A brand voice guidelines template needs six parts: the voice in one line, a word list of what to use and avoid, how formality shifts by context, grammar and mechanics, example passages, and the name of the person who keeps it current. Most brand guidelines give voice a paragraph and three adjectives, which tells a new writer, or an AI tool, almost nothing about what to actually write. Below is what belongs in each part, with a template you can copy and a real example of what a finished one looks like.
Key Takeaways
- A brand voice guidelines template covers six parts: the voice in one line, a word list, formality by context, grammar and mechanics, examples, and ownership.
- Three adjectives ("friendly, bold, modern") describe a feeling; a word list and a sentence-length rule describe a behavior a stranger can copy.
- Formality should be written per context (customers, developers, a careers page), because one tone rarely fits every page.
- The voice section is the part of a brand guidelines template that AI tools read most literally, so it is worth writing in more detail than the rest.
- TrueKeep keeps the filled-in voice guidelines in a design brief and serves them to Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor through an MCP connection.
What a brand voice guidelines template is
A brand voice guidelines template is a prepared structure for writing down how a brand sounds: the words it reaches for, the words it avoids, and how formal it is in different situations. It is one section of a full brand guidelines template, the one most teams write last and read most often.
The test for a finished voice guide is simple. Hand a sentence to someone who has never met your brand, and see if they can tell whether it belongs. "We're beyond excited to bring you our newest innovation" either passes or fails against a real word list. "We sound friendly and modern" gives them nothing to check it against.
The six parts a brand voice guidelines template needs
- The voice in one line. Not three adjectives: a short phrase that sets the posture, such as "confidence without swagger" or "direct, never cute."
- A word list. The words the brand uses and the words it avoids, with a real replacement for each banned word, not just a warning.
- Formality by context. How formal the brand is with customers, with developers, in a careers post, and in support replies. These are rarely the same.
- Grammar and mechanics. Sentence case or title case, the serial comma or not, how numbers are written, whether exclamation marks ever appear.
- Example passages. Two or three short passages that sound right, and one that sounds wrong, each with a line on why.
- Ownership. The person who approves new words, retires old ones, and reviews the list on a schedule.
Parts two through four are the ones a stranger can apply without asking a question first. Parts one, five, and six hold the judgment that produced them.
Write a word list and example passages people can act on
"Friendly and professional" describes how the brand feels to someone who already knows it. It does not tell a new writer what to type. A word list closes that gap by naming the exact word to drop and the exact word to use instead:
Never: supercharge, seamless, world-class, leverage, revolutionize
Use instead: a plain verb and a concrete noun that names what happens
Formality: plain and direct with customers, precise with developers
Headlines: sentence case, no exclamation marks, 60 characters or fewer
Numbers: spell out one to nine, numerals for 10 and up
Published examples are worth studying. The Mailchimp content style guide states its banned words and the reasoning behind them in a few lines, not a page about tone, which is why writers who have never met the brand can still follow it.
A passage demonstrates a voice more than an adjective ever will. "Put the logo files, the color values, and the voice rules in one place, and make that the only place" is short, names something concrete, and never reaches for a word about itself. A voice guidelines template should include two or three passages like it, plus one that sounds wrong, with a line underneath saying why it misses.
Formality is not one setting
A single formality rating flattens a brand that has to sound right in more than one place. The line that works in a product announcement ("Here is what changed, and why") can read cold in a support reply, and the line that works in support ("Sorry about that, we're on it") can read sloppy in a legal notice. The Nielsen Norman Group's research on tone of voice makes the same point: voice stays constant while tone shifts with the situation, and a guide that only states one setting has confused the two.
A brand voice guidelines template earns its place when it states formality per context instead of once:
- With customers: plain and direct, no jargon.
- With developers: precise, technical terms allowed, no marketing language.
- In a careers page: warmer, first person, a little more personality.
- In support and error messages: short, honest about what happened, no apology for things the team controls and can fix.
