Rackspace.com has a distinct voice and tone derived from user testing and our company culture. To maintain a consistent user experience, it’s critical to match your writing to that style, as defined below.
Our Personality
Just like people, companies have personalities. For example, when you think about a company like IBM, the first characteristics that come to mind are probably things like corporate and formal. That’s IBM’s personality, built from decades as a titan in the technology industry.
Rackspace has its own personality that closely aligns with our corporate culture. Because Rackspace.com is the first place many customers encounter us, our content must clearly convey that personality—after all, it’s one of the things that customers love about us.
Here’s how our personality translates into content…
Friendly, not brash marketers
Why? Customers don’t want us to sell them—they want us to inform them. When they come to Rackspace.com, they consider it the beginning of a conversation, much like they would when talking to a friend.
Writing Tips. Write with a cadence and voice that’s similar to how you speak to acquaintances at work. Be professional and engaging. Don’t shout or overtly try to sell. Talk about them, not you.
Don’t write like this:
“Your corporate site is often the first and primary interaction that your customers — and the world — have with your product, service, and brand. Maintaining availability and performance is critical to your brand integrity. Rackspace® can alleviate the infrastructure burden of managing your ever-growing maintenance challenges with a flexible mix of hosting services.”
Write like this:
“Your website is important. It’s often the first place that customers interact with your products, services, and brand. That’s why near-perfect uptime and performance aren’t nice-to-haves—they’re musts.
We can help you design and maintain a web-hosting infrastructure that keeps your website secure, online, and running fast, even when traffic spikes.”
Simple, not needlessly complex
Why? Cloud and dedicated hosting are already difficult concepts for many customers to understand, as is the breadth and interconnectedness of our product portfolio. Our job is to simplify it all.
Writing Tips. Repetition isn’t clarification—say things once. Use as few words as possible, while still providing adequate information in a friendly voice.
Don’t write like this:
“We took colocation and made it infinitely better. By better we mean you no longer have to take on everything—including the capital expenses—just to keep control of your OS. You don’t have to be a slave to the physical hardware, the network, the data center, the pages, and the 2 a.m. emergencies any longer. You get to enjoy the OS and device control that comes with traditional colo, but you don’t have to take on the risks, responsibilities, and inconveniences. Put simply, it’s all the things you want from traditional colocation and none of the things you don’t.”
Write like this:
“It’s all of the things you want from traditional colocation, without the hassle of managing everything yourself.”
Upbeat, not negative
Why? We’re optimistic about the future. We believe our customers can succeed, and we’re there to help them do it.
Writing Tips. Try to stay positive—avoid casting a negative light on competitors, users, or products. Writing about a pain point is a useful tactic, but blaming a customer’s pain on a person or product is risky. Focus on the direct cause of the pain (slow performance, lock-in, cost) rather than a product (AWS, traditional hardware, Exchange).
Don’t write like this:
“Your Windows Server 2003 is no longer a contender. Move to Rackspace’s heavyweight championship infrastructure.” (Leads with a negative, without specifics to substantiate the problem.)
Write like this:
“The future of email is cloud-based and we’re happy that [Google is] right along with us helping customers get there.” (From the Rackspace Blog.)
Passionate, not silly
Why? We’re excited about what we do.
Writing Tips. Avoid superficial enthusiasm. Talking in terms of user benefits gives your copy substance and shows why that product or idea matters our customers.
Don’t write like this:
“You’d be hard pressed to find a team of people anywhere in the world more passionate about what they build and support every day. We live the cloud, breathe the cloud, and eat… mostly tacos while we work.” It’s fun copy, but not relevant to the reader. Why do customers care that we’re passionate or we like tacos? What is the result for them?
Write like this:
“I believe in open platforms. So I gave away our cloud.”
Authoritative, not jargony
Why? We’re experts in our field.
Writing Tips. Provide relevant technical details. Lead with the detail’s benefit to the user whenever possible. Avoid including too much detail without adequate explanation. Don’t overestimate the user’s technical ability—accessible language rarely offends technical users.
