*This post was created with a self-made CustomGPT based on Sophie’s latest YouTube video. You can find the link to the video at the end of this article.

In today’s digital world, a consistent tone of voice and brand communication is crucial. Whether for new employees, external copywriters or AI-supported assistants – clear guidelines help to keep the desired language and style consistent. In this post, I’ll show you an effective prompt that you can use to create comprehensive branding and tonality guidelines.

Why are branding guidelines important?

Maybe you know the problem: You’ve been writing your web copy yourself for years, but now there’s a bigger team or an AI is supposed to support you. To ensure that your content remains consistent, you need clear guidelines on tonality, word choice, sentence structure and other stylistic features.

The ideal prompt for your guidelines

To instruct an AI or a team member to create tonality guidelines, you can use the following prompt:

Prompt for copying:

You will be expected to create detailed branding and tonality guidelines for new colleagues in our marketing and communications team.

I have attached 4 files containing excerpts from our website.

You analyze the sources I have given you and write instructions or guidelines for our new colleagues in the marketing and communications team.

You analyze the sources primarily with regard to:

• Tonality: What mood and language is used?
• Choice of words: Are there words that are used over and over again?
• Expression: How are users addressed? Is it an active or passive approach? Is the approach extroverted or introverted?
• Sentence structure: Are they rather short or long sentences? Comprehensive or short and sweet?
• Design: Is it simple and plain or rather colorful and eye-catching?
• Call to actions and other special features: What else stands out?

You are not so much analyzing the specific content, but rather finding guidelines for branding guidelines.

You make your analysis very detailed and use it to create comprehensive, meaningful and comprehensible guidelines.

Don’t forget: In your guidelines, you explain very precisely how you came up with these specific descriptions, and you give an example from the original sources for each guideline.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Clearly define the task: Who should use the guidelines and for what purpose?
2. Give the AI or your team access to relevant sources: Either by uploading files or by linking to your website.
3. Set clear priorities: What is particularly important? (tonality, call-to-action elements, design, etc.)
4. Ask for concrete examples: This will ensure that the guidelines are based on the original texts.
5. Optimize the results: You can adapt the generated guidelines yourself or have them revised by an AI.

Conclusion

Once you have created these branding and tonality guidelines, you can use them in a variety of ways – whether for your team, new employees or even for an AI that helps you with copywriting. Try it out and optimize your brand communication with a clear strategy!

Any further questions?

Do you have any questions? I will be happy to support you, act as a sparring partner and answer your questions. I am always happy to receive your messages, preferably by WhatsApp message or e-mail.

This article is also available as a video on YouTube