Writing Style

‍These guidelines help Lesseners (in marketing and beyond) shape a consistent brand voice across all marketing platforms, communications, and collateral. Writing standards save everyone time and drive the best possible brand outcomes. Use this basic guide as an editing checklist to ensure all marketing resources carry the same tone and feel. With so many team members contributing across the broader marketing organization, these standards help expedite and alleviate editing necessary while avoiding different voices and approaches across our website and content. A consistent brand voice across all marketing empowers a better customer experience and greater brand credibility.

Our Brand Voice and Messaging Approach

At Lessen, our brand voice is confident, helpful, human, and empowering. Our mission statement embodies all these traits: Our mission is to make caring for and improving real estate properties and facilities simpler, faster, and better.

We believe in possibilities. The mission behind all our content marketing initiatives is to show what’s possible by engaging, answering questions, and adding value. We use our voice to leave readers feeling something—whether that’s curiosity, a sense of urgency, adventure, optimism, ambition, openness to new approaches, and more—that’s what makes our messaging memorable.

And that’s why these best practices used by iconic brands like Apple and Salesforce come into play. They help us engage audiences directly and keep them reading.

1. Keep the focus on our readers and subjects

Whenever possible, we lead with the customer in messaging and how they can leverage Lessen technologies and services to drive outcomes at their business—not the other way around. We usually share how we help “you” (our reader) and “your” organization instead of blanket “businesses.”

We keep the focus on the sentence subject doing the action—often our customers, team members, technologies, and services, or Lessen as an organization. Learn more about the why.

Example:

BEFORE

Whether a client’s services are in-house or outsourced, BlueSkyre is an objective strategic advisor, assessing provider performance and making recommendations that serve our client’s interests.

AFTER

Leverage objective, strategic recommendations—whether your services are in-house or outsourced. Take your business forward with deep assessments on your provider performance and smart action items with Blue Skyre as your strategic advisor.

2. We use active voice in all our writing

Active voice makes content more readable and persuasive while connecting with readers. Conversely, passive voice has less momentum and adds unnecessary length with the verb acting upon the subject. Learn more about the why and how.

Example:

BEFORE

The lazy dog is jumped over by the quick brown fox.

AFTER

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

More tips for using active voice:

• Look out for helping verbs

• Ensure the subject is performing the action

3. We use present tense in all our writing

We write in the present tense for extra persuasion and confidence. According to Oxford Academic, research shows that when writers use the present tense to describe events it sounds more certain or authoritative than the past tense. Learn more about the why and how.

Example:

BEFORE

The marketing team had great ideas.

AFTER

The marketing team has great ideas.

More tips for using active voice:

• Look out for helping verbs

• Ensure the subject is performing the action

4. We position benefits before features

Lesseners take a benefit-first approach to immediately hook our audience with what’s in it for them, i.e., why they should keep reading. Putting benefits first also makes content more scannable while letting readers know how Lessen, our talent, and our solutions can help them professionally and propel their business goals. We use a benefits-first approach across all marketing initiatives, whether motivating a customer to make a buying decision or download an eBook. Learn more about the why and see it in action.

Example:

BEFORE

Real-time data and analytics allow you to monitor expenses and identify savings.

AFTER

Control costs—monitoring expenses and identifying savings with real-time data and analytics.

5. We use action-oriented subheads and headlines

We lead with verbs (action) whenever possible to encourage readers to take action across all content from eBook titles to email subjects and web copy headlines. Call-to-action verbs support higher engagement levels and open rates with more persuasive, memorable, and impactful headlines. (Action-oriented subheads and headlines may not always apply to more traditional mediums like press releases or FAQs.)

Example:

BEFORE

Employee Retention

AFTER

Retain Talent

6. We keep messaging clear and concise

We know time is valuable and attention spans are short—we make our content easy to read without clunky sentences and unnecessary adjectives. In addition to keeping content concise and consumable, we use bulleted lists whenever possible to make messaging scannable and help readers find the highlights that resonate with their needs—think all-you-can-eat buffet instead of a five-course meal. Learn more about the why and how.

Example:

BEFORE

Use a vendor management program to track if work orders are completed on schedule, if the technician was knowledgeable about the issue beforehand, and if work orders are completed correctly.

