It's a matter of style

From a business plan to a well-defined legal and financial structure, you are probably already familiar with what is commonly necessary in order to run or, even, start a successful business. But, are you aware of how a comprehensive style guide can be a true game changer for your company? Yes, you heard that right! Why should you invest in creating a clear style guide and make it part of your marketing strategy? Keep reading...

First things first - what is a style guide? To put it simply, a style guide is a document that provides guidelines for the way your brand should be presented as far as the usage of language, layout, and formatting is concerned, to name but a few areas. It's a book guiding decisions and this is how it can help you:

1. Be consistent

One of the most important purposes of a style guide is to ensure consistency across all forms and types of written communication within your business. From the preferred spelling and usage of technical terms to the format of footnotes, in-text references, and, even, headings, a style guide provides a consistent usage of language and layout. Needless to say that it is precisely this consistency that will help you build your brand and brand loyalty, which brings us to the following point.

2. Develop your brand

Your business personality can make or break its success. A clear style guide will help you develop a consistent tone and style that can define and safeguard your brand and make it, not only recognisable, but also unique in the market. In this way, a relationship of trust, effective communication, consistent engagement and interaction can develop between your business and its audience. Current clients will acknowledge and value your brand for its integrity and quality, while your brand recognition will gradually nurture future ones.

3. Increase efficiency

We all know that time is money, right? Especially for your business, saving time, can literally, save money and resources. This is precisely why a style guide is great, as it will prevent your employees from spending unnecessary time on changing grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Instead, through the help of a style guide, they can all focus on creating consistent and engaging content much more efficiently instead of thinking whether it should be lower or upper case, -ise or -ize etc.

4. Help translators/editors/proofreaders

Well, I couldn't finish the list of advantages without highlighting how it can make our own work much easier and more efficient. Can you imagine how much time a translator has to spend, if they want to get their job professionally done without, however, knowing the tone of voice they need to follow? Of course, providing them with a style guide will turn out to be a win-win situation since, once again, you will save both time and money.

Translators constantly make decisions, just like your writers. And a style guide essentially will make some of these decisions for them. They can also mirror your stylistic choices in their respective languages, or even help you develp style guides for every language in which you produce content.

So if we can help you create one, do not hesitate to reach out!

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Vasiliki is a translator, interpreter, transcreator, blogger, consultant and director of Greek to Me Translations Ltd. She works with English, Greek and French herself and has a team of trusted colleagues who can cover other languages. The offered language services serve mainly the legal, creative, and psychometrics industries.

Vasiliki is a Chartered Linguist, member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) and Panhellenic Association of Greek Translators (PEM). She is registered with the Greek Embassy in the United Kingdom as a certified translator and interpreter. She holds a BA in English Language and Linguistics and Masters in Business Translation and Interpreting. She is a Member of Council to CIOL, a University Lecturer in Languages (Translation) at School of Business and Law at London Metropolitan University, a public speaker and writer for industry magazines.

Her mission is to help organisations and individuals achieve their goals through the power of words. Through mentoring, Vasiliki helps aspiring or young translators to overcome self-limiting beliefs, build a business mindset and achieve their highest potential.

You can follow her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.