Tips for Communicators

Personalize Your Letters-to-Readers

If you open your periodical or Web posts with a regular “Letter-to-the-Reader” column, personalize your communication for maximum impact:

• Inform readers about important content.
• Motivate readers by discussing challenges and opportunities you observe in your field, and urging readers to take action.
• Lead readers with stories and commentary about innovation.
• Inspire readers with accounts of success and service.
• Entertain readers with humorous anecdotes from your own work life.
• Affirm readers by reminding them of the importance of the work they do. 

Add Editorial Spice with Humor

Occasional humor on your editorial pages can boost reader interest and commitment.  Next time you want to generate a few laughs, make a half-dozen random calls to readers and ask for real-life humor suggestions.  Here’s what you might ask:

• Can you think of any funny or unusual fact associated with your business?
• What is the funniest thing that ever happened to you in your profession?
• Have you encountered any humorous business acronyms or plays on words?
• What is the strangest or funniest customer encounter you have ever had?
• Are you aware of any historical oddities about your business or industry that produce chuckles?

Time for a Makeover?

Ever wonder whether your content or design fits your market’s needs?  Gather a few members of the staff who normally don’t have editorial or design responsibilities, a group of students, an intern, or even a reader panel, and ask them to complete a hypothetical makeover assignment:

• Redesign the periodical’s layout.
• Evaluate your type treatments, and revamp using new fonts and sizes.
• Design what you believe is a perfect “Table of Contents.”
• Review last year’s content.  Rank the top twenty pieces in order of quality.
• Mark up the five largest photos or illustrations appearing in your periodical or on your Web site in the last six months, and “retouch” the images by hand to make them more compelling.
• Write what you believe is an ideal article, using whatever formatting and style best fits readers’ needs.
• Develop titles and copy for three new standard columns or features.
• Increase the pulling power of three advertisements by revamping copy or graphics.
• Sketch three new cover designs that might “wow” readers.
• Pretend that three of the world’s top business writers (or leaders in your industry) were preparing copy for you.  Draft the copy you think they would provide.

The hypothetical copy and design ideas you receive might give you insight into your readers - and more important, creative options you can use to keep your periodical or Web site fresh.

How are You Doing?

When you want to learn whether your publication or Web site meets reader needs, try one or more of these techniques:

1. Measure the volume of reader comments and letters over a period of time.
2. Count the number of Web site hits associated with a particular feature.  (Remember that you can designate a specific URL as a reference source at the close of any feature).
3. Conduct a periodic reader survey, and tabulate your findings.
4. Solicit article reaction on a message board.  Count the responses.
5. Invite requests for reprints, and count the number of requests you receive.
6. Assemble a reader focus group once a year, and conduct a group assessment discussion.
7. Note a "call for action" - a step that a reader can take - toward the end of each article.  Research the number of times readers actually respond.
8. Benchmark your features against those of other periodicals and Web sites.  For example, compare content, length, ease of reading, timeliness of news, and other subjects that interest readers.
9. Enclose a reader "reaction card" in every periodical issue (or "reaction link" in an e-periodical) and analyze the comments.

Add Personal Spice to Your Editorial Mix

To liven your pages or Web site, add brief roundup comments or factoids about - or by - readers.  Comments need only be a line or two long, and involve three to five readers, but they'll be a popular item.  Start with these ten question-and-answer possibilities:

1. What was your first job?
2. How did you get into this business or profession?
3. Who was your primary mentor, and what did you learn from him or her?
4. What was your biggest business mistake, and how did you overcome it?
5. What is your view on this issue?  (Specify a current issue that is compelling to your readers, and perhaps, controversial.)
6. What great idea or piece of knowledge did you glean from your most recent trade or professional convention?
7. What was your proudest accomplishment?
8. What hobbies do you pursue in your spare time?
9. What great business reading would you recommend to others?
10. What words of wisdom would you give to someone entering this field?

Liven Your Quotes

Quotations can bring any feature to life.  Use any of these quotation styles to add color and spice to your pieces:

• The subject's sensory impressions. For example:  "I took one taste of the meal, and my mouth was on fire."
• The subject's thoughts.  For example:  "I have been involved with over 50 product questions, but I have never heard one so bizarre."
• Snippets of the subject's conversation.  For example:  "When I heard him say that, I turned and said 'Joe, they're going to chase you out of town'."
• The subject's recollection.  For example:  "I remember when we opened the office six years ago she said that we would look back on that day ..."
• The subject's observations.  For example:  "The entire scene was like a panorama out of a south sea island - brilliant sunshine, palm trees, even a sand beach."
• The subject's first contact with a person or task.  For example:  "The first time I plugged it in, I was in a hurry, and the unit charged in only ten minutes."

Let Your Periodical Do Double Duty

Invite your readers to use each issue of your periodical long after it’s released.  Encourage readers to:

1. Leave copies of the periodical in their lounges or break rooms.
2. Circulate copies of articles for discussion.
3. Devote a small portion of staff meetings for review of articles on subjects of special interest.
4. Clip articles of interest to key customers, and send them along.
5. Post important articles on their bulletin boards.
6. Do further reading on intriguing subjects.
7. Place key articles in their educational archive or training file.
8. Pass favorite articles along to peers, and invite them to subscribe or join your trade association.
9. Note the names of authors who write particularly helpful material, and make it a point to meet them at your next trade conference.
10. Find one idea in each issue that can be quickly and creatively implemented.

Build Reader Interactivity into Your Periodical

Interact with your readers, and you’ll add value to your association or corporate publication.  Here are twelve easy ways you can boost reader interaction and involvement:

1. Establish and publish a letters-to-the-editor policy, and invite reader submissions.
2. Augment your periodical with occasional e-mail bulletins – brief, two- or three-paragraph news items on topics of compelling interest.
3. Invite readers to pass along story ideas and suggestions.
4. Provide e-mail addresses of editors and writers, and invite readers to use them.
5. Use reader quotations and one-paragraph commentaries as article sidebars.
6. Provide tips and Web-based resources to readers at the conclusion of high-profile articles.
7. Create a Web-based discussion board or chat room for readers to exchange views on subjects you’re covering.
8. Recruit a “reader panel” to advise you on editorial direction and content, and introduce the panel to your constituency in the pages of your periodical.
9. If you can’t pull off a “live” reader panel, recruit and involve an online panel that can function in cyberspace.
10. Invite readers to explain how the information you provide makes a difference in their lives – and publish these comments.
11. Provide discussion and training guides to supplement the practical tips outlined in your periodical.
12. Make article reprints available to readers at nominal cost.