A note from the founder

Dear founders,

I’ve been writing for startups since 2013. During this time, I’ve seen plenty of early-stage companies fail to communicate with their customers effectively.

As there’s no dedicated copywriter, everyone takes a turn at writing. The founder might write the homepage copy, a product manager might respond to customers on live chat and a marketer might write the newsletter.

Imagine each stage of a customer's journey... the style’s different, the tone’s different, the grammar’s different.

It sends that customer mixed messages about who the company is and what it stands for. It looks unprofessional and untrustworthy. And that costs sales.

But there’s a way to solve this problem. And I encourage every startup to do this...

GET A COPY STYLE GUIDE.

A copy style guide is a simple document that explains how your business should sound. It includes:

-Tone of voice (writing style, personality and emotional appeal)

-Grammar rules (punctuation, formatting and preferred terminology)

-Writing examples (so there’s no confusion)

Some style guides include key messages that should be regularly communicated, too.

Copy style guides help Apple sound upbeat and confident, Red Bull sound witty and humorous, and Nike sound positive and motivating.

If you get one, it’ll help everyone who writes for your company SOUND like your company.

Your website, your emails and your advertising will all work together harmoniously. And it’ll improve the quality of anything you hire a copywriter (like me) to do.

There are lots of free online guides that explain how to create a copy style guide. But doing it properly can be complex and time-consuming, particularly if you don’t know what your brand should sound like.

You could hire a consultant or agency to create one for you, but it'll set you back thousands of pounds.

For most early-stage startups and small businesses, that’s not viable.

But it’s a problem that needs solving. So I got busy…

CopyStyleGuide.com took me over a year to take from idea to reality. But it’ll identify your startup’s tone of voice and present the matching copy style guide in just a few minutes.

Answer a few questions and hey-presto, you’ll have an incredibly valuable document outlining your company’s tone of voice.

You’ll receive it as a PDF and an editable Word document. So you can update it as your company grows, or share it with a consultant to build on later.

So… got a few minutes?

Create your copy style guide.