And here’s another one. How many times have you looked at a catalogue only to find that crucial information you should keep (like contact details for ordering, delivery information etc) is placed either on order form itself or on back of page order form is on?

The result is when you mail off your completed order form you’re obliged to mail that important information away with it. Stupid, huh.

There is no mystery about creating good catalogues – only common sense. It’s perfectly okay in my view to keep your writing crisp and concise because it helps to use space more efficiently. But whatever you do, never lose sight of fact that way a catalogue is written and designed says a lot more about your organization than you think. If it is cluttered, unclear and illogical, customers will think your company is too. If it is busy but accessible, clear and easy to understand and logically planned, well – need I say more?

Retailers spend fortunes on design, layout and flow of their instore displays. Supermarkets can increase or decrease their turnover by thousands, simply by moving fresh produce from back wall to side wall or by putting bakery beyond delicatessen or by increasing aisle width by a few centimetres.

Think of your catalogue as a paper-based store or supermarket, and you’ll find it easier to give it consideration and respect it deserves.

Instruction leaflets and manuals

A few years ago I bought a new computer, printer, keyboard and monitor all at same time. I heaved all boxes into my office at home and unpacked each piece enthusiastically. There was metal and plastic and cabling and cardboard and polystyrene and bubble wrap all over floor.

My two dogs picked their way through it, sniffing suspiciously as if all these items were chickens lying dead and headless after a fox attack. I sat cross-legged in middle, leafing anxiously through instruction booklets, desperately trying to find English language pages.

When I did, I couldn’t understand a word, largely because instructions a) had been compiled by technical people who assumed substantial prior knowledge even though it was a “home” computer and b) whoever had written UK version must have been taught English by Donald Duck.

And do you think manufacturer might have supplied a simple instruction sheet telling me how to bolt it all together? No. Every piece had its own awful instructions but as far as manufacturer was concerned, each item was on its own.

So I phoned my dear computer guru Jason and booked him to come over next day and sort it out, despite him telling me it was easy and I could do it myself. “Just read instructions,” he said.

“I can’t understand ****ing instructions,” I shouted back down phone. “You come and do it, I’ll watch what you do, then I’ll write it down and send text to manufacturers with an invoice for my time. At least that way poor so-and-sos who buy this kit in future will find out how to get it working without having a nervous breakdown.”

There’s one very strong point that emerges from this true story. When people read, listen to or watch a set of instructions, they often do it in fairly stressful circumstances, in uncomfortable surroundings, in poor light, etc. Accessibility, simplicity, visibility, and clarity are vital.

People who buy products that require instructions, need to know how to use product as easily as possible. And because many people are technodorks like me, instructions need to be understood by lowest common denominator. Logically then, you might think, best person to write instructions for technodorks like me is someone who knows every last detail about product, how it was made, how it works, what it does, and what its inside leg measurement is. In other words, an expert.

This could not be further from truth.

Instructions should never be written by experts, because they know too much. What this means is that they are very prone to making mistake of assuming reader knows a little bit about subject matter already.

To an expert, fact that before you begin assembling bookcase you need to align sections A, B and C with each other may be so blindingly obvious it’s not even worth mentioning. To someone like me it’s not just worth mentioning, it’s absolutely essential if I’m not to spend next three hours wondering why on earth I can’t find any bolt holes that line up.

Wherever practical, instructions should be written by someone who knows as much as, but no more than, audience. For any form of instructions to be followed by non-technical users, writer should assume zero prior knowledge and best way to ensure s/he does that, is if s/he doesn’t have any prior knowledge her/himself. Provided that writer has a logical mind and ability to write clearly and simply, s/he can’t fail to work out and then write good, usable instructions - because if s/he understands them so will everyone else.

Equally, instructions should not be written by sales people, marketing executives, guys in lab, production staff, or anyone else – even you – if there’s a risk they might have become familiar with subject matter. Familiarity can breed if not contempt, at least wrongful assumptions about audience’s existing knowledge.

For any product to be used by ordinary folks in street, try to get instructions written by someone from a totally unrelated department or even from outside your organization. Failing that, get them tested by one or more typical users who have no prior knowledge of product, and edit them carefully on strength of feedback you get.

