How Tone and Messaging Attracts the Right Leads

When businesses think about attracting clients, the first instinct is usually to chase new traffic, or invest in bigger ad campaigns. But in my experience, growth doesn’t always come from reaching more people. Sometimes, it’s about speaking more specifically to the right ones.

I recently worked with a marketing team from a B2B software company that found itself in a frustrating position. The company wasn’t short of enquiries. Its marketing activity was generating attention.

However, the leads they were attracting weren’t a great fit. The accounts team were constantly having to persuade clients who weren’t quite ready, didn’t value the offer, or were simply looking for a different type of service altogether.
And the cause, it turned out, was hiding in their tone and messaging.

I wanted to use this project to demonstrate how we tackled the problem, what the process looked like, and to emphasise how refining tone and messaging can pre-qualify clients and make a difference to the quality of a company’s leads.

The Situation: Plenty of Interest, Few Ideal Clients

The company in question was on its way to becoming established in its field. It had a good reputation, a growing client base, and a good company culture. From the outside, everything looked healthy.

But internally, the marketing team were spending too much time qualifying leads that weren’t converting. Pricing discussions with clients were often difficult, and enquiries that did close sometimes ended up being more work than anticipated.

The marketing team had a hunch as to why they weren’t receiving the right type of leads, and when I reviewed the company website and its marketing materials, I understood their thinking. The brand’s messaging wasn’t really giving people a strong enough idea of who the company was, or how it was best able to help.

In short, the messaging was trying to be everything to everyone. And in doing so, the messages weren’t connecting deeply enough with the right audience.

The tone of voice felt inconsistent too. Parts of the website sounded corporate, whereas other parts felt more playful. The inconsistency was making it harder for potential clients to understand if this company was the right fit for them.

Getting to the Core of the Issue

In this case, the company’s voice had become fragmented over a couple of years. Different people had written different parts of the site. Likewise, marketing efforts had shifted company’s positioning slightly. However, the website copy and marketing materials hadn’t evolved to reflect the company’s new positioning.

As is often the case when companies grow quickly, that marketing team hadn’t found the time to reflect on the brand’s messaging, and ask:

What do we actually sound like?
Who are we speaking to?
What do we want our words to say about us?

Without these answers, even a strong brand can end up sounding watered down or inconsistent. Everyone agreed that having a strategic copywriter on board was a chance to reset the brand’s voice and bring the company’s messaging back into focus.

Running a Tone and Messaging Workshop

Instead of diving straight into rewriting, we decided that a structured approach would be best, so I organised a tone and messaging workshop first.

The goal was to get everyone on board with how the brand should sound before any copy changed. That way, the leadership team, marketing, and accounts could all feel confident that the company’s voice genuinely reflected who it was, and who it wanted to attract.

During the workshop, we worked through several key exercises:

Defining the brand’s personality: We identified five key traits they wanted their brand to express. Not just generic adjectives like “professional” or “innovative” – but more specific, meaningful traits that felt true to their way of working.
Developing customer avatars: We mapped out who their best-fit clients really were. What they cared about, how they made decisions, and what language they responded to.
Documenting tone of voice: We reviewed real examples of their current copy and discussed where the tone hit the mark and where it drifted. This helped everyone see what “on-brand” vs “off-brand” actually looked like. We settled on three words to describe the company’s refined tone of voice.
Refining key messages: We agreed on a set of consistent themes that should thread through all the company’s communication, and I developed these themes into brand statements.

Implementing the Changes

After the workshop, we had a clear framework to work with. The first step was rewriting key parts of their website, including:

Homepage
Sales pages x6
About Us

The copy shifted from slightly stiff, inconsistent messaging to confident, and quietly authoritative.
I also revisited the company’s sales deck and proposal templates and made subtle adjustments to the language to set client expectations earlier in the conversation, making it easier to pre-qualify leads before they got too far through the pipeline.

Finally, I created a tone and messaging guide, outlining how the company should sound, what language it should use, and how the messages should appear in the brand’s messaging hierarchy. This way, anyone writing emails, LinkedIn posts, or responding to client enquires could keep the messaging consistent.

Better Conversations, Stronger Clients

Once the project was completed, the effects started showing up fairly quickly.

The quality of incoming enquiries improved and the marketing team started noticing that leads were referencing specific phrases from the website, showing that people had actually absorbed the messaging.

Both the marketing and accounts teams noticed that clients appeared more informed about the company’s offerings during calls, which is an indication that the new messaging was reaching the right people.

Lessons You Can Apply in Your Own Copy

So, what does all this tell us about tone of voice and messaging? Well, if you find that a company is attracting enquiries but not the right kind of clients, it’s worth taking a hard look at the tone and messaging.

Here are a few key takeaways from this project that can help steer your approach to tone of voice and company messages:

Copywriting can be a filter as well as a magnet. Good messaging should attract the right people and gently discourage the wrong ones.
Consistency builds trust. A mismatched tone across different parts of a website can subconsciously undermine confidence.
Internal clarity is powerful. Having a company aligned on tone and messaging means writing and marketing decisions get made quicker.
Tone isn’t always about personality. At least it wasn’t for this brand. It’s usually more about consistency and company values.
Sometimes, fewer leads are better. Communicating more specifically might mean a brand ends up attracting fewer leads overall. But the ones it does attract will be better aligned, faster to convert, and more straightforward to work with.

Final Thoughts

I believe that strong messaging is about engaging with your ideal client more effectively. In this case, having the company take the time to think about their tone of voice wasn’t really a rebranding exercise, it was more like a business move that paid off in better leads.

If you’re interested in learning more about tone of voice and brand messaging from real-world examples, then check out The Brand New Copywriting Course. It aims to show you how to write copy that brands actually value.

Alternatively, I have a free copywriting course delivered over email that teaches you how to think like a strategic copywriter.

Frequently Asked Questions About Tone and Messaging

What is tone of voice in copywriting?

Tone of voice is the style, attitude, and personality that comes through in your writing. It’s not necessarily what you say, but how you say it. A clear, consistent tone helps shape how people perceive your brand and can influence whether they

feel you’re the right fit for them.

How does messaging affect client acquisition?

Messaging plays a big role in attracting the right clients. Clear messaging helps potential customers understand what you offer, why it’s valuable, who it’s for, and what working with the brand will feel like. When your messaging resonates, it

acts as a filter that brings better-fit clients through your inbox

Why does tone matter in business communication?

Tone shapes trust. If your communication feels inconsistent, or out of sync with your brand values, it can create uncertainty. A consistent tone helps you build credibility, set expectations, and create a smoother customer journey.

How can copywriters improve a brand’s messaging?

By getting clear on your brand personality and your ideal clients, a strategic copywriter can audit your existing copy to spot where the tone or messaging feels inconsistent. A structured tone of voice workshop, or a professional messaging review can also help sharpen your communication and ensure your marketing materials work harder for you.

Can refining a brand’s messaging really lead to better clients?

Yes, in my experience it can. Strong messaging isn’t always about generating more enquiries, it can be about attracting the right ones. When your copy clearly signals who you are and who you work best with, it helps better-fit clients find you faster, trust you sooner, and move through your sales process with less friction.

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