Make CIC – Brand Tone of Voice
Make CIC operate a suite of makerspaces across the Liverpool City Region. Their spaces enable people from all walks of life to share skills, make, fix and create.
They encourage collaboration and engagement between their creative community and design spaces where residents and members can share ideas and work collaboratively on commissions.
New technology-led thinking crosses over with traditional-craft practices to create something wholly unique. Make is made by people, for people.
Make CIC – Brand Tone of Voice
Make CIC operate a suite of makerspaces across the Liverpool City Region. Their spaces enable people from all walks of life to share skills, make, fix and create.
They encourage collaboration and engagement between their creative community and design spaces where residents and members can share ideas and work collaboratively on commissions.
New technology-led thinking crosses over with traditional-craft practices to create something wholly unique. Make is made by people, for people.
We helped them to
Define a voice for a community of makers
They help the world by
Generating profit for purpose, societal impact, community impact
Third sector
Workshops
Brand tone of voice
Staff upskilling
Challenge
With an established and familiar visual identity in place, Make CIC found themselves struggling to create consistent messaging across their many channels.
With multiple people in their team producing copy they wanted their voice to sound consistent and in line with their brand values.
They needed a voice that brought the many aspects of their organisation together and a way for their in-house staff to execute it themselves.
Response
Tone of voice workshop
To define a voice, first you need to have a conversation. We organised an interactive, engaging workshop for Make CIC and its key members of staff. During the workshop we asked key questions about their brand, what they stood for and how they wanted to be seen.
During the session we :
• Defined their brand values and what they stand for as an organisation
• Pinpointed their brand personality and how they wanted to convey their attitude
• Scoped their key marketing messages
• Narrowed down their audiences and who they were speaking to
With all of these insights, we were then able to develop their bespoke Tone of Voice guidelines.
Tone of voice guidelines
Tone of voice guidelines are your linguistic beacon. They help to define how you should be talking and why. We created a unique set of brand tone of voice guidelines for Make and all of its staff to use.
Their tone of voice guidelines took in :
• What tone of voice is
• Brand values
• Brand personality
• How to describe Make to different audiences
• Example use cases to see their new voice in action
• A style guide
• Recommended further reading (for word nerds)
These guidelines now act as ongoing resource for Make CIC’s staff. They can refer back to them whenever they’re communicating on behalf of Make CIC’s to ensure they’re getting their brand voice right.
Content masterclass
After the production of their tone of voice guidelines, Make CIC wanted to further upskill their staff by holding a content masterclass. The masterclass looked to plug a few skill gaps the team had and highlight efficient ways of working. The masterclass was crafted by our Content Director Ruth Hartnoll who used her years of industry expertise to deliver a no-bullshit approach to writing content for non-experts.
The masterclass included:
• Writing best practices
• Insights into which content would add the most value
• How to get more out of your content
• Useful approaches to workflow
• How to deliver the best brief ever
• A lot of useful tools and resources (including some of our own)
Results
Make CIC’s staff are now more confident in delivering content and writing on behalf of their brand.
They have a clearly defined set of guidelines to follow to ensure consistent messaging is hit across all of their channels.
Testimonial
“Matchstick Creative gave us clear and consistent communication throughout the project, creating an innovative website that better supports our needs and goals. It’s been great working with a company that shares our values and vision.”
Liam Kelly
CEO at Make CIC
Our work
Our impact
