How to apply brand voice guidelines to AI-generated email content

How to apply brand voice guidelines to AI-generated email content

Learn how to create and apply brand voice guidelines to ensure your AI-generated email content aligns with your brand identity. This helps drive consistency and reduce editing time when using Klaviyo’s generative AI features to create email content.

Before you begin

This article covers an option for customizing AI-generated email content. If you’re new to Email AI, see our guide on using Email AI. Or, if you want to create a campaign without AI, learn how to create and send an email campaign.

What are brand voice guidelines?

Brand voice guidelines help you maintain a consistent brand identity by defining the tone and writing patterns that represent your brand. Key components of brand voice include:

• Voice descriptor title: Words to define your brand's communication style or personality (e.g., playful, formal, or opinionated). 
  • Description: Each descriptor must include a description to convey its meaning, including examples and keywords for added detail.
• Writing Rules: Rules to create clear guidelines that provide structure and help you maintain consistency in your messaging (e.g., rules for emoji usage, punctuation, or sentence length). 
  • Rule application description: Rules must include indication of when and how they should be applied.

Klaviyo can automatically generate these for you, and you can customize and adjust them manually afterward. When created, brand voice guidelines for your account automatically apply to email template drafts created by Email AI. 

Configure brand voice guidelines in Klaviyo

Create brand voice guidelines for your account using the Voice tab in Klaviyo: 

1. Navigate to Content > Images & brand.
2. Select the Voice tab. Sample brand voice content auto-generates upon page load.
   
3. Review the brand voice within the sample content.
   • If satisfied, no further action is needed. Your brand voice guidelines will integrate automatically.
   • If changes are needed:
     1. (Optional) Select Upload style guide to attach your brand’s style guide for further specifications.
     2. Select Edit voice to manually adjust or add voice descriptors and writing rules.
        1. From the editing modal, you can:
           • Click the dropdown on any voice descriptor or writing rule to edit its title or description.
           • Use the Add button to add new voice descriptors or writing rules.
           • Use the trash can icon to remove any descriptors or writing rules.
        2. Click Update Preview to see how the changes affect the sample content. Do this each time you make a change.
        3. When you’re satisfied with the brand voice in the content, click Save.
           

Going forward, when you use AI to generate email content, Klaviyo automatically applies your configured brand voice settings to the drafts that Email AI proposes for you. 

Note that if you haven't defined brand voice guidelines on the Voice page yet, clicking the brand voice icon in the email editor will also generate and automatically apply them to Email AIi content.

Edit your brand voice guidelines

As your branding evolves, you can continuously update and refine your brand voice guidelines. You can make edits to brand voice guidelines in 2 places:

• During the content creation process for AI-generated email content (for quick edits)
• From the Voice settings page (for more complex edits)

Edit brand voice during content creation

While creating a campaign with Email AI, you can make quick adjustments to brand voice guidelines. To do so:

1. Select the purple brand voice icon.
   

   If you haven't already established brand voice guidelines in Klaviyo's Voice tab, clicking this icon will generate them for your account and sync them to the Voice page.

   
2. In the editing modal that appears you can:
   • Click the dropdown on any voice descriptor or writing rule to replace or edit it.
   • Use the trash can icon to remove any voice descriptors or writing rules.
3. Click Apply changes. 

Note that changes made here affect your entire account’s brand voice settings, not just the specific content you’re creating.

Edit brand voice guidelines in voice settings

For more comprehensive editing to your brand voice guidelines, use the Voice settings page:

1. Navigate to Content > Images & brand.
2. Select the Voice tab.
   
3. Click Edit voice to modify or add voice descriptors and writing rules.
4. Click Update preview to view how the changes affect the sample content.
   
5. Once satisfied, click Save to preserve the brand voice changes and automatically apply them to future AI-generated email content.

Additional resources

• How to use Email AI to draft an email campaign
• How to use Klaviyo’s subject line assistant