A Non-communicator’s Guide to Creating Effective Communications

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.

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.