Developing a writing style for your business will create a 'voice' for your business that is unique and that increases the likelihood that your business will gain recognition and brand awareness.

To ensure that the writing style of your business is applied consistently, you need a style guide.

A writing style includes the words, the expressions as well as the spelling, grammar and punctuation that you use whenever you write anything for your business - letters, brochures, flyers and so on.

We all have a style of writing unique to us and, like our voices, recognisable as our own. Your business needs its own writing style too, to distinguish itself from your competitors and to make it recognisable and to enhance the awareness of your brand. The problem is that usually, we allow our business communications to be written by too many people - each with their own style.

Whether it's newsletters, proposals, quotes, adverts - even the copy on our websites - they are all written by several different people. This is why you need to create a business writing style that consolidates and unifies all of your written communications and reflects your business identity and image.

If you examine the brochures and websites of major corporations you'll see that the style of writing varies - sometimes subtly but always distinctively - from one company to the next.

You will also notice that the corporate literature of each particular company reflects a unified style, as if it had all been written by the same person, ie the same corporate personality. The best way to achieve a unified writing style that is stamped with your corporate personality is to create a document called a style-guide.

What is a style-guide?

It's simply a booklet that covers the use of words, phrases and sentences and details the approaches to take when structuring different communication types such as flyers, adverts, brochures, manuals or newsletters.

It also covers those all-too-common grammatical errors that we all make from time to time. In short, it lays down the law that people follow when writing for your company.

Done correctly, your style-guide should generate a vocabulary that is not only appropriate to your business but creates a unique style for all your corporate communications. The writing style for a solicitor or accountant would be vastly different to that for a coffee house or a graphic design.

Your style-guide should provide the tone, word-quality and cadence that your business needs in order to successfully communicate with your target audience. When creating a style-guide for your business, consider using an independent consultant. He or she would be able to provide an objective view.

The temptation to assign the task to someone internally could result in a writing style that isn't right for your business. Everyone in your business will have their own views on what is the right style whereas an external consultant will have the experience and knowledge required to create the right style.

A good consultant will begin with an examination of your company, its marketing efforts, communication channels and target audiences. He or she will also peruse the company's marketing communications and other corporate literature. This getting-to-know-you phase must be done thoroughly which can take time.

Once he understands your company, its communication objectives and typical audiences, the consultant will be in a position to draft a corporate style manual and agree its content with senior management.

To illustrate the value of the proposed writing style, he or she should rewrite some of your recent corporate literature and show how the proposed style will enhance corporate recognition and branding. You should always ensure that the final guide is delivered in electronic format so that it may be printed and distributed among your staff without restriction.

Once it has been issued, you will also need to take steps to ensure that the writing 'rules' are followed in all communications with markets and stakeholders.

A well-thought out writing style-guide with clear understandable rules, which are applied consistently to all corporate literature - print and electronic - will ensure clarity and harmony in your corporate communications and reinforce corporate personality. It's just as important as your logo and visual imagery.