BAM! POW! 8 ways Mayo Clinic’s magazine scored a knockout

People. Lists. Shorter stories. Even comic-book-style illustrations. Mayo’s internal publication won back readers by competing with Glamour and Sports Illustrated.

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When illustrating an internal magazine story on a potentially dry topic, Mayo Clinic used comic book-style pictures.

“NEWS FLASH!” the text on one illustration read. “UNBELIEVABLE DISCOVERIES! REGENERATIVE MEDICINE!”

If the approach looks daring for a conservative health care organization, it wasn’t always like that at the institution, based in Rochester, Minn. Mayo public affairs specialist Jessie Fenske says Mayo would once have shied away from such a flashy (and readable) approach.

“They would have said, ‘No way. You’re demeaning us. You’re going to make it look like this isn’t serious work,'” she says in a lecture titled “You’re not their first priority: How to make your employee publication a must-read.”

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