Different audiences: different tones of voice

The tone of voice that is adopted by a company must reflect the needs of the business and the the kinds of document being produced. Both Red Funnel and NCP were finding it difficult to establish appropriate guidelines for their respective businesses. 

The marketing manager at Red Funnel, for example, felt that their marketing documents were often too personal and informal. But NCP’s senior brand executive had the opposite problem. Her team were creating a variety of marketing materials which required a more informal tone, ranging from posters through to brochures and leaflets. Both teams, therefore, needed to learn how to change their writing styles to achieve an appropriate appropriate styles for their different audiences.

The only problem was that both organisations only had a handful of delegates.

The training solution: two firms; one course

Writing Machine Academy matched the similar challenges of the two firms to provide a suitable, slightly customised Structured Marketing Writing course which both NCP and Red Funnel delegates could benefit from In the first module, delegates were taught to consider various things before starting to write. These factors – which included the audience, the message they need to communicate and the characteristics of the media itself – together determined the most suitable tone of voice to be adopted. Other modules focused on structuring, clarity of writing and how to write in an engaging manner.

Client feedback

Delegates were asked to give a score out of five on a list of feedback questions, such as ‘Quality of the training content’, ‘Quality of the trainer’ and ‘I have learned new techniques that will enhance my writing’. The average score was 4.7 out of 5.