Why All Creators Need An Extraordinary Style Guide

When it comes to conjuring up content for brands, a little guidance goes a long way. But “a little” can also take you a long way from the intended creative destination.

The freelance writers here can relate.?

How many times have you received a brief with the phrase “Review current website to get a sense of tone” and a link to the company blog??

While you no doubt made do and delivered something kickass, you may have been left wanting… more.

Now, if you’re a marketing manager or agency guilty of skimping on the details, you’re forgiven. I totally get it—one of the best parts of hiring a talented creative is receiving exceptional content with minimal input.

However…

If you’re not sending out a style guide with every content request, the rest of this post has officially become mandatory reading. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Let’s Clear things Up: Style Guides vs. Brand Style Guides

A style guide is a writer’s North Star, a single source of truth that dictates how your brand should be illustrated. More practically, it’s a go-to how-to guide for creators, covering everything from brand voice to persona and ensuring consistency across the board.

Technically speaking, there is a difference between a style guide and a brand style guide—the latter includes typography and logo usage, while the former is strictly for written communication guidelines à la MLA or APA.

Of course, both are essential for outsourced creative work and onboarding alike. After all, every detail, down to the approved color schemes, paints a holistic picture of your brand for the uninitiated. It’s all part of the story you’re trying to tell.

And there’s certainly some overlap between the two types of guides. But for our purpose, I’ll be focusing strictly on the elements of a (written) style guide that pertain to writing—the tone of voice, persona, communication tactics, and so on.

Because, well, that’s kind of what we do here.

What Happens Without a Style Guide (AKA Nightmare Scenarios)

They say that rules kill creativity. And, in a sense, it’s true.?

Artists crumble under the pressure of a thousand stifling decrees, gasping for freedom.

But writing for a brand isn’t the same as writing for the art of it. There are KPIs and CTRs and other acronyms to consider. Branded content has goals—because brands have goals.

So, a lack of rules is equally harmful to the creator. If the author is unclear on what your brand is trying to communicate, they’ll never be able to nail the message.

When a writer is contracted to build content sans style guide, they only have what currently exists—the company website, the blog, a LinkedIn profile, and (if they’re lucky), a list of competitors to emulate. And that’s a nightmare for both the creator and the company.

In this all-too-common case, one of three scenarios can shake down.

#1 Making a Crappy Copy Means Writing Crappy Copy

Perhaps the most typical plan of attack for the writer is to take the path of least resistance.?

In Nightmare Scenario #1, a style guide-less creator simply replicates the tone of what’s on your blog.

And that can be fine if you’re 100% satisfied with your current voice.?

But, in my experience, that’s rarely the case for no-guide brands—especially if the existing content was written by a low-quality, high-output copy mill.

Ultimately, if a creator faithfully reproduces the voice you’re trying to distance yourself from, you’re back where you started—minus whatever it cost to hire a five-star writer to produce one-star copy.

#2 Playing The Renegade Writer: Not as Cool as It Sounds

In Nightmare Scenario #2, a creator can interpret a lack of guidance as an invitation to go buck wild. Without the guardrails of a style guide, your writer can go rogue, making renegade narrative decisions and taking your content to places you may not want to go.

In the end, you might end up with some Pulitzer-winning prose—and that can be an asset in and of itself. But what are the odds that the renegade writer’s intrusive thoughts sound and feel like your brand?

As someone who knows creative types, trust me when I say this: I’m thinkin’ slim to none.

#3 Staying Safely Within the Lines

Of course, there’s always the chance that your writer takes the opposite route and leaves the leather-clad renegade lifestyle behind. In Nightmare Scenario #3, the author behind your latest blog might write too timidly without a style guide for fear of rocking the boat.

Rather than push the envelope and risk writing something original and exhilarating, they’ll instead color well within the lines, knowing that, hey, while they may not be winning any praise, they won’t be reprimanded for misrepresenting the brand, either.

In this case, you’ll be left with a hollow, vanilla, GPT-esque version of your brand’s voice that no one will want to listen to. Womp womp.

Turning Nightmares Into Dreams: Crafting Your Own Style Guide

With a cohesive style guide at the ready, however, you can fearlessly entrust your brand’s megaphone to any capable writer, be they employee or freelancer.?

They’ll have plenty of room for interpretation and exploration, but can always cross-check their writing against the gold standard.

And that, dear reader, is how you end up with written gold.

However, to confidently hand the means of communication to someone else, you have to feel confident in your guide. You need to be certain that a single document encapsulates the very essence of your brand.

That’s a tall order.

Thankfully, you can cook up a working style guide with relatively few components. In fact, you probably already have some of the ingredients in your pantry (Google Drive).

If you already have some Grade-A mission and vision statements, a knack for Ctrl+F-ing and some time on your hands, you can likely whip up a first-rate first-draft guide to start sending out—no outside help required.

If, on the other hand, the hours in a day always seem to slip away from you (but you’ve recognized the infinite value of a style guide thanks to this brilliant LinkedIn post), you might consider tagging in a creative agency.

Either way, crafting a style guide is an endlessly worthwhile endeavor.?

When you define what makes you unique—then distill that into a resource that supports the creatives tasked with portraying your uniqueness—you’re well on your way to improving the performance of every campaign you activate and agency you hire.

With a Style Guide, You Can Rest Easy

So, if you don’t already have a style guide—even a skeletal one—you really, really should.?

There’s no other single asset that can articulate your brand’s vision and personality with such authenticity and precision.?

A well-crafted guide truly services all ongoing creative efforts moving forward.

When you have a style guide to share, your creatives can produce on-brand content with unmatched consistency and efficiency. Every potential choice is guided by a finished monolith of a document. Having that North Star means more instruction for the writer or designer.

And that translates to fewer “huh???” Slack messages for you.

Even a little guidance, as I’ve said, goes a long way. You don’t need to immediately develop a 40-page PDF. In fact, you probably shouldn’t produce a style guide at the speed of light—the best versions of these things take time and thought.

That said, every additional page and pointer brings you a massive step closer to netting extraordinary content from any writer.

Investing in a comprehensive, well-thought-out document that answers every question before it’s asked will only pay dividends in the future.

Whether you produce it in-house or not, trust me. Make that North Star style guide.

Your writers—and your readers—will thank you.