Most brands only ever write the first one down.
A brand voice guidelines template you can copy
Paste this into a document or a page in your portal, and fill in the brackets.
# Voice: [brand name]
Voice in one line: [a short phrase, not three adjectives]
## Word list
Never: [word], [word], [word]
Use instead: [what to say instead, as a rule, not a swap list]
## Formality by context
Customers: [description]
Developers / technical: [description]
Internal / careers: [description]
Support and errors: [description]
## Grammar and mechanics
Casing: [sentence case / title case]
Numbers: [spelled out through what number, numerals after]
Punctuation: [serial comma, exclamation marks allowed or not, em dashes allowed or not]
## Example passages
Sounds right: [passage]
Sounds right: [passage]
Sounds wrong: [passage], because [reason]
## Ownership
Owner: [name]
Review: [how often]
Fill in the word list and the example passages last. They take the longest to get right, and every other part of the template informs them.
Make your voice guidelines readable by AI tools
A voice guidelines template used to have one reader: a new writer on the team. It now has a second one. When someone asks Claude to draft a launch email or asks ChatGPT to write a support reply, the result reflects whatever voice information the tool has, which by default is none.
The parts of the template that help a new hire also happen to be the parts an AI tool can follow: a named word list, a formality rule per context, and a short passage that sounds right. The parts that fail both readers are the vague ones. "Sound like us" gives a person and a model the same amount of nothing to work with.
TrueKeep calls a written-down voice guide like this a design brief, and connects it to Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor once through the Model Context Protocol, an open standard for giving AI tools access to a source of information. After that, the AI reads the word list and the formality rules before it drafts, instead of guessing from the brand name alone. The AI connection guide covers the setup, and the brand kit skill carries the same voice into Claude directly for people who write there all day.
Keep it current, or the word list goes stale
A voice guidelines template is accurate on the day someone finishes it. A rebrand retires a word, a new product line needs its own formality rule, and the document says nothing until someone notices a sentence that no longer fits.
Name one owner in the ownership section, not a team. Put a review date next to their name (quarterly is enough for most brands), and give them a way to edit the list directly rather than filing a request. A portal with edit mode lets a curator update the word list the day a word is retired, instead of waiting for the next full guidelines review.
FAQ
What should a brand voice guidelines template include? Six parts: the voice in one line, a word list of what to use and avoid, formality by context, grammar and mechanics, example passages, and ownership. Each part should end in something a stranger could check a sentence against, not a mood.
How is brand voice different from tone? Voice is constant: the words a brand reaches for and the formality it defaults to. Tone shifts with the situation. A support reply after an outage sounds different from a product launch while staying inside the same voice.
How long should a brand voice guide be? Short enough that someone reads the whole thing. A word list, three formality rules, and three example passages usually fit on one page. The real test is whether a new writer can draft a sentence without asking someone first.
Can one brand have more than one formality level? Yes, and most do. A brand voice guidelines template should state formality separately for customers, developers, internal audiences, and support, rather than giving the whole brand one rating.
How do I give Claude my brand voice guidelines? Connect a source Claude can read instead of pasting the guidelines into every conversation. With TrueKeep, the voice guide lives in a design brief, connected to Claude through an MCP connection, so the word list and formality rules are there before the model drafts anything.
Who should own the voice guidelines? One named person, usually the same person who owns the full brand guidelines. A shared or team-level owner means nobody schedules the review, and the word list quietly falls behind the brand it describes.
From template to a voice your whole team can write in
Fill in the six parts: the voice in one line, a word list, formality by context, grammar and mechanics, example passages, and an owner. Write the word list as rules with replacements, not a list of banned words alone, and write formality per context instead of once for the whole brand.
A brand voice guidelines template gets the structure right on day one. Keeping the word list true past that depends on where it lives and who can edit it. If you want your voice guidelines in a portal that your team and their AI tools both read, get started with TrueKeep.