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.

Get Credit for Foreign Travel

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I recently returned from a fabulous trip to the South of France. One of the best parts of staying in Nice is that the train runs along the coast, so it’s easy to visit the many beautiful villages on the Côte d’Azur. One of the worst parts is waiting in the long lines at the station’s ticket windows. 

It's easy to visit the villages near Nice. 

If you don’t have time to spare, there are machines that dispense tickets for the regional trains if you have a basket of change or a credit card. The problem for most Americans, though, is that they usually can’t come up with enough coins, and the machines won’t accept their credit card.

While the U.S. is known for advanced technology, we are way behind when it comes to credit cards. The chip and PIN cards, which are standard in Europe, are virtually unknown here. Chip and PIN is supposed to be more secure because like the name says, there is a small chip on the front, and users must often key in a security code to complete the purchase. Foreign merchants still do accept American cards, so don’t worry if you want to use yours overseas. However, be aware that standard cards aren’t accepted in certain cases, like at the ticket machine and at toll booths. You might also come across some people who don’t know how to process your card, as I did. Luckily, her boss was able to handle it because I would have been really disappointed if I had been unable to buy that cute top.

Knowing the difficulty I would face when paying at certain places in Europe, I was pretty excited when I heard that Bank of America introduced a card with chip technology this summer. I had to learn more. When I spoke to the sales rep, he told me that the BankAmericard Travel Rewards card offers some other nifty benefits. There is no foreign transaction fee and unlike British Air’s chip card, there is no annual fee. While the card doesn’t offer the PIN that European cards do, I decided to take my chances.

The third weekend of September is the weekend of patrimony in France, meaning that most of the cultural institutions offer free admission to encourage the French to discover their culture. You can also buy a Carte Isabelle train ticket valid for travel all day throughout the region for a mere 5€; it’s usually 14€. That Sunday, my friend and I had decided to take the train to St. Raphael, where we would take a ferry to St. Tropez. With the line for the ticket agents stretching out the door, I crossed my fingers and joined the line at the machine. When it was my turn, I punched in my request for two aller-retour tickets, inserted my credit card and held my breath. Accepted! I was ready to go. Unfortunately, the train wouldn’t leave for another hour, and we’d have to wait another hour for the ferry, but at least we spent that hour relaxing in a café rather than standing in line, so I was glad for my card.

This is not an endorsement of Bank of America, nor any of its credit cards, and I have received no compensation from any credit card company for this article. 

Leaving on a Jet Plane, Didn’t Know When I’d Get Home Again

Old Town Nice

Like all good things, my dream vacation in the South of France had to come to an end. As it turns out, however, my journey lasted longer than I had anticipated. On Monday morning, I bid adieu to my charming little hovel and the old couple who used to call “bonjour madame” from the window below my apartment when they saw me leaving, which made me feel like a regular part of this vibrant quarter of Vieux Nice. I dragged my bags full of French books, chocolate and savon de Marseille onto the bus and gazed at the sea like a convict headed to prison as the vehicle made its way to the airport.

When I arrived at the British Airways desk to check my bag, the perky agent informed me that my flight to London would be very late, but if I could wait for a bit, she’s check to see if there was room on the prior flight. A few minutes later, just as cheerfully as she had offered to help find me another flight, she informed me that it was full, so she’d  just check me in for my original flight and I could speak to Customer Service to figure out my options.

Next stop: Customer Service. After waiting for some other disgruntled customers from my flight, I put on my best polite French voice and asked the agent how I could get back to Baltimore since I’d probably miss my connecting flight. This woman was not so cheerful. She told me I’d just have to take the later flight to Dulles because after all, it’s still Washington.   

I guess someone with a long line of tired, frantic customers who has never been to DC doesn’t understand, or more likely just doesn’t care that when you live in Baltimore, flying to Washington-Dulles instead of Baltimore-Washington Airport is just as inconvenient as going to Philadelphia, New York or Atlanta. I tried to explain that you just can’t land at Dulles at 9:00 p.m. with no prior planning and expect to find your way back to Baltimore in fewer than several hours and for less than hundreds of dollars. She was already tired of me, and she told me to just ask British Air to get me a taxi when I landed. Clearly she done with me, so I figured I’d just wait for my flight to London and hope for the best. Maybe they would hold the plane for me in London or pick me up in an airport vehicle and rush me to the runway like they do in the movies.

