Pop Quiz!

Writing sample #1

“This is your town. This is your stage. Most grown-up adventures start with these five words: Welcome to fabulous [location]. Sleeping is optional, but you will need a hotel room for costume changes.”

Image: Moyan_Brenn - http://bit.ly/vg5gO9

Writing sample #2

“Open 24 hours-a-day and festooned with Christmas lights year-round, [company] is a little loco and a lot of fun. We’ve got strolling musicians, a huge selection of classic Tex-Mex dishes and the coldest beer in the Mercado.”

Image: Clan UiBriain - http://bit.ly/

Web writing characteristics

• Welcoming - little/no insider language

• Up-front about focus and strengths

• Conversational, easy to read

• Brief and succinct

Top 10 web writing tips

#10 - Know your audience and

focus on their needs

• What are they looking for?

• What steps do they want to take?

• What links do they need?

#9 - Say less

• Half the words of printed pieces

• Short paragraphs

• Meaningful headings and subheadings

• Bulleted lists

#8 - Most important info first

• Strong verbs, descriptive words

• Keywords in headings and subheadings

• Scrolling is bad...sometimes

#7 - Make it easy to scan

• Headings/subheadings should summarize content

• Make links to other pages obvious

• Make next steps obvious

• Blogging is a new style

#6 - Simplify punctuation

• Don’t use ALL CAPS

• Never underline

• Bold only when appropriate

• Rarely or never use italics

#5 - Rewrite, don’t re-purpose

• Adapt content to the web

• Press releases

#4 - Lose “insider” language

• Write with prospect in mind

• Minimize acronyms and hard-to-understand terms

#3 - Keep it current

• Outdated content is frustrating and reflects poorly

• Updated content keeps people coming back, and helps with SEO

#2 - Edit and proof carefully

• Spelling and grammar

• Formatting and spacing

• Check links

#1 - Work with a team

• Marketing team

• Web team

• Create a style guide

The rules in action

The pharmaceutical industry is changing — the days of promotional push of features and benefits are over. It is time for pharmaceutical companies to rethink their sales strategies.

Today [company] published “[title],” a whitepaper we created to show pharmaceutical companies how to develop new strategies for selling to medical practices. These strategies focus on improving health services — for doctors and patients.

“[title]” is available for download at companywebsite.com.

[Company name], today published a framework for pharmaceutical companies to develop a new value proposition for sales into medical group practices. Available for download through the [company's] website, the approach positions a pharmaceutical component as the keystone to an entire ecosystem of businesses marketing to physicians, creating a value-added network to improve the service of health. There is an enduring "way of marketing" in the pharmaceutical industry centered on promoting the features and benefits of drug brands. Commercial models are designed and in turn "optimized" to promotional response curves. A disconnect in pharmaceutical brand management occurs when many pharmaceuticals, particularly those for primary care or chronic conditions, are perceived by the marketplace as commodity inputs. In this kind of operating environment, promotional push of features and benefits has reached its productivity frontier. The traditional calculus becomes obsolete.

Writing resources

• AP Stylebook - http://bit.ly/lJZdpH

• Grammar Girl

• Book - http://bit.ly/fwoqrJ

• Website - http://bit.ly/2BpH77

• Digett blog - digett.com/blog

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