CorpComms Magazine

Whether you call it 'information overload' or simply good communication with clients and shareholders, companies are putting out more written information than ever before. Annual reports are getting longer every year, while the internet is giving businesses a whole new way to communicate with stakeholders, allowing them far greater possibilities to receive feedback on the image they project. But who is writing all these websites, reports and corporate brochures? Are they giving the right impression? And just who is reading all this information?

Writing a bad annual report or brochure can have a far greater impact on your business than you might think. 'It ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it,' explains Joe Lang, founder of corporate writing company Lang Communications. He emphasises the importance of good corporate writing by explaining what happens when companies get it wrong. 'Customers feel patronised,' he says. 'Employees feel they're being talked at, not talked to. Chief executives complain that they've explained the strategy over and over but investors still don't 'get' it. With writing, you have less control over what is heard.'

Diana Railton, managing director of corporate communications agency DRCC, agrees that getting your writing wrong can be disastrous. 'At best, the message is simply ignored and does not make any impact,' she says. 'At worst, it creates a negative impression of the organisation, sometimes simply because of carelessness in checking the material. Poor written communications can sometimes result in an organisation losing trust or credibility, or even give the impression that it is trying to hide something.'

The long and winding word

One of the major pitfalls in corporate writing is producing long-winded items nobody actually bothers to read. Railton says that even though company annual reports leave little opportunity for a company to break free of convention, there is still plenty of room for error. 'There's more flexibility in the presentation of the chairman's and chief executive's statements,' she explains. 'Very often these over-meander and are too long-winded and turgid, which is a pity.'

Lang also implores companies to keep it short. 'Detail is the enemy of the message,' he insists. 'We should drop the size-of-a-phone-book annual report altogether. Strip it down to an engaging, coherent and slim-line review that actually gets read.'

He advises companies to look at the writing they are putting out, and see whether they can make it shorter. 'When you finish, read it again, this time from the audience's point of view,' he suggests. 'Amend it accordingly. Then shorten it by 15 percent.'

Lang advises caution when it comes to flowery language, too. 'If there are any turns of phrase you're particularly proud of, cut them out,' he says. 'Nobody likes a show-off.'

When it comes to improving corporate copywriting, companies can either focus on training in-house communi­cators, or they can use external experts. Unsurprisingly, many external experts lean heavily toward outsourcing corporate writing. 'The advantage of using external consultants, writers and trainers is that they can usually see the situation more objectively, often have more experience and, particularly in the case of copywriting, can bring a certain freshness to the process,' says Railton.

Lang is even blunter: 'Their time costs less than yours, so why are you wasting the company's money doing it yourself?'

Company communicators looking for tips and guidance on how to write more effectively should take a look at www.reportleadership.com, a website aimed at improving corporate reporting. The team behind the site, which includes PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, believes the current process behind producing annual reports is 'wasteful and ineffective'. Its recommendations include using plain English, backing up messages with evidence, and not hiding important things away at the back of a report.

Spinning on the web

It is not only in the annual report that companies get a chance to make a written impression, however. Thanks to the advent of easily accessible home computers and the popularity of the net, both shareholders and customers are now downloading much of their corporate information, making web writing increasingly important.

Malcolm Davison, founder of Writingfortheweb.co.uk, says online copy needs to be presented in the shortest possible way.

'People have a natural tendency to want to minimise the time they are using a computer screen to access information, whether that's at home or work,' he explains. 'To successfully communicate on the web, therefore, the material has to be tightly structured and delivered in a clear, concise and visually well-presented way.'

Writing well for the internet also involves properly linking sites to other useful information so that people can find the things they are looking for. Davison says that when training people to write for the web, he gives them a small piece of news to edit within 10 minutes. 'We find that most shorten and improve the text, but that their text is still probably twice as long as it needs to be,' he says. 'This is when realisation dawns.'

Railton agrees that writing for the internet needs to be focused dif­ferently. 'Web writing has improved enormously in recent times, now that people have recognised that you read onscreen in a very different way from how you read print,' she says. 'Aim to prevent readers getting 'computer fatigue', particularly by cutting back text, breaking it up and laying it out so that it's easy on the eye. Write tightly but also a little more like you would talk. The best web-writing styles are slightly more natural, informal and conversational than traditional print, although still in keeping with an organisation's agreed tone of voice.'

Lang has a different perspective on the 'web writing revolution', however. 'There's a myth that writing for the web should be 'shorter' than other writing. If your web copy is shorter than the other stuff, why is the other stuff so long?' he asks. 'The web does give you an opportunity to package things differently, however. You can make your points crisply and tersely, while providing links to the supporting detail. You don't have to be all things to all people at once, so it's easier to satisfy a broad spectrum of readers.'

Speaking in tongues

Writing for so many different audiences means companies are frequently in danger of contracting multiple-personality disorder and sounding completely different when dealing with customers from how they sound when dealing with shareholders. Because of this, even the most unimportant-seeming piece of communication needs to be scrutinised to ensure it matches the company's tone of voice.

'Take, for example, any one of the Virgin companies, all of which have such a strong brand presence,' says Heather Atchison, head of writing services at communications consultancy Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. 'If you got a letter from that company's customer service department sounding bureaucratic and stiff, you certainly wouldn't trust the brand quite as much.

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry works with clients to develop and use a consistent tone of voice across all of its operations. 'If we're creating a tone of voice for a client we like to ground it in research, testing different tones, both with employees and customers,' Atchison says. 'From there we develop and articulate the tone, and help people understand how to implement it wherever they are in the business.'

Lang agrees that a consistent tone of voice is important, but believes it must be adjusted slightly depending on the audience. 'You have the same personality, whoever you're talking to,' he points out. 'But you'll instinctively adjust your tone of voice, and the content of what you say. Companies should do the same if they want a credible relationship with their audiences.'

And a 'credible relationship' is exactly what every company is after. 'Rightly or wrongly, you judge people by how they talk to you,' says Lang. 'Are they like you, or different from you? How do you rate their intelligence, their likeability, their trustworthiness? The same thing happens when you address people in writing. Communication in writing is tougher, because you're not there to provide the tone of voice or modify your approach if it's not working. If the other person gets the wrong end of the stick, there's nothing you can do about it.' That is why it is important to get writing right first time.

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