Your brand is much more than a logo or tagline. It’s everything your company stands for. It’s the quality of your products and services, the attitude of your employees, the altruism in the community and so much more. When your customers and the public at large see your logo or hear the name of your company, they get an image in their minds based on their personal experiences with your company. Good or bad, that image is your REAL brand, regardless of what your logo or tagline says.
Readers can relate better to a personal story than to a statistic. Stories show. Statistics tell. It’s always better to show than to tell when trying to communicate a point. Showing helps readers imagine themselves in the story – especially if the point you’re trying to make is a positive one, like buying your product. So consider using case studies and testimonials instead of statistics.
That’s not to say you should never use statistics. Just use them responsibly. Here are a few guidelines for when you do feel statistics are necessary:
Active sentences specify who does what. Passive sentences only say that something must be done. Passive tends to sound apologetic and wishy washy. Worse, it can leave the reader wondering if he’s the one who must perform the action. For employee communications, this confusion can wreak havoc on performance. In customer letters, the uncertainty can stifle the reading process, or flood your customer service center with unwanted phone calls.
Here’s how you can make your communications easy to understand.
If the purpose of your writing is, “to impress readers with my amazing vocabulary skills,” then by all means, break out the fancy prose and five syllable words. But, if you want your readers to act on your message, buy your product, or simply to “get it,” then check your thesaurus at the door.
Write conversationally as if you’re talking to your mother over coffee. For example:
Here are some techniques that can put you face-to-face, sipping coffee over a cozy table with your reader, instead of you being high up in a cold corporate tower looking down at your nameless subjects.
Start by reviewing your marketing materials, form letters and other communications (both internal and external) to see if you refer to your company in the third person. For example, “XYZ Company thanks you for your business.” “XYZ Company is pleased to introduce a new product…”
In last month’s articles, Win Over More Readers with Better Headlines, we talked about grabbing your readers’ attention in about one second. Now let’s keep their attention with scanable subheads.
Subheads are just as important as your main headline
Even though they make up a small percent of your overall communication, headlines and subheads are the most important real estate on the page. That’s because 8 out of 10 people merely scan the largest print. If the few pieces of big copy don’t draw them in, there’s no chance they’ll read the little copy.
Remember, we’re smack in the middle of the age of over-information. You get about one second to grab a reader’s attention and draw him in before he tosses the communication aside. Get the headlines right and you’ve won 80% of the game.
In today’s age of information-overload, reader preferences have shifted to quick and helpful, rather than bureaucratic and stiff. Do your business communications measure up? Here’s a checklist you can use to spot-check the effectiveness of your company’s internal and external materials. “Effective” means readers can follow the content with speed and ease, it’s meaningful to them, and they can act on the information presented without confusion.
Know your audience
• Did you prepare your communication with your audience in mind?
You can lead a horse to water… but sometimes you have to make it easier to drink.
We’re smack in the middle of the Information Age. Everywhere you turn, you see words ― in books, magazines, television, junk mail, not-so-junk mail, computers, tablets, smart phones, billboards ― even the tag on your child’s bedtime bear. We’re so surrounded with words that we have conditioned ourselves to ignore most of it. It’s all white noise until something grabs our attention.
It’s no secret that healthy employees can mean a healthier benefits budget. Study after study shows that employers who create and sustain a culture of wellness in the workplace really can spend less on health benefits. They also see less absenteeism and fewer disability claims. And let’s not forget their employees are more productive on the job. If you’ve ever been to an HR convention, you already know this. If not, go ahead and Google it. We’ll wait.