Don’t write like this:
“Large organizations, IT executives, and multi-site teams will appreciate the robust solution for its multi-user capacity, dedicated resource pool architecture, and role-based security model, as well as private network connectivity and physical device integration.” That’s just a laundry list of technical features, with no explanation of what they are, what they do, or how they benefit users. http://www.terremark.com/services/infrastructure-cloud-services/enterprise-cloud.aspx
Write like this:
“Deliver more reliable applications and minimize data loss. Our service includes redundant storage to protect against hardware failure.” http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/databases/
User focused, not self-centered
Why? Users don’t really care about us—they care about how we can solve their problems.
Writing Tips. The reader wants to know what’s in it for him or her first. Always write about the customer benefit before talking about us, how great we are, or what our products are.
Don’t write like this:
“With Rackspace Certified Deployment Partners and remote management tools, Rackspace Cloud Private Edition offers multiple deployment options: Rackspace data center, on-premise at customer data center, or Equinix.” What is Equinix? Why might I want to use these options?
Write like this:
“With our huge portfolio of hosting options, you can start small, with a pay-as-you-go test environment. Then, move into production when you’re ready, and expand as you need to.”
Bold, not provocative
Why? We’re honest and unapologetic about our passion for our work.
Writing Tips. “We are not provocative for the sake of being provocative. We’re provocative because we are vastly different from all of our competitors. We like to remind people that we’re different, and it’s a good kind of different.” (From the Voice of Reach.)
Don’t write like this:
“Host or die! HOST WITH HOST CHOPPER OR WE’LL BLOW UP SOMETHING THAT IS DEAR TO YOU.” This is provocative just to get a laugh—it’s fun, but not our style. http://hostchopper.com
Write like this:
“I migrate 300 servers to the cloud before breakfast.”
Authentic, not overwrought
Why? We’re truthful, accurate, and transparent.
Writing Tips. Provide facts, not fluff. Be straightforward about the limitations of our products.
Don’t write like this:
“We accept full accountability for your account.” This statement is not truthful, over-promises on what we can deliver, and ended up costing the company $80,000.
Write like this:
“Setting up and maintaining a colocated server demands a great deal of IT expertise and time. Any assistance or services rendered by the provider (if available) cost extra.”
Personas
Rackspace.com focuses on two primary user personas (fictional archetypes that describe significant segments of our customer base). It’s important to understand which persona or personas an offering addresses before you begin writing. Doing so will help you to create content that speaks directly to our customer base.
PERSONA #1: SAM THE SUPPORT SEEKER
Sam works in the Capital One IT department as Senior Director of the Enterprise Data Platform. He’s a trusted source for data solution recommendations, and has enterprise-level oversight across several types of technology implementations. Sam wants reliable, responsive, expert support that’s always available and able to tackle his needs. He’s confident in what he knows, but looks for a trusted partner to help him when he needs it.
What Sam considers on his path to purchase:
- Relatable case studies and testimonials.
- Resources such as reference architectures, common use cases, and evolving solutions in the marketplace.
- Easy and hassle-free deployment.
- Competitive costs against other major players.
- Word-of-mouth references.
PERSONA #2: EVAN THE PERFORMANCE SEEKER
Evan is an innovator setting new standards in tech, and he knows it—he needs little education on what our products can do for him. He does need to understand why Rackspace is a better solution for his needs than AWS, and requires a little romancing to sway him over to Rackspace. He is excited about open source and looks for active conversations about cutting-edge tech he thinks is cool.
What Evan considers on his path to purchase:
- Ease of mixing and matching products.
- Ability to quickly access detailed product specifications and API docs.
- Ability to find answers through how-to articles, FAQs, and a community of like-minded developers.
- Clear, competitive pricing.
- Ability to blend hardware and software for an optimal solution.
- Positive referrals from trusted developer sources.