Most marketers spend a lot of time talking about brand voice. And that’s good! Your voice is the personality your brand carries into the world.
But here’s the problem: voice without rules is chaos.
That’s where editorial guidelines come in. They’re not the same thing as voice, and if you confuse the two (or skip documenting them), you’ll end up with inconsistent content, frustrated editors, and AI systems that don’t know what to do with your drafts.
Today’s crash course explains exactly how to fix that.
Brand Voice vs. Editorial Guidelines
Think of brand voice as your personality, the feeling you want your audience to have when they read, listen, or watch your content.
Liquid Death vs. Bubble (Bubbly?): both sell sparkling water. Their voices couldn’t be more different.
Now, think of editorial guidelines as the rulebook that voice must follow.
Do we use the Oxford comma?
Do we write headlines in Title Case or sentence case?
Do we say “customers” or “clients”?
Are contractions allowed?
Voice = the emotion.
Guidelines = the rules.
Why Editorial Guidelines Matter
Consistency builds trust. Every typo or style shift chips away at credibility.
Scaling requires rules. Writers, editors, and AI systems can only follow what you’ve clearly documented.
AI needs frameworks. Voice alone doesn’t teach AI how to format, punctuate, or spell. Guidelines do.
Without guidelines, brand voice becomes a vague aspiration instead of a repeatable system.
Channel-Specific Guidelines
At a minimum, you need three sets of editorial guidelines. One is for your website, one is for social, and one is for email. Here are some quick examples:
Website:
Professional, clear, conversion-driven.
Title Case for headings.
Avoid contractions in main copy.
Social Media:
Conversational and concise.
Sentence case for posts. Contractions allowed.
Emojis permitted (max two).
Email Marketing:
Personal but professional.
Sentence case subject lines, no emojis.
One clear CTA per email.
Each channel is a different room you’re walking into. You don’t change who you are, you just adapt how you show up.
And remember: you can take this even further. Many brands benefit from splitting guidelines more granularly:
Within social media, you may want separate rules for LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, since tone, formatting, and audience expectations vary.
You can also create cross-channel guidelines per ICP segment. For example, your messaging to a CMO might lean more formal across all channels, while messaging to an end user might allow for more casual, playful language.
The deeper you define these distinctions, the easier it becomes to keep every message aligned, no matter the platform, audience, or creator.
Putting It Into Practice
Document your rules. Simple checklists with examples work best.
Make them accessible. Keep them in one place where your team and tools can use them.
Train your AI editor. Feed your guidelines into Copy.ai, ChatGPT, or another tool so it enforces your rules automatically.
This saves time, reduces errors, and keeps every message on brand.
Final Takeaway
Brand voice makes you memorable. Editorial guidelines make you consistent.
Together, they’re the playbook your team (and your AI) needs to scale content without losing the thread.
