Category Archives: communications strategy

Your Website Content Should Help Its Audiences

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Are you writing for your audience? Image credit: Pexels

You are probably thinking that title is so obvious. “Of course, our content should help our readers.” Yes, but does it? Are you writing what your organization wants your audiences to know or what your audiences want to know? Do you know the difference?

Those can be tricky questions and vital to ask if you want your website to meet the goals you have set for it. When developing website content for your organization or company, your goal is not to describe your organization’s accomplishments. Your goal is to tell your audiences what your organization can do for them and how it does that.

Beginning the Content Development Process

Start by getting to know your audiences. If you don’t already know the categories of people who come to your website, make a list. A nonprofit, for example, might include donors, clients, and volunteers. For a business, the intended audiences are likely to be customers and potential customers. A healthcare organization is likely to target patients, their families, researchers, and healthcare professionals.

Next, find out what their needs are using these steps:

  • Ask when you talk to them face to face, on the phone, or in meetings.
  • Depending on the size of your organization, ask your staff to talk to their contacts. Media department staff can talk to the press about what they would like to see and use on the site. Salespeople can reach out to their best customers.
  • Ask a group of people to take a look at your site to see if they can find what they would want/need from you. What’s there? How does what is there work for them? What is missing?
  • Use focus groups.
  • Survey your audiences.

Then, create personas for the people who come to your website. Include their relationship to your organization/company, why they come to your website, the ways in which you can help them, what you hope they will do on your website, etc. Then write your content talking directly to those people.

Before you start writing, browse websites that you use/need. Can you find what you are looking for? Is it explained in ways that are useful for you? How is the content written? Is it written for you or does it seem to be more focused on telling you what the organization does?

When you are ready to start writing, make sure that the people doing the writing are able to write the content from the perspective of your audience. Freelance writers can be a good choice for this work because they are outsiders to your organization and specialize in writing from the audience point of view. It’s part of the job description.

Organizational Perspective Versus Audience Perspective

What This Hospital Wants Its Patients to Know

Our doctors have studied at the best medical schools and trained at the most demanding and best-ranked hospitals in the country. With years of experience in their fields, they provide exceptional health care.

Versus

What Patients Want to Know

When you come to us for care, you can count on medical experience and expertise that ensures you get the best treatment. In our cardiac care department, for example, our physicians have more than 100 years of combined experience. They consult with each other about their patients for a more comprehensive understanding of the patient’s diagnosis and treatment needs.

What This Nonprofit Wants Its Audiences to Know

Our coordinators work directly with families to find out what kind of services they need. Once they understand the family’s need, the coordinators connect them to our network for therapy and counseling services, social services, food banks, academic assistance, including school choice, and a range of additional supports.

Versus

What Its Audiences Want to Know

We empower the families we serve to find a path to independence and success through a range of services and support that enable them to strengthen their families, get immediate help like free groceries and medical care, find jobs or training, and place their children in good schools.

In fact, over the past 10 years, we have found jobs for 75 of our parents, helped 40 find training programs that will lead to good-paying jobs. We have placed 85 percent of our clients’ children in highly ranked public schools and another 5 percent in private schools.

For more information about content strategy, email Sherri Alms.

 

Make Sure Your Writing Provides Excellent Customer Service

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Returning recently from a vacation, my husband and I took a connecting flight out of Chicago to Baltimore. Once we arrived at O’Hare, we checked the monitors along our way to the gate, and saw that the flight was scheduled to depart on time. When we got to the gate, the sign said the same. We settled into the waiting area chairs and watched the minutes tick by.

It soon became clear that our flight would not depart on time, despite the sign that still told us it would. Several people went up to talk to the customer service representative at the desk. Soon after, she got on the microphone and said, “Attention, passengers on Flight XXXX, we don’t know where your plane is, and we don’t know where the crew is so we can’t tell you when the flight will leave.”

Really.

A low rumble of grumbling ensued. One woman near us declared to her husband that she was going to go get a beer. I know you all have been in this waiting area.

Lots of Questions. No Answers.

My husband and I just looked at each other. Was the plane delayed in Bali? Boston? Having mechanical difficulties? Would it ever arrive? And what about that crew? Were they all sick? Lost? On strike? Should we rush to reschedule? Sit tight? Burst into tears?

B. headed to the desk to talk to the customer service representative. When he came back, he was smiling but it wasn’t a “problems all solved” kind of a smile, more of a “what the heck?!” kind of a smile. It turns out that the plane was coming from a hangar and the crew was in the airport just not to the gate yet.

Next thing we know, she comes on to tell us that exact information and then that there will be “decision time” at the original time of take-off. Decision time? What did that mean? The flight had a plane and a crew. And a whole bunch of passengers who were all decided. What more did we need?

Soon after, the plane arrived, the crew arrived, and we took off about 45 minutes later than scheduled.

Writing for Your Customers

Why am I writing about this? Because it’s a textbook example of how not to communicate. Instead, when you are writing to your customers/clients/supporters, do this:

1. Give them the information they ask for. Don’t engage in vague generalities or feel-good (or, in the case of the airline representative, feel-bad) statements. If you don’t have the information, they need, explain why and then how you will get it.

