Low-Jargon Financial Blogs & Newsletters
I write blogs and newsletters for attorneys, advisors and accountants. These professionals often need to provide complex information without making their clients’ eyes glaze over.
Professionals with compliance/malpractice concerns too often navigate the middle of the road where nothing meaningful is communicated. Some admit they hope readers will pick up the phone and call for clarification “on the clock.” Bad strategy.
Everyone faces this challenge of writing thorough-yet-understandable communications from time to time. Here are writing tips for newsletter or blog writers who aspire to communicate without using jargon on one hand, or dumbing down the message on the other.
It’s a conversation, not a treatise
- Provide links to jargon, technical definitions and 50-cent SAT words like “treatise.” This way, everyone can get as much info as they need on their own and your writing doesn’t bog down
- Don’t mistake your articles for term papers!
- Use headers, bolds and links to enable (gasp) skimming
- Avoid passive voice; use active voice
- Write to the appropriate reading level of your audience
- Run your copy through a fog index calculator (tells the number of years of education needed to understand what you’ve written)
- If you use Google Docs, click Tools>Word Count and find the analysis at the bottom
- You’re not a professor
- Don’t try to tell everything you know about the subject. Pare it down to the essentials
- For weighty topics, write a series of short articles
- Provide an intro to the topic in your newsletter and link to your blog/elsewhere for details. If you can find a video (or make one yourself) your audience will be grateful. Here’s how one of my clients does it
- Leverage industry videos and handouts (be sure to comply with licensing and copyrights)
Engage readers
- Invite them to leave comments and comment on those of others
- Offer a free worksheet to help them apply the information to their lives — invite them to review the information with you off the clock, if appropriate
- Ask readers to weigh in on a topic by linking to a survey that gives them the option to see how their answers compare to those of other respondents
- Poll readers for future articles on similar/related subjects
Brains need variety
This infographic is from a parody site
Use stories – our brains are wired for stories -and people “find” themselves in them.
Use case studies for the same reasons
Link to a narrated presentation deck or video to stimulate the story-receptive part of readers’ brains. One of my clients does this very well
Use infographics or produce your own charts and tables. FlowingData is a great resource to learn about them and you might find one to use there
What techniques have you or others used to make complex information digestible? What have you seen out there that turns you off?
Tamela,
You really hit all the key points for good, clear business writing. I teach writing workshops on Wall Street to research analysts and investment bankers. I would say the vast majority of participants have two very hard habits to break:
–One, they put their conclusions at the end of their documents
As you note, that’s an academic hangover. Thesis, argument, conclusion. But readers want to know upfront what you think and then they’ll choose whether or not to read your argument..
–Two, they start writing before they know what their main points are.
Many people use their writing to figure out their points rather than sitting still (or taking a walk) to figure out their main points. Computers make it easy to start writing. Most people think that they can fix things later. But editing is so much work no one ever has the time to rewrite as extensively as needed. If writers can stop themselves from writing until they know their main points, the whole process is much quicker — and the end result much more powerful.
I think everyone should keep The Elements of Style on their desks. I like the one with the intro by Roger Angell, which offers nice color on E.B.White & how hard he worked at writing.
Thank you, Tamela. As always, you’ve posted something that is both useful and insightful. I always enjoy your blog – you’re on of the bloggers to watch, in my book!
Tamela –
Good, good stuff, and right on target. To expand on a couple of points:
Use short words whenever possible (i.e., “about” for “approximately,” “start” for “commence,” etc.). This is especially important in this kind of writing because by its very nature, technical writing includes, well, technical terms.
And speaking of short, if you’re writing for online media, keep sentences and paragraphs brief, and use bullets, lists, etc. (exactly like you’ve done above). Online readers are easily distracted and are even less inclined to take the time to really get into something. So you have to make it easy.
Avoid two common structure problems: Noun strings (using a bunch of nouns as adjectives) and distance between subjects and verbs (keep it is small as possible). These pop up a lot in technical writing.
I also want to really reinforce the case study recommendation. Stories work for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is they’re more engaging than general narrative prose. Beyond that, they have great credibility. And they break up the stream of facts, which invites readership.
Again, terrific advice. Keep it coming.
Doug
Great post, Tamela…as you know “What I Say” and “What You Hear” are not always the same. In tracking what draws me into reading AND remembering, it boils down to your list of pointers above. I try my best to cross the borders from my world into everyday language w/o dumbing it down…often tough to pull off. Thanks for the ideas…you’ve obviously been through this before!
Tamela
This article and the Powerpoint ideas were greatly appreciated, I am trying to write my next newsletter and you have definitely made me rethink what I put in the newsletter.
Sounds like I should send frequent short newsletters versus a long one infrequently.
I am definitely bookmarking this page and sharing it with my friends.