Brand Voice Guide Template
Three documents and two sheets that turn your best-performing writing into checkable patterns, not a page of adjectives.
Free download · No account needed
Voice Guide
One pattern, one real pair
Pulled from your own published writing, not described in adjectives.
Pattern ·
Before · from your own published work
After · the one identifiable fix
A pattern with no real pair behind it stays out of the guide.
A voice guideline built from adjectives asks two different writers to hit the same three words: confident, approachable, never salesy. Both drafts can defend both words, and neither is checkable against the other, because an adjective names a target without saying where the needle currently sits or which way to move it. One freelancer writes whatever confident means to them, the next one writes something else, also confident, and the brand reads like two different people within a week.
This pack replaces the adjectives with patterns pulled from your own best-performing writing, the pieces that were actually opened, read to the end, shared or converted rather than the ones somebody likes the sound of. Every pattern that survives carries a real before-and-after pair: an actual sentence you published, and the corrected version, per the rule Every Pattern Needs a Correction. A pattern with no real pair stays a hypothesis and does not go in on a guess.
The result installs beside the content brief that tells a writer what to cover and the editorial calendar that keeps drafts moving on schedule. Send River the 10 to 30 pieces you would call your strongest. Rank them by opens or clicks if that data exists, or say plainly that the selection is a judgment call. The Voice Guide and Word List come back derived from that writing, ready for a freelancer's first draft rather than their fifth revision.
What's in the pack
Voice Guide
The patterns your best writing already shows, each backed by a real before-and-after sentence pair, never an adjective alone.
Word List
Terms your weakest work relied on, sorted don't-use or use-with-caution, with the reason specific to your own corpus.
Review Checklist
Six checks against a new draft, in order, so nobody line-edits sentence six before check one has passed.
Terminology Register
Product and feature names with the correct form beside the common error, checked last since it is the fastest pass.
Review Log
One row per check that failed on a real draft, the record that eventually justifies a new Word List entry.
How it works
- 1
Send your strongest writing
10 to 30 pieces, ranked by opens or clicks if you have that data, or the ones the team already agrees are the strongest voice.
- 2
Patterns get pulled, not guessed
River reads for what repeats: sentence length, address, contraction use, claim density, and pulls a real pair for each survivor.
- 3
Run a real draft through it
The Review Checklist scores a current draft against the six checks, quoting the exact sentence that fails each one.
- 4
Log it, then promote what repeats
Every failure lands on the Review Log. A check that fails twice on different drafts becomes a candidate new guide entry.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes, the Word and CSV download needs no account or card. Edit with AI installs this pack in River and asks for your strongest writing before it drafts a single pattern. For getting that writing commissioned in the first place, see the content brief pack.
How is this different from a generic brand tone-of-voice deck?
A tone deck states adjectives: confident, warm, direct. This pack states patterns instead, each one tied to a real sentence you published and, where it is a habit to avoid, a real sentence that broke it. A new writer can extend a documented pair to a sentence the guide never saw, which a personality description cannot support.
What if we do not have open or click data to rank our best writing?
Send whichever pieces the team already agrees are the strongest examples of how you want to sound, and say that it is a judgment call rather than a ranked list. The patterns still get pulled the same way; only the input changes from measured to agreed-upon.
Does the Word List just repeat generic marketing-writing advice?
No. Every entry traces to this corpus specifically: a term found in the company's own weakest pieces, or corrected twice in real review. The two-tier structure follows Google's own developer style guide, which separates use with caution from don't use with a stated reason per entry rather than a flat ban list.
Will this keep AI-drafted copy on-brand?
That is the more common use once the guide exists. Point a draft, AI-written or not, at Review a Draft and it runs the same six checks either way. SEO writing review still checks a draft against its brief; this pack checks whether it sounds right.
How often should the guide change?
Only when a correction repeats. Promote a Pattern from the Review Log looks for the same check failing on two or more different drafts. It proposes the new Word List entry or Voice Guide pattern from those real rows, rather than updating on a single reviewer's one-off preference.
Build a voice guide from your own writing, not adjectives
Send your strongest pieces and River pulls the patterns, each one backed by a real before-and-after pair.
Edit with AI