Two hours after my scheduled departure time, I boarded the plane. A very nice Brit who had permanently traded in the grey skies of London for sunny Cannes told me it was in the pilot’s hands now. I figured he was right, so I stopped worrying and started taking note of his opinions on the economy and tips for buying property on the Riviera. Investors beware: Avoid the super exclusive area of Cap Ferrat, which is now overrun by Russians building garish houses designed to show off their wealth.

When we landed in London, I rushed off the plane ten minutes before the gates were due to close for my flight to Baltimore. There was nobody waiting for me, so I rushed to fast track at passport control only to learn that the flight was closed. My heart sank. The agent directed me back to the connecting flights desk, where I waited for what seemed like an eternity while an African lady yelled repeatedly in French at a companion and the agent that she knew a better schedule for getting to Marseille through Paris. My head was screaming and all of the calm that I had found in France was gone for good.

When it was finally my turn, I explained my problem to the next British Air representative, who told me she could put me on the flight to Dulles. Here we go again. I recalled the words of the Brit on the plane telling me to get what was best for me. Dulles was not the best option, not even close. Trying to be work with the agent, I explained that I had no way of getting home from Dulles, and I suggested booking me to New York because surely there must be a flight to New York, where there should be a flight to Baltimore. Sure enough, there was a flight to New York and to Philly as well, but nobody was flying to Baltimore that night. With £3.70 in my wallet and no authorization to use my credit or debit cards in England, I started to panic at the thought of wandering the streets of London until I could get on a flight the next day. Luckily, Sandy, the only helpful British Air employee I had met that day came through for me. Not only did she give me a voucher for a place to spend the night, she put me up at the Sofitel luxury hotel connected to the airport and gave me vouchers for breakfast and dinner. She even provided an overnight kit with a t-shirt to sleep in and toiletries since it looked like I wouldn’t be getting my suitcase that day – or ever if somebody didn’t figure out that my flight had changed.

So off I went to my hotel, which had the comfiest bed I have ever slept in and the most sparkling bathroom I have ever used. I had a pasta dinner served by a Polish waitress who asked me if I needed help reading the menu as if I didn’t understand English because I didn’t have a British accent.

It was strange to be in another country on an unplanned visit while none of my friends or family knew where I was. With no financial resources, I couldn’t go out on the town, but I figured out that I could use American dollars to buy a small bottle of wine in the airport and enjoy a drink in my room. I started to enjoy my little adventure.

The following morning, I made my way down to the restaurant, where I was treated to a huge English breakfast, although the Middle Eastern host was so hard to understand that I had to ask someone in the restaurant what my breakfast voucher entitled me to eat. I was starting to wonder if I had been away from the States for so long that I was forgetting how to understand English.     

After breakfast, I gathered my few belongings and checked out of my hotel, almost sorry to leave. On a side note, I noticed a sign by the elevator indicating the location of the “Victorious Ryder Cup Press Conference.” Is it me, or does adding the word “victorious” make it sound a little arrogant? Seriously, every station in England was going on about this amazing comeback by the Europeans. Anyone attending the press conference should have been prepared enough to know who won the tournament.

No time to worry about golf tournaments when I only had five hours until takeoff. Instead, I watched cricket while I waited, and in all that time, I couldn’t figure out the game. Sorry fans, it seems like baseball for sissies to me. I’m sure that match went on long after I left London, too.

So now I’m back in the US of A and my house feels like a palace compared to my hovel in Nice. Still, I miss my tiny flat and the funky neighborhood that was my home during a most extraordinary trip. I wish that everyone could experience the beautiful villages of the South of France, and in my next few posts, I will share practical details on how to reach these towns and tips to make your euro go further should you care to make the trip.