2. Tell them what you are good at in concrete terms. Stay away from overused words, such as innovative, groundbreaking, pioneering, excellent. Instead, illustrate. To showcase your staff’s experience, for example, tell readers how many years combined experience the staff has. If you want your readers to know how innovative you are, provide examples. Rather than writing “compassionate” over and over again, offer testimonials that illustrate that compassion. Use statistics to highlight how you are better than the competition.

3. Support your customers/supporters/readers by helping them. What kind of advice can you offer? How can you help them choose your business? What can you do to encourage new volunteers and support those you have? How can you engage potential supporters/customers?

4. Answer their complaints and acknowledge their suggestions. Set an example so that others see that they can trust you to correct mistakes and be straightforward and upfront.

5. When the news isn’t good, it may be better to lay it out than to speak in frustrating generalities. It was far better for us to hear the plane and crew were there but delayed than to hear that seemingly no one knew where the heck either was.

Take a lesson from our hapless customer service representative. Communicate honestly. Be specific. Tell your readers what they want and need to know. They will thank you.

If you want to know more about communications strategies and methods, email Sherri Alms.

Why Your Organization Needs a Style Guide

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word cloud

When you decide on a fashion style, you are letting people know who you are through your fashion choices. So if you wear yoga pants, sneakers, and a sleek down vest, people are going to make assumptions about you that are different from the assumptions they would make if you wore high-heeled pumps, a black suit, and a silk shirt. A style guide does the same thing for your organization’s content “personality” and gives employees and contributing writers a format to follow. A style guide should:

  • Explain the tone and character you want your organization to have. For example, if you work for a healthcare organization, your style character might be “providing expert information in a compassionate and caring way.” If you are working for The Onion, it may be “the more bizarre and hilarious, the better.” Establishing your content’s “personality” will help determine some of the more detailed choices you make for your organizational style guide. A healthcare organization is likely to advise its writers not to use slang, for example, while it may be a great idea for Onion writers.
  • Describe any specific grammar/punctuation rules the organization chooses to follow. For example, some organizations use the Oxford comma (the one that comes before “and” in a series, as in orange, banana, plum, and apple) and some don’t. Other organizations may capitalize job titles or use % rather than writing the word “percent.” Another common style guide element is guidance on how to set up and punctuate bulleted lists. Will there be a period at the end of each bullet line? No punctuation? A semi-colon? Use the style guides below for guidance if you don’t already have your organization’s specific grammar and punctuation styles set.
  • List words that should be used and those that should never be used. One of my clients is a nonprofit that funds and disseminates practical autism research that can be used by families, educators, and therapists. It always refers to “people with autism,” never to “autistic people.” Another client that provided information about health care careers included a list of how to refer to people with different ethnic backgrounds, using African-American, for example, rather than black and American Indian instead of Native American and so on.
  • Offer guidance on when and how to use italics, bolding, and underlining.
  • Provide basic information on correct punctuation and grammar. It’s helpful to include lists of commonly misspelled words as part of the style guide as well.

In addition, an organization may provide:

  • Boilerplate descriptions of the organization and its mission that should always be used
  • Guidance for when to use the organization’s full name and when to use a shortened version
  • Guidance for when and how to use jargon specific to its industry/mission
  • Any legal rules that must be followed, such as remembering to include photo credits, proper use of disclaimers, how to post copyright notices, etc.

You don’t have to start from scratch when you put together a style guide. There are a number of style guides that you can use as references to get started on your organization’s style guide. These are among the most commonly used style guides:

  • AMA Manual of Style, published by the American Medical Association, is used mostly by science and medical writers and organizations.
  • AP Stylebook, from the Associated Press, is a writing guide for journalists. It is the one I use most often and highly recommend to many clients.
  • Chicago Manual of Style is mostly used by book authors, but it’s a useful guide for anyone. It covers just about every style question you might have.
  • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, more generally referred to as the APA style guide, is also used primarily by science and medical writers and organizations.
  • MailChimp Content Style Guide is MailChimp’s internal style guide, meant for those who write online content, including email newsletters. It’s free to anyone who wants to use it.
  • MLA Handbook, published by the Modern Language Association, is used for scholarly publications and content.
  • U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual is used by federal agencies and those who work with and for those agencies.
  • Yahoo! Style Guide, which oddly is only available in hard copy, is a good and thorough resource for writing for the web.

It’s a good idea to pick one or two style guides your employees and contributing writers can use, supplemented by a guide that spells out specific organizational style.

Once you have a style guide, make sure it is available to everyone who needs it and that they understand they are responsible for abiding by its rules (so as not to burden your communications team with the responsibility of copyediting for organizational style). The style guide should be a living document. Once again, like fashion, it’s going to evolve as punctuation, grammar, and word choice styles evolve and as your organization adapts to its current environment. Need help putting the guide together? AlmsInk is happy to help you with that and your other communications needs.

The style guide should be a living document. Once again, like fashion, it’s going to evolve as punctuation, grammar, and word choice styles evolve and as your organization adapts to its current environment. Need help putting the guide together? AlmsInk is happy to help you with that and your other communications needs.

Need help putting the guide together? Email Sherri Alms for help with that and your other communications needs.