There is something different about copywriters. They sit in a place having less or almost zero distractions and wonder about rephrasing the tag lines, product descriptions, and services for their clients, which occupy a different headspace.
They are a different breed of creatures altogether. The reason why they are like this is that they have to be to ensure that they bring about the right results for their clients.
Thankfully, there is one tool the copywriters can rely on beyond imagination and intentions, and that’s the copywriters’ style guide. However, if you have not thought of a style guide about your copywriters’ team, then here’s everything you need to know about it.
It is essential to cover the basics and all of that to ensure a fantastic outcome.
Have a Plan
One of the first and essential steps when making a style guide for copywriters is to acknowledge and highlight the issues you are facing. Assess the problematic areas, list down the mediums you are trying to address, question yourself if you are consistent on a project, and then look for the reasons.
There can be multiple issues that you can assess in your digital communication department. This includes search engine optimization, accessibility, meta content standards, and many more. Always remember that multiple areas may require a custom style guide. This means that the style guide applicable for the owner’s manual copy will certainly not work for digital ad copy.
It is always necessary to think about the details when you are thinking about your style guide.
Think about Specifics
After you’ve highlighted the issues, who have to address or work on, now it’s time to solve those issues. However, the approach will be specific rather than a generalized approach. The style guide will be custom-made or tailored to the specific brands; hence, always keep the problems that you have to address, such as hyphenation questions, spacing issues, spelling issues, the words you use frequently and are not sure about it—for example, handheld or handheld, grey or gray and many examples like these.
All of these aspects matter a great deal.
Ensure to account for all aspects
Formatting is an essential step of your overall copywriters’ guide. This is because the final look of your page comes into being when it’s properly formatted. You should not master but know the basics such as bullets, numbers, alignments. In addition to this, you should also know what to add or what not to add. You might have to include a table of contents, page numbers, bullets, acronyms, symbols, etc. In addition to this, the overall arrangement of your content is also impactful on clients.
Get Aligned
After reaching your terms and actions, it’s better to align with your stakeholders. This is because it explains how you voice your services. This applies to both the in-house working agencies and also to part-time working agencies. Moreover, get everyone on board as soon as possible so that you don’t have to rush back things when the deadline is approaching.
