Writing
Learn how to apply Funnel’s tone of voice and writing style guide.
Tonality
Our writing should reflect Funnel’s three personality traits:
Reliable
Be clear in writing:
- Straightforward and simple
- Direct and transparent
- Matter of fact
“Funnel brings you the data you need, when you need it.”
“Funnel optimises the integration pipeline for tangible business benefit and increased ROI.”
Friendly
Our tone is friendly, personal and fun with the right balance of professionalism.
“At Funnel, we help you to get the very most from your data”
“Funnel’s solutions are designed to create optimal usage of data”
We speak directly to the customer.
“You can import data from…”
“One is able to import data from…”
We are relatable, displaying empathy and emotion.
“Hi”
“To whom it may concern”
Ambitious
We use empowering language:
- Stimulating, Forward-looking, Smart
- Look at old problems from a fresh perspective
- Driven to create innovative tools that are genuinely useful for customers
“Data without context is at best meaningless - at worst, misleading. -ready data lets you decide with total confidence.”
“Funnel has developed solutions that enable business to access data from multiple sources for better analysis.”
Grammar and mechanics
Adhering to certain rules of grammar and mechanics helps us keep our writing clear and consistent.
Write in American, not British English
organization, analyze, color
organisation, analyse, colour
Be concise
Use one word when applicable over several.
- Are able to 👉 can
- Instead of this 👉 try
- In the event that 👉 if
- at this point in time 👉 now
- during this time 👉 during
- in order to 👉 to
- as well as 👉 and
- of the upmost 👉 very
- reason being 👉 because
- reach out to 👉 contact
- in all likelihood 👉 likely
- with that being said 👉 therefore
Avoid adverbs
Avoid words like extremely, definitely, truly, very, and really. Use strong adjectives or verbs for a concise and powerful copy.
“The dog raced to its owner.”
“The dog ran quickly to its owner”
Use the active voice
We write in the active voice and avoid the passive; the subject does the action, not the object.
“Funnel collects, preps, and sends your data wherever you want it.”
”Data is collected, transformed, and exported by Funnel.”
Avoid acronyms
Don’t use acronyms like sgtm, lol, imo, til. Do not use acronyms for 3rd-party products unless they do.
Google Analytics, Amazon S3
GA, Amazon Simple Storage Service
Avoid internal acronyms.
Data Explorer
DE
When referring to acronyms such as ROAS or CPC, spell them out first, for instance “return on advertising spend (ROAS)” and refer to ROAS in the subsequent text.
Refer to the product as Funnel and not Funnel.io
Welcome to Funnel
Welcome to Funnel.io
The product is not a person
When referring to Funnel the product, try to avoid using the 1st person. If you have to, refer to Funnel as ‘Funnel’, not ‘we’ or ‘I’.
Running your query
Funnel is running your query
We are running your query
Capitalization
- All labels and titles should be capitalized.
- Write “The impact of iOS 14 on mobile advertising” and not “The Impact of iOS 14 on Mobile Advertising”.
- Capitalize product features and/or services, for example Data Explorer. If the feature has several words, capitalize each word, e.g. Data Warehouse Exports.
- Use the same capitalization for 3rd-party products as the 3rd party themselves, e.g. Google Data Studio.
Use numerals
Use numerals instead of letters when writing numbers.
“You have 3 filters”
“You have three filters”
Avoid contractions
Prefer the original words instead of the informal contraction, especially negative ones like can’t or won’t. At the same time, remember the friendly tone of voice.
“I cannot see your face”
“I can’t see your face”
