different to language you’d use with middle-aged HR professionals. Age, location, and levels of education matter.
- Has a tone of voice that aligns with your audience’s personality and expectations. Do they want you to be warm, straight-talking, irreverent, relatable, polished, informal, etc?
- Includes cultural references or analogies that feel familiar and meaningful to them. If you’re referencing things that happened before your audience was born, or today’s popular culture when addressing retirees, you’ll alienate and confuse.
- Is underpinned by values that reflect what they believe in or care about. If you’re selling a product that increases sales, for example, you need to know whether your target audience just cares about the bottom line or if they are more interested in building trust and authority.
- Reflects where they are in the buying journey. Are they ready to act or are they looking for information?
- Addresses the emotional drivers that influence decisions. There might be a fear of missing out or a need for control. They might want to feel understood, reassured, empowered, or inspired.
- Is structured in a way that is tailored to their reading habits. If they skim read you’ll need more headings and bullet points than if they like to read in-depth.
How do you establish the ‘right’ tone of voice?
When you know who you’re talking to and what they want, you can align it with what you say and how you say it. Tone needs to be aligned with both brand personality and audience expectations. Brands will tend to be friendly and conversational, professional and formal, authoritative and expert, playful and quirky, calm and reassuring, and so on.
Each serves a different purpose and will create a different response from an audience. You don’t have to be ‘professional and formal’ if you’re an accountant just because that’s how things have always been. But if you’re aiming to work with C-suite executives who take themselves very seriously, or an age demographic that wants that, maybe you should be.
Using the right tone is essential because it helps build trust, create consistency, and ensure a brand feels relatable and authentic. Done properly, it can significantly enhance engagement and make messaging more effective.
How do you capture a tone of voice?
Once you have established who your target audience is and what will resonate with them, you need to write in a way that reflects this.
- Listen to how they talk via interviews, testimonials, surveys, and comments, etc.
- Mirror their language to the extent that your tone of voice and medium allows or requires it.
- Pay attention and respond to emotional cues. Are they frustrated, aspirational, worried, etc?
Practical tips for tone-of-voice writing
- Create audience personas to guide your writing.
- Create a tone of voice guide so anyone writing for your brand understands and can write to the same guidelines.
- Read your copy out loud to check it sounds natural for your audience.
- Think about whether your audience will connect with what you have written and how you’ve written it.
- Remember you are not writing to impress peers or competitors or talking to employees.
When and why to work with a copywriter
Getting your tone of voice right means you connect with more of the right people. Working with a trained, professional copywriter can help you define, refine, and consistently apply your tone of voice. When you’re writing for websites, there are many other things that need to be incorporated into your messaging. Writing for search-engine optimisation and user experience as well as tone of voice isn’t easy.
If your website isn’t getting the results it should, or if you work with brands who would benefit from better, more consistent messaging, please get in touch. As well as writing SEO website copy for companies, I also work on a 121 basis with clients who want to improve their or their clients’ website copy, business writing, and brand messaging. Check out my case studies page for more information.
And if you’d like more help and advice (and offers) direct to your inbox, just join my mailing list.