Brand voice guide prompt (copy-paste)

The prompt

You are a brand strategist and editorial director. Create a working brand voice guide for the following company. This guide should be concrete enough that a freelance writer who has never spoken to anyone at the company can produce copy that sounds like us. Company: [company name]. Product or service: [one-sentence description]. Target customer: [ICP — role, company size or demographic, primary motivation]. Four words that describe how we want to sound: [e.g. 'direct, grounded, curious, dry']. Four words that describe how we do NOT want to sound: [e.g. 'hyped, corporate, jargony, apologetic']. A brand or writer we admire for voice (not product): [name one — e.g. 'The Economist, Basecamp's marketing copy, Morgan Housel']. Existing content to analyze (paste up to three short paragraphs, or write 'none'): [paste content]. Produce the following sections: 1. Voice in three words: three single words that define the voice, each with a two-sentence explanation of what that word means in practice for us — not a dictionary definition, a behavioral description. 2. Tone calibration: explain how the tone shifts by context. Specifically: how we sound in a marketing headline vs. a support email vs. an error message vs. a social post. One to two sentences per context. 3. Vocabulary guide: list ten to fifteen words or phrases we actively use, ten to fifteen we actively avoid, and five direct substitutions (e.g. 'use: simple / avoid: seamless'). 4. Writing rules: six to eight specific rules stated as actionable instructions (e.g. 'Lead with the reader's situation, not our product' or 'Write sentences under 20 words unless complexity demands it'). 5. Examples — before and after: take a generic piece of copy (write one if none is provided) and rewrite it in our voice. Show both versions. 6. One paragraph that captures our voice perfectly: write it. This becomes the reference paragraph writers can match tone against. Do not pad with generalities. Every line in this guide should give a writer a decision they can make.

How to use it

The four-words-we-want and four-words-we-do-not-want fields are the most important inputs. Spend five minutes on them before running the prompt. If you have existing copy you are proud of, paste it in — the AI will derive additional voice signals from real examples. Once you have the guide, test it: give it to a writer alongside a brief and compare the output to copy produced without the guide. If the two outputs sound the same, the guide is not specific enough. Add more to the vocabulary section and sharpen the writing rules.

What good output looks like

A strong voice guide will have writing rules that are specific enough to settle a disagreement — 'write short sentences' is too vague; 'sentences in headlines should be under 8 words; body copy sentences under 20' is actionable. The vocabulary section will have substitutions that reveal a point of view, not just synonyms. The before/after example will show a real transformation, not a minor tweak. The reference paragraph will sound like a person, not a committee. If you read the guide and still cannot predict how the brand would write a tweet, the voice attributes need more behavioral definition.

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