There is nothing that will blacken name of your product and your company faster than a customer like me not being able to put your product together easily.

Although customers like me will get over it after taking a cold shower and asking brainy next-door neighbour to interpret instructions, we’ll probably remember all those bad things next time we’re shopping for sort of products you sell. And we’ll buy your competitor’s.

You’ll usually find that basic core of a press release can remain pretty well same across all media groups, because it consists (or should consist) of pure facts – old journalist’s formula of who, what, how, where, when and why.

What changes is angle, and particularly lead-in. That means headline, which should be short and attention-grabbing, and then first two or three sentences that support headline and set up whole story. Often it’s worth trying to work in a clever bit of word-play with headlines, but be very careful – a pun or play on words that doesn’t work is worse than writing headline straight.

By far best guidance you’ll get, though, comes from studying audience – people who read publications. What in your story is going to interest them?

·Readers of a trade journal will be interested in what’s new and different about your new product and how it could improve way they do business.

·Readers of local or regional business sections will be interested more in how your new product’s manufacturing and distribution, say, will impact on local business community and economy.

·Local general newspapers and other media will be interested in human side, i.e. how many new jobs factory producing new product will create.

·…etc.

And one last tip on how to get best from press releases – use “quotes” from key people involved in story.

Not those awful, meaningless corporate-babble quotes you so often see in company press releases … “We are delighted to be able to announce new contract at this moment in time and we have every confidence that our latest investment will be of significant benefit to our…” you know type of thing. These are usually first elements that get chopped out by editor.

It’s perfectly OK to write quotes for your senior people, by way. They very rarely give real quotes for anything other than TV or radio interviews but don’t seem to mind quotes being written for them, provided they’re given opportunity to check them before they’re issued.

So, write them quotes that – far from being beatific banalities – actually are telling important parts of story. This is good for two reasons:

1.It makes your senior exec look intelligent and aware of what’s going on in organization, which is 100% more than banality-quote will do for him/her.

2.Because it’s an important part of story and contains useful facts, publication’s staff will be far less likely to edit it out.

Possibly you’re beginning to feel that in order to get press coverage you’ll have to turn yourself, your product and your entire board inside out and upside down. You could be right, but that’s PR. Remember that press coverage is not advertising**. Yes, it’s free and that’s wonderful, but as always there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Editors will only put your stuff in, for free, if it is genuinely good for their publication and their readers, not for you. They do not care about your sales figures. They care about their own sales figures. Successful PR people and writers of press releases always, always bear these points in mind; in fact that’s why they’re successful.

**An exception to this is what’s known (in UK at least) as “advertorial.” In case you don’t already know this is advertising copy written in editorial style, but space it occupies is really an advertisement you pay for. If you’re obliged to write it, please just try to make it as honest as you can. Not easy.

Online tips

Nearly all theory pertaining to offline PR is relevant to online equivalent – especially in terms of what content is of interest to publishers and what isn’t.

Online publishing of relevance to organizations usually falls into one of two pretty obvious groups; one, websites, portals etc that are totally independent and uniquely on web, and two, those which are online alter egos of offline publications.

In either group if you want publications to take your releases or submissions seriously, it’s very important that you follow format and structure of articles that appear on websites concerned. Whatever you do don’t make mistake of submitting a general press release to these organizations, even though you do it by e-mail.

Check first how long teaser paragraph is that appears on home or section page, and check how they lay out full articles. Then submit material that fits perfectly, both in style and in word counts. Here’s why:

1.You will be saving them trouble of reworking your piece which makes it attractive in first place

2.Because it fits so perfectly you will discourage them from changing anything, which is also a huge advantage for you.

The other point I would make about online press work is don’t assume that just because you submit a release to offline publication (and even if they run it) it will be forwarded automatically to publication’s website. It won’t. At least not necessarily. And I’ve found that one out hard way, believe me.

Treat offline and online versions as entirely separate entities; find out who movers and shakers are on each, and often you’ll see that online version is run by an entirely different group of people.