Another tool you need in your marketing strategy toolbox is a complete set of professional bios. This should be a page on your website; incorporate it into your print materials as well.
Include professional, print-quality photos (both online and in the print materials). Another wonderful strategy is to compile the bios and pictures into an attractive booklet or binder that is placed in the lobby of your business. For customers, it can help ensure confidence in hiring your company; vendors, interviewees, and new employees can use it to familiarize themselves with the important players in the business.
The bios should be interesting to read, yet related to the services your company offers and/or market segments you target.
Sometimes all employee biographies are included (depending on the size of your company); at the very least, management, the Board of Directors, and consultants. They should be approximately 200 to 300 words; perhaps four or five paragraphs. Include each person’s role in the company, previous experience, accomplishments, education, awards/honors, and memberships in professional or academic organizations. Other pertinent skills such as speaking a foreign language may be included.
Of course, the bios should be updated at least annually, and any time an important change takes place in the company or an individual’s biographical information. Each person can write his or her own, but usually everyone is too busy with their primary job functions, and most people don’t have the skills or the third-party perspective to determine what’s important and then craft it into a piece that’s easy and enjoyable to read. Finally, uniformity in style, voice, and format is essential.
Ask the copywriter you’re working with for your web copy, sales letters, and other marketing materials if he or she has experience in writing personality profiles or bios. If not, you may need to find another one who does.
A professional writer is really the person to handle the job of writing the bios of the pivotal people in your company, so be sure to ask your copywriter about creating a complete set of bios to add to your website and other marketing materials.
Lisa J. Lehr is a freelance copywriter specializing in direct response and marketing collateral, with a special interest in the health, pets, specialty foods, and inspirational/motivational/self-help niches. She has a degree in biology, has worked in a variety of fields including pharmaceuticals and teaching, and has volunteered for many causes including special-needs kids and literacy. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, art, music, outdoor exercise, and all things Celtic and Renaissance.
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