HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STYLE GUIDE

Content is the lifeblood of digital marketing and developing a content marketing style guide is the first step that brand custodians should take on the content marketing ladder.

HERE’S WHY

The perception that people have of your brand is mostly formed from what a brand says and how they say it amongst other things. When a particular tone and style of writing is maintained consistently, it helps a brand to build trust and a style that will become synonymous with the brand. Moreso, it will help a brand attract the right target audience.

As a high net-worth brand, you don’t want to attract the wrong people with poor design, tone, and language.

In some cases, a brand’s style of writing and tone can help uncover impersonation or fraud perpetrated against the brand.

For example, poor/inconsistent formatting and typographical errors have become one of the ways of distinguishing a bank’s mail to its customers from fraudulent and phishing emails.

While this attention to detail may seem small and unimportant,  things like this add up and if you are consistent throughout every content format you publish, then it helps people form an impression of your brand.

THE CHALLENGE

Now that you understand the need to develop a content marketing style guide for your brand, the challenge with putting it into practice may be that you are quite unsure of how to write one or perhaps,  you may not know the elements that such document should contain. If this is you, here are some tips to get you started on developing a content marketing style guide for your brand

Elements of a Content Marketing Style Guide

1. Define your writing goals and principles

It is not just enough to write beautiful pieces of content but you must know why you write and for whom you write. Knowing this will ensure that your content meets its objectives and delivers a return on investment.

Here’s an example of what your writing goal should look like:

Empower. Help CEO’s of medium-sized companies understand taxation by using language that informs them and advises them on how to go about their company’s tax documentation and filing.

This is just one example, you can actually have as much as you can in relation to your company’s business goals.

Your content can engage, educate, inform, enable, entertain, delight, sell, amplify etc

2. Define your brand’s tone and voice

To do this, you have to look inwards at your brand and what you stand for. To help you define your brand voice, think of your brand as a person. Then ask the following question;

a. If your brand were a person, who would it be? (parent, teacher, student, friend, teenager, celebrity etc.)

b. If your brand were a person, how would it make your target audience feel? (upbeat, safe, happy, cautious, carefree etc.)

c. If your brand were a person, what kind of personality would it have? (friendly, playful, authoritative, warm, inspiring, professional)

d. What tone of voice would it use to speak to your audience? (personal, humble, clinical, honest, direct, scientific)

e. What language would you use to pass your message? (complex, savvy, insider, serious, simple, jargon-filled, fun, whimsical)

For example, if you’re a fashion designer, your brand voice could be something like this;

Elite but affordable

Savvy

Professional yet Warm etc

After identifying the words that best explain what your brand is about, create content that matches that voice and personality.

3. Define the grammar and mechanics

You need to define the grammar that the brand will employ. For example:

Will it be American English or British English?

How will you write abbreviations and capital letters?

Will “Ebook” be written as “E-book”, “e-book”. ebook” or “Ebook”? etc

4. Content for specific platforms

You need to list out the types of content that should be shared on specific platforms. Here is an example of Twitter Platform content below:

Twitter: Service news, brand promotion, events, media mentions, evergreen content, “we’re hiring!” posts, industry news, quotes

It is important to state this clearly as some types of content do not go well with certain platforms.

5. Visual Style

This details the visual style of the brand. For example, where will the logo be placed on visual content?  What font type will be used?, What colours? what kind of images?  etc.

Usually, if the brand has an existing Brand Identity Manual, this section can simply be updated with the defined style in the Brand Identity manual. If not, then this needs to be developed fully.

Now that you know the elements that a  content marketing style guide should content, it is best to get started and create one for your brand.

Looking for help with developing quality content for your blog? We can help. Email us: hello@zizadigital.com or simply call us: + 234 818 129 5000