In order to scale, you must reuse content; To reuse content, you must standardize content; To create standardized content, you must develop standards that all content creators adhere to

Why Best Practices are needed for Writing for Reuse?

Because without reuse, you cannot deliver content at scale or achieve efficiency
And if you products sell globally, you also start with best practices for writing global-ready content.
Here are four best practices that we recommend for any content standardization effort, along with the reasons why your audience and will appreciate your efforts.

1. Standardize terminology

Customers can understand your content quicker and better when you don’t keep switching words on them.
Reuse : Standardized terminology enables small chunks of content to fit together and flow seamlessly. It reduces ambiguity.

Global : Translation costs are per word. Using consistent words lowers cost.

2. Use consistent grammar and style

Customers can resonate with who you are as a company when all content is written by “the company” and not dozens of individual writers.
Reuse : Consistent grammar and style enable small chunks of content to fit together and flow seamlessly.

Global : Sentences must be grammatically correct for successful translation. Consistent grammar and style allow translators to work faster and produce more accurate results.

3. Say the same thing, the same way, everywhere you say it

Customers develop trust in your company when your content is consistent.
Reuse : Eliminate duplicated content and duplicated effort by adopting a reuse mindset. Write it once, review it once, approve it once, update it once, and then use it everywhere it is needed.

Global : Minimal amount of translation and maximum amount of exact or fuzzy matches significantly reduces translation cost. And, global customers also benefit from eliminating ambiguity from your content.

4. Reduce sentence length and complexity

Your Audience (whether HA, Regulators, HCPs or end consumers) brevity and simplicity. No one ever complained about a short, easy to read sentence.
Reuse : Short, clear sentences help create focused components. You can easily assemble short components into a longer work. Shorter, simple sentences are easier to understand.

Global : Short, clear sentences have more successful translation. They are also easier to understand for non-native speakers.

By following these 4 best practices, you can solve reuse problems and make your translations better, cheaper, and faster. Adapting a Structured content tool, can help automate these and gain significant efficiencies.