AMiable Solution #52: How to Write and Use How-Tos

Looking to showcase your expertise and earn goodwill at the same time?  Providing free “How-Tos” allows you to establish your organization as an industry authority and encourages long-term relationships with potential and current clients. 

Happily, how-tos require few resources: all you need are the people who know the details for completing a particular process and the people who can help articulate those instructions.

First, you need to address the “what” of your “how to.”  Where can you find inspiration?  It’s all around you:

• Your desk. Consider the tasks or computer programs you wish you had had help learning, activities you’ve streamlined or mastered, and methods that take the stress out of generating particular reports or marketing materials.
• Your departments.  Each of your organization’s departments specializes in a particular task.  Meet with each of them to identify things they do that are common or relevant to the things your members, customers, or donors do.
• Your experts. The folks your organization works with--authors, community leaders, consultants, vendors, etc.--specialize in tasks and skills that your organization may not.  See who’s willing to share their knowledge with you and your market.

No matter where you get your inspiration from, choose your topics wisely.  You don’t have give away trade secrets, but you do have to provide thoughtful, meaningful, and useful information. 

Once you identify the “what,” it’s time to describe the “how.”  Here’s how:

• Keep it brief but specific.  General, non-descript information won’t help your intended audience accomplish its tasks, and it won’t reflect well on your knowledge on the subject. As you lay out each instruction, remember to identify and quantify everything you can to make sure your instructions are as clear as possible.
• Look at the little picture.  Don’t try to teach big, complex activities.  Instead, break them down into small projects that can be implemented and achieved now.
• Break the task down into steps.  Don’t bury the sequence in a huge paragraph or two.  Identify each key step and bullet or number each one.
• Avoid lingo.  The idea is to make a particular task easier for your members, clients, or donors.  Using unfamiliar language will only confuse and cloud your efforts.
• Use photos or illustrations to help explain complex steps.  Sometimes pictures really do speak a thousand words. 

Once your how-tos are written, spread the word!  Include your how-tos on your website, in blogs, with related marketing collateral, at conferences and other meetings, etc.  Update them with new information, if necessary, and add to the collection when you can.