Words

Writing for enterprise is tricky. While the best consumer startups sound like they could be your buddies, the same trick in business sounds like your dad getting ‘down’ with the kids.

But nothing expresses a brand like good copy. You don’t have to be a professional writer — in fact, at a startup, that’s fairly unlikely — but hitting a level of consistency is key. Whether through support chat, blog posts (Hi Mum!), or product error messages, the brand voice should be loud and clear.

So what is that voice? Well, our mission at Trail is to make life easier for teams, so we generally try to speak their language. This can be taken too far — we work in a professional environment after all — but every point of contact should reinforce that Trail is a people-focused alternative.

Write like you talk

If you met the audience on the street, is this what you’d sound like? Use the first-person ‘I’ over ‘We’ where possible, say ‘Hi’ instead of ‘Good Afternoon’, and use tactical emojis :)

Consider the audience

From investors to kitchen porters, write with an audience in mind. Do they understand the industry? What is their technical level? Is English their first language?

Brand in moderation

With a name like Trail, it’s tempting to use hiking terms — flags, noticeboard — but referring to Managers as Rangers isn’t going to fly.

Office-speak as a last resort

Teams aren’t ‘resources’ and tasks aren’t ‘processes’. Some acronyms are so deeply baked in — like MBWA (Manage by Walking Around) — that they’re hard to avoid, but keep chipping away.

Leaders in this field — notably Mailchimp, Intercom and Slack — continue to strike the balance between clarity, formality and humour, and are big inspirations.

We’re still working on full copywriting guidelines, but a tone that reflects the brand and product principles is beginning to emerge.

And if all else fails, I’ll ask my dad to man the Snapchat account.

PS. Here’s Churchill on brevity in 1940