If you work for a small organization, you will probably have
some involvement in a publication or a website at one time or another. Sure,
you know your organization inside and out, so this should be a snap, right? Hardly. To
do it right always requires work, but if you follow these tips, you can create
a more professional looking piece, which will give your organization more credibility. It
will also increase the chances that people will read your piece and take the
actions that you intend, which is the goal of your project.
Do your research.
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| Creating effective communications is no day at the beach. |
Before you begin, find out as much as you can about your
audience. Consider education level, age, level of knowledge about your product
or service. What benefit will you provide to them? Keep in mind that the reader
wants to know what’s in it for him, so develop your material accordingly.
Interview members of your target audience. They are your
best resource for developing effective materials. If several people offer similar
comments, incorporate them into your piece.
Write active, effective copy.
- Write copy based on your research.
- If you are writing to the
general public, do not use technical terms or industry jargon. If you can’t
avoid certain terms, define them clearly.
- Use active voice rather than passive.
- Write concisely, deleting unnecessary words. This
is especially important if you are writing for the Web.
- Don’t try to impress your reader by using big words and long
sentences. This is not a term paper, and people are too busy to invest their
time in reading a document that requires effort.
- If you are trying to engage the reader, do not ask him to do
anything that requires work. For example, I recently wrote a flier for my
neighborhood association to present to new residents as a means of engaging them
in caring about the community. In it I listed the social activities as well as
the online resources that provide more information about the community. I
purposely did not mention the monthly clean-ups because telling people that
they have to go to work as soon as they move in is only going to turn them off.
We’ll save that until they hang out with us a few times and begin to feel an
obligation to help.
- Do not include more than two to three central messages because
research shows that people will not retain more than that.
- Avoid exclamation points, parentheses, underlining, bolding
and all caps.They are distracting.
- Use spell check and ask someone else to proofread your work
because people tend to miss errors in their own writing. Also, someone else
will be able to tell you if something you wrote is not clear.
- Use short paragraphs, bullets and subheads to break up the
copy.
Form follows function and budget.
Design your piece to fit its purpose. For example, if you
plan to mail a short message to present to your reader, consider a post card,
which has a lower mailing cost and increases the odds that your reader will
look at it since he doesn’t have to open an envelope. However, if your piece
will be part of a packet of materials that is stuffed in a folder, a
letter-sized flier is more appropriate.
At this stage, you also need to make sure that you have
enough money to create what you’ve envisioned. Don’t waste your time working on
a booklet for mailing to hundreds of people if you only have a budget of $100.
Determine mailing and printing costs now and adjust your project accordingly. If
you don’t have a lot of money, consider what you can do on your website or on
social media.
Follow design principles.
Make your copy as easy to read as possible. If you have to
use a decorative font, save it for large headlines. Do not use justified copy,
which is copy that extends from margin to margin. This is especially
distracting with larger fonts. For printed pieces, use a serif font, the type
with the curly tail, like Times Roman. For a website, use sans serif, a font without a tail, because the tail is harder to read on a monitor since the resolution is lower than that of a printed piece. It’s also important to
choose a font that most people have on their computer, such as Arial.
Use callout boxes, photos, illustrations and lots of white
space to break up your copy.
Be consistent throughout your material. Use your corporate
colors and try not to deviate. Do not
use too many fonts. Usually, two font families are enough. Make sure all of
your photos are of a similar style, whether black and white, color or altered with
a filter.
Speaking of photos, make sure they are good quality if you
are going to use your own. Make sure they are 300 dots per inch for printed pieces, and don’t
enlarge small ones. Also, keep in mind that photos found on the Internet are
only 72 dots per inch and should never be used in printed pieces. The same goes
for cell phone photos. If you are going to use photos of people, make sure you
have their permission.
Read
this article to find out when you need a photo release form.
If you don’t have your own photos, you can buy them from a
stock photo agency. Some of the better known stock photo companies are Photostock,
iStock, Veer and Bigstock.
Review with care.
While it’s important that others in your organization review
the work for accuracy, avoid writing and designing by committee. Since everyone
has a different opinion and style, the piece gets watered down and becomes less
effective when everyone starts making changes.
If possible, have a few members of your intended audience review
your work before publishing it. Ask the readers how your piece makes them feel,
whether they are motivated to take the action you intended, whether anything is
confusing and what would make it better. This is valuable feedback, and
although it may require a lot of adjustments, your extra work will pay off in
the long run.
Call any phone numbers and tests any email addresses or
links to websites one last time before publishing. I know from experience how
embarrassing it is for a reader to tell you that he called the number in your
magazine and reached a sex line.
Find a good printer.
If you are creating a printed piece, make sure you go with a
good printer. With advances in digital printing, this task has become much
simpler and more affordable for small organizations that have little experience in
printing and don’t need large quantities. Before printing, ask the printer what
kind of file you should submit. Usually, it’s either a print quality PDF or
original design files, such as Quark or the more commonly used InDesign.
Some tips on dealing with communications professionals
If you are working with a writer, designer or web
specialist, keep in mind that your expectations are probably not be the same as
theirs. At the beginning, it’s essential that both parties clearly define their roles, production
timelines and other conditions that will affect the project to ensure the best
results.
One of the most common misconceptions about working with
designers is that they can just push a few buttons, and a masterpiece will
appear. The best design does look simple. It facilitates the reader’s
experience rather than detracts from it. It takes time to make a professional peice. It’s important to
settle on a schedule at the beginning, and remember that just because you need
something tomorrow, that doesn’t mean that it’s possible to do an effective job
in your time frame, especially when there is a lot of text, or if there are many
photos to process. Agree on important milestones such as the following due
dates:
- sending copy and images to the designer
- first proof from designer
- providing changes to the designer
- second proof from the designer
- date to printer
- due date from printer
The easiest way to create a production schedule is to work
back from the due date.
It’s also important to define the specifications for the
designer, such as:
- whether the work will be printed or published online
- for printed pieces, how the piece will be distributed and any
required format, such as trifold brochure or post card
- whether the piece will be black and white or color
- budget for producing the piece
When requesting changes from the designer, mark exact
corrections on the proof. For example, if you have to change the wording of a
sentence, cross out the words on the proof and write the correct words next to
them. Don’t give general comments, like “this is too confusing.” Unless you’ve
contracted with a designer to provide copywriting services as well, it’s not his
or her job to figure out what you should say.
Remember that the designer is not a miracle worker. If your
copy is not well written, or if your photos are of poor quality, your final product
will not be successful. In addition, some changes are impossible, such as
adding photos to a page that is completely full.
Finally, if the designer tells you that your changes aren’t
going to work, don’t ignore his advice. Just as you are trained in your field,
so is he or she.
Communications professionals, feel free to add your tips and advice.
