You’re reading an issue of The Arete Letter.
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In this letter, you’re going to learn how your marketing team can use a stylesheet to get technical jargon under control.
The Problem
The more technical an industry is, the more important clear marketing becomes.
If people can’t understand what you do, they’re probably not going to buy from you.
That’s where having a textual style guide comes in.
It helps your writers establish consistent, clear communications that build trust with buyers.
But the reality is that most writers won’t memorise your style guide – and, even if they do, there will always be anomalies that aren’t covered by the rules.
In technical industries with lots of jargon, those inconsistencies can cause confusion for buyers.
The Solution
Supplement your style guide with a textual stylesheet.
It’s a dictionary-style (A–Z) document that clarifies exactly what certain words mean and how they should be spelled/styled.
Whenever you encounter a consistent mistake from your writers (two times or more), add that term to your stylesheet.
Define it, clarify the style, add any permissible abbreviations, and input any other relevant information.
If you’re adding lots of terms on a regular basis, you can send out a weekly email/Slack/Teams summary of which terms have been added over that period.
Writers can then double-check terms they’re not sure about against the stylesheet rather than having to work off the rules in your textual style guide.
The result: more confident writers, fewer mistakes, and reduced project editing times.
Implementation
Tech Needed: Cloud-based document software like Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Coda
Ease of Uptake: Easy
- Create a stylesheet using this template. Numerical terms go at the very start.
- Upload that stylesheet to a cloud environment.
- Give your writers and anyone else Viewer access; only your editors should be able to add or change terms.
- Whenever you see a mistake occur two or more times, add that term to the stylesheet.
- Terms should be contained in quotation marks and bolded; definitions and other discursive text should be separated from the associated term with a colon or semi-colon.
- Let your writers know when you add terms to the stylesheet (either as you go or via a weekly summary).
- As needed, check your team’s uptake of the stylesheet by recording the number of non-conformance incidents.
