Have you ever been in a situation where a client (internal or external) keeps wanting to add “news” to a press release or material to a brochure or more stuff to the website? “It’s important” they’ll say. “We NEED to include this. It MUST be in there.”
You then end up with a press release that is three pages or longer; a blog post that could double as a PhD dissertation; and a website that will give readers a headache. I will bet good money that everybody out there has come across this type of thing.
But, the thing is it doesn’t have to be that way. Most things are really not that important. The client only thinks they are, usually because someone else (a donor, a higher up, a PIA person) has some stake in that particular bit of information (or “content” as we are now referring to it).
Here’s the bottom line: if you include all the so-called important stuff, nothing, and I mean nothing, will stand out. And then all your efforts will be wasted.
Instead of including everything and anything, as a communications person you will need to step in and do the following:
- Prioritize. Among those important things are the ones that are extremely important, right?
- Assign different information to different areas. Perhaps one important bit is appropriate to a press release and the other should go on the blog.
- Edit. And then edit again. Be ruthless. Remove excess information if you want your message to be heard.
Thoughts? How do you handle lots of “important” information?
About Deborah Brody
Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.