AFTER

Track work order accuracy, timeliness, completion, and technician performance with a work vendor management program.

Notice how this edit puts the benefits before the feature (vendor management program) while leading with action.

7. We avoid buzzwords and Lessen-only verbiage

We message content for clarity and SEO ranking, and that means we don’t rely heavily on industry buzzwords or try to introduce new terminology to industry professionals. Buzzwords can date content while getting in the way of what you’re communicating. We focus on creating content with terms users are already searching for instead of re-coining them. Renaming common industry terminology may seem innovative, but it results in higher page abandonment rates and less reader engagement overall. Tech companies like Lessen need to avoid drinking “our own Kool-Aid” and deliver content with maximum clarity and ranking potential. We encourage stakeholders to speak our audience's language, not the other way around. If you aren’t sure if a term is Lessen-only, Google it and see what results come up outside of our company website and publications.

Easy Rules of Thumb

• Do use em dashes without going overboard to replace commas, colons, and parentheses.
• Do use Oxford commas. (Example: Lesseners are curious, collaborative, and motivated. Use a comma before the conjunction for the attribute series.) ‍
• Only hyphenate descriptions that come before subjects. (Common example: Real-time (adj) insights vs. insights in real time (noun).) ‍
• Avoid redundancies like repeating the same adjective or verb in consecutive sentences (or paragraphs when possible).
• Do single space.
• Quote and cite outside resources in all thought leadership content with links when appropriate. (Great for credibility and SEO.)
  

Helpful Editing Tools

• Use the Read Aloud feature across the Microsoft suite to hear how content sounds and catch awkward sentences or errors that Spell Check won’t always find.
• Leverage Grammarly to ensure content is concise and keep your writing in active voice and present tense.
• Use the Gartner Information Technology Glossary to navigate best practices for technical terminology, (example: when to hyphenate, etc.)
  

Standards for Headings

When to use sentence case, (only capitalizing the first word sans proper nouns that are always capitalized): In main site headings and subheadings, H2s, and H3s, ad copy, email subjects, and any headline that is a sentence.

Example: Serving a diverse and distributed set of portfolios nationwide

When to use title case, (capitalizing the first letter of every word sans words like a, the, and of) In short email subjects, blogs, press releases, eBooks, white papers, industry studies, PowerPoint presentations, and webinar titles, except when the headline is a sentence. Industries with proper nouns should also be title-cased.

Example: Reduce Margin Compression this HVAC Season

(Note: The, of, and a are never capitalized unless they start the headline.)

Use abbreviated numbers in headings and callouts versus numbers listed in body paragraphs.

Example:

Callout: 30K vendors

Body/paragraph text: Tap into Lessen’s pre-qualified, national network of 30,000 technicians and vendors.

Words with Momentum

These verbs can alleviate redundancies and liven up messaging.

• Instead of allow: empower, promote, enable, support, propel, fuel, unleash
• ‍Instead of enhance: transform, redefine, optimize, automate, amplify, elevate, boost, lift, advance, improve, revamp, upgrade, promote, simplify, streamline, strengthen, level up, empower ‍
• Instead of increase: maximize, accelerate, amplify, propel, boost, jumpstart, expand, add, drive, power, make gains (ex: make agility gains), ignite greater (noun), augment, expand, multiply, double, triple, quadruple‍
• Instead of utilize: harness, leverage, tap into, apply, use ‍
• Instead of learn: discover, explore, master, gain (knowledge), unleash/tap into (insights) ‍
• Instead of stop: avoid, eliminate, reduce, remove
  

These adjectives can drive momentum and avoid sounding too buzzy, dated, or hyperbolic.

• ‍Instead of innovative/state-of-the-art/next generation: breakthrough, fresh, fast-evolving, novel, intelligent, advanced, high-performance, transformational‍
• Instead of the best/leading/unprecedented: optimal, novel, breakthrough, unmatched, unparalleled, best-in-class, remarkable, singular, exceptional, significant, powerful‍
• Instead of fast: agile, quick, rapid, instant, immediate, efficient, accelerated, nimble, swift, (Note: Fast is always effective, but it’s good to have alternatives handy to avoid getting too repetitive.)