We’ve all heard of AP, Chicago Manual, and the other style guides out there (I prefer The Gregg Reference Manual). Most agencies, corporate communications or marcom departments will loosely follow one or the other. That is until you send that one article to the VP for review and he/she wonders why you didn’t cap his/her title and department in his/her quote (e.g. “…for the coming year,” said John/Joan Smith, vice president of finance.)

You can point to all the style guides you want, the Veep is going to have their title and department capped come hell or high water. And then ask why you didn’t cap every word in the headline. It’s times like this when having a style guide for your company can come in very handy.

This doesn’t mean you need to recreate or re-write Chicago or AP. Just create a document that lists the way your company formats certain things like headlines, titles, abbreviations, measurements, and other grammatical points. For example:

• Using a comma before the “and” with lists (depending on who you ask, some will use the third comma—e.g. commas, verbs, and periods—while others won’t—e.g. “commas, verbs and periods.”)
• Capping the first letter of every word in a headline or just the first word (e.g. “HiRoad Wins Award” or “HiRoad wins award”).
• Acronyms. Do you spell out the acronym every time or just once?

Now, this might seem to be a whole lot of extra work about “the small stuff” and with limited upside. That depends on your perspective. If you have more than one person writing for your company—particularly if you use freelancers—consistency is key. A style guide gives everybody who writes and reviews your collateral pieces—ads, brochures, press releases, Web content, etc.—a reference. This way, you don’t have inconsistencies in format—e.g. one article capping titles and departments and another lower casing.

We’ll cover some suggestions for what sections your style guide should contain in a future blog.

While gaining media exposure remains the number one goal of a press release, it can have another extremely helpful use—informing your own employees.

Many companies, in their haste to get a release out, forget the folks on the front lines. Sure, the release may have nothing to do with what the majority of your employees do on a day-to-day basis. But if you subscribe to the theory that your employees can be your best sales and pr agents, you need to keep those people current.

On another level, including your employees on your distribution list does have an effect on morale. The announcement itself might not mean a whole lot. Yet reading about it first in the newspaper or hearing it on the radio does. When you have the opportunity to eliminate a “what do I need to know that for, I only work here,” you should take it. Including your workers on your press release distribution is a very easy way to do that.

Know where your Web site and marketing collateral copy falls flat on its proverbial face? Count the number of times you use the word you. If you can count the number of you’s on one hand—with plenty of fingers to spare—a change in approach may be in order.

Why? Well, chances are if you’re not using the word you all that much, the focus of your copy might be too centered on your company and not the needs/problems/issues facing your customers/clients. Customers/clients may visit your site to learn about your company, but what they really want to know is whether you understand their problems and can help fix them.

For example:

“HiRoad Communications writes great web copy with a fast turnaround time and great results.”

Now, if you’re looking for some content in short order, this message might work, even though its claim is quite subjective with no real way to substantiate it.

Compare that to:

“Keeping your Web site current is a full-time commitment. Unfortunately, when you run your own show, there’s only so many hours in the day and only one of you. HiRoad Communications can write the copy you need, in the time frame which meets your deadlines.”

More or less, each paragraph says the same thing. Only the latter paragraph shows an understanding of the client’s reason for needing HiRoad Communications: not enough time or staff. And even though the sentence says nothing about HiRoad Communications or how well we write, it does say, “we understand your situation and can help solve your problem.” Nine times out of ten, that’s what your customers and clients want.

So, copy and paste the text from your Web site into a Word document and do a search on you. The answer to why your Web site or marketing collaterals are not as effective as you might like could be right under your nose.