PhemosReach / Content workflow guides

Brand voice guide template for small businesses (free download)

By PhemosReach, a Modus Future product · Published 16 October 2026

A brand voice guide is the document you hand to anyone who writes for you: a colleague, a freelancer, an agency, or the AI tool you draft with. Most of them are three adjectives and a logo, which is why most of them are ignored. "Friendly, professional and confident" gives a writer nothing to check a sentence against.

This template has eight sections. Each one produces something a writer can act on and a reviewer can tick: a named reader, traits with examples, lists of words, rules for sentences, rules for claims, notes per channel, before and after examples, and an owner with a review date. Fill it in an afternoon and it will be more useful than most guides that took a month.

A guide and a brief are different documents

The voice brief is a page you fill in for a post or a format: the reader, the point, the evidence, the next step. You write many briefs. The voice guide is the standing document those briefs lean on: it does not change per post, and it is what a brief means when it says "in our voice".

Write the guide once from this template, review it monthly, and let the briefs stay short.

The eight sections

1. Who we write for

One or two readers, described as people rather than segments: what they are trying to do, what they already know, and what they are tired of hearing. Everything else in the guide is checked against these readers. "Would our reader say it this way?" is the question that settles most arguments about wording.

2. How we sound: three traits with examples

Pick three traits, no more. For each one, write a line of what it means for the writing, one example sentence that has the trait, one that does not, and what the trait is not (confident is not boastful; plain is not cold). The counter examples are the useful part. A trait without a "we do not" line is just an adjective again.

3. Words we use, words we never use

Two lists. The first is the vocabulary your readers use and you want to keep: the names you give things, the plain words you prefer to jargon. The second is the banned list: stock openers, hype words, claims you may not make, punctuation habits you dislike. The banned list does more for consistency than any trait, because it is easy to check and hard to misread.

4. Sentence and paragraph rules

Rules a reviewer can apply: a maximum sentence length, how a post opens (not with a question, not with "In today's..."), how paragraphs are broken, whether you use contractions, how you handle numbers and dates, which spelling you use. Write them as rules, not preferences. "Short sentences" is a preference; "no sentence over 25 words" is a rule.

5. Claims and evidence

What you are allowed to say, and what every claim needs. Typical rules: no result you have not measured, no feature that is only planned, a source and a date for every number, no naming a competitor unless the guide lists the ones you may name. This section is the one that keeps the brand out of trouble, and it is the one most voice guides leave out.

6. Channel notes

One brand, one voice, different delivery. For each channel you publish on, a few rules rather than a mood: the length a post should be, whether hashtags are used and how many, whether the first line has to stand alone, how the call to action is phrased. "A bit more relaxed on Instagram" cannot be checked; "captions under 150 words, one line break between ideas, no hashtags in the first line" can.

7. Examples: before and after

Three or four pairs. A sentence that misses the voice, the same sentence rewritten, and one line on why. These teach the voice faster than any rule, and they are what a new writer actually reads. Draw them from real drafts you have fixed; the mistakes your team actually makes are the ones worth showing.

8. Owner and review date

One name, one date. The owner updates the guide when a draft drifts in a way the guide did not prevent, and reviews it on the date whether or not anything has drifted. A guide with no owner is a guide nobody is allowed to change, which means it stops being true.

An illustrative filled example

This is an invented example for a fictional two-person bookkeeping firm. It is here to show what a filled section looks like, not as a model voice to copy.

Reader. A sole trader who does their own books in the evenings, knows the basics, and is tired of being talked down to by accounting content that assumes they have a finance team.

Trait: plain. We say the thing. We do: "You need two numbers before you lodge: total sales and total expenses for the quarter." We do not: "Navigating your quarterly obligations can feel overwhelming, but with the right partner..." Plain is not blunt; we still explain why.

Trait: specific. We name the form, the date and the number. We do: "The deadline is the 28th; the form is the one with the four boxes." We do not: "Make sure you stay on top of key deadlines." Specific is not exhaustive; one example beats a list of nine.

Trait: on your side. We write as the person who will fix it with you. We do: "If you missed it, here is what happens next and what to send us." We do not: "Failure to lodge on time may result in penalties." On your side is not soft on the facts; the penalty still gets named.

Never: "stress-free", "seamless", "we've got you covered", any sentence starting with "As a small business owner", exclamation marks, more than one emoji per post.

Claims: every figure has a source and a date; no "most clients save..." without a measured number; we do not name other firms.

LinkedIn company page: under 150 words, the point in the first line, one link, no hashtags. Instagram: a caption under 100 words, the point in the first line because the rest is cut, a carousel for anything with steps.

Fill it in an afternoon

1. Collect five passages that sound like you (20 minutes). An explanation, an announcement, a reply to a question. Annotate each: what makes it yours. The traits in section 2 come from those notes, not from a brainstorm.
2. Write the reader (10 minutes). One paragraph, one person.
3. Write the three traits with their examples (30 minutes). Use sentences from your passages as the "we do" lines. Write the "we do not" lines from drafts you have rejected.
4. Write the lists and the rules (30 minutes). Sections 3, 4 and 5. The banned list first; it is the quickest to write and the most used.
5. Write the channel notes and the examples (30 minutes). Sections 6 and 7. Three before and after pairs are enough to start.
6. Name the owner and set the date (2 minutes). Section 8. Next month.

Then give it to someone who has not written for the brand and ask them to draft one post with it. Where they go wrong, the guide was unclear. Fix the guide, not just the draft.

Download the template

• Download the guide template as a text file, with the eight sections and a prompt under each. Fill it in any editor.
• Download the guide template as a markdown file, the same sections with headings, for pasting into a wiki, a shared doc or a notes app.

Both files contain the same eight sections as this page.

Keeping it true

Review the guide on the date in section 8, and in between, whenever a draft drifts the same way twice. The first time, fix the draft. The second time, add a rule or a banned phrase to the guide, because the drift is now a pattern and the guide was not preventing it.

Keep the before and after examples current. When a new kind of mistake appears, add the pair and retire the oldest one that nobody makes any more. The examples section should describe this year's writers, not the ones who left.

Using the guide in PhemosReach

PhemosReach keeps the two halves of this template as two separate checks. Your voice profile is trained on your own writing samples, five on the Free and Starter plans, ten on Pro and twenty on Business, so sections 1 to 4 and 7 of your guide are what you should choose those samples to demonstrate. Section 5, the claims and evidence rules, belongs in your brand guidelines; PhemosReach records how each draft measures against them so you can see any departure during review, and the review step, not the check, is what stops a draft going out.

For how to choose the samples and turn the traits into instructions a model follows, read how to keep AI social posts in your brand voice. For the review that catches a draft the guide did not, use the approval checklist.

Put the workflow into practice

See how PhemosReach works, then compare plans and limits.