Captivate audiences with clear, compelling copy and storytelling!
Would you like to quickly improve your writing skills? Are you interested in crafting irresistible content that hooks audiences—and search engines? Are you looking for smarter ways to cut through the clutter so that your campaigns capture more eyeballs and results?
Good news: You’ll discover timeless formulas and new techniques to win the battle for attention with stirring stories, concise copy and winning content strategies when you join us for Ragan’s annual Writing & Content Strategy Conference with writing and content experts from United Parcel Service, TD Bank, Syntax, Cleveland Clinic, Federal Reserve Bank, The Pharmaceutical Strategies Group, Communicate4Impact, Jed Foundation, Ragan Consulting Group, Porter Novelli, Jacobs, Southern Poverty Law Center, Forbes, Tipalti, Citrix, Xero and the City of Fort Lauderdale.
NOTE: This Dec. 8 virtual conference includes a pre-conference workshop the day before that covers inclusive writing strategies—and concludes with an interactive workshop experience. As an attendee, you can purchase an all-access pass to the entire two-day conference—or single-day access for each separate event.
Top 16 things you’ll learn at this conference:
- Writing like a Journalist: Powerful principles to supercharge any writing project, from crafting magnetic headlines to producing buzzworthy soundbites
- Copy That Fizzles Sizzles: Secrets of clear, concise, correct and more colorful copy
- Editing Cheat Sheet: A checklist to fine-tune and fact check copy fast
- Inclusive Language for DE&I: Phrases and terms to add to your company’s lexicon
- DE&I beyond Messaging: How communications can take a leadership role in DE&I
- DE&I Inclusive Media Statement Workshop: How to craft an inclusive social media statement—with analysis and input from our expert guests
- Content Strategy Framework: Building a funnel that converts—concept to close
- 5 Habits of Successful Content Marketers: How to author, assess and amplify content
- SEO for Creatives: Tips to optimize copy and content for greater reach
- Secrets of Sticky Content by Channel: Ideas for creating sticky blog and social media posts, emails, newsletters and landing page copy—with limited resources
- Scaling Content Guide: Techniques to keep up with the relentless pace of content
- 5 Cs of Social Media Copywriting: What drives shares on social (yes, comedy works!)
- Persuasive Messaging: How to draft unifying and uplifting messages around today’s most divisive social and political issues
- The Neuroscience of Stories: How to hook audiences from your first sentence
- Storytelling Hacks: New ways to transform boring topics into blockbusters
- Creativity Lessons from a Poet: How to harness your artistic side and bring your best to boring assignments
Weak writing can kill your copy, campaign or career.
Join to punch up your writing with power-packed hacks that journalists and $100-hour copywriters keep secret, including proven principles to…
Move audiences • Craft copy that converts • Supercharge social media • Sharpen storytelling • Master inclusive writing for DEI • Write with confidence • Improve SEO • Increase traffic • Drive ROI • Pen punchy posts and powerful press releases
Plus, all attendees receive:
- Access to a private LinkedIn group for attendees only
- All slides and presentations from speakers
- Connections to our esteemed speakers
YOU’LL ALSO RECEIVE THESE EXCLUSIVE BONUS MATERIALS:
- The Clear and Concise Technical Writing Guide
- Strunk & White’s Timeless Secrets for Rocket-Powered Writing
- Why and How to Create an In-House Style Guide
- Bias-Free Writing: What’s Preferred and What’s Problematic
- The Art of Storytelling (a Practical Guide)
- The Hero’s Journey Storytelling Framework (and Its Uses)
- How to Find and Tell Great Stories within Your Organization
- Inclusive Language: A Progressive Writing Guide
- Writers’ DEI Checklist: What an Inclusive Language Toolkit Should Include
- The Ragan Consulting Group Diversity Guide
- The Diversity Style Guide (Access to over 700 Terms and Phrases)
AGENDA
This conference is your ultimate guide for penning powerful, inclusive copy…faster! Join for the formulas, tricks and tips you need to quickly elevate your writing skills and rev up readership.
Your purpose and value communications will only resonate if it’s written with an authentic perspective. That’s why creating an inclusive culture starts with including internal stakeholders in crafting messaging that reflects their experiences—and empowering them to share it. Join to see how others have transformed their internal communications copy, campaigns and channels to be more inclusive so their messaging resonates with every employee equally. You’ll learn:
- Authenticity: How to write about the shared perspectives and concerns of your diverse workforce when crafting all employee communications
- Accessibility: Factors that impact how employees engage with internal messaging and how to evaluate the accessibility of your internal communications
- A to Z Guide: How to create an inclusive language style guide—plus the inclusive words and phrases that make all employees feel included (and those that don’t)
- Allyship: How to build a content team that mirrors your audience’s diversity
- Alignment: Best ways for leadership to write and communicate from a perspective that cascades DE&I, encourages employee engagement and creates channels for conversation
As conversations around racial inequity escalated in 2020, newsrooms faced “a reckoning over objectivity” calling into question who was reporting the news and whose stories were getting told. PR pros hoping to tell stories that resonate with diverse audiences are now facing a similar challenge. In this session, you’ll hear how to strengthen your external communications strategy, stories and syntax to better reflect and engage a more diverse public and press. You’ll learn:
- New Media Landscape: Equity changes reshaping newsrooms from the L.A. Times
to The Washington Post—and what it means for your outreach - Diversity Do’s and Don’ts: Smart, authentic ways to write about diversity in your external communications without tokenizing (or worse)
- Crafting Inclusive Pitches: How to customize pitches that recognize the work, perspectives and backgrounds of diverse journalists and sources
- Beyond Soundbites: How to draft a key message platform with inclusive language
for your SMEs, sources and spokespeople - Inclusive language tips for writing about race, gender identity and disability that follow AP best practices
“Tell your story. Tell the truth. And tell it well.” Nowhere does this maxim apply more than when sharing your diversity story on social media. After all, reputations can be solidified or broken at the speed of a tweet. Yet, a strong social media inclusion statement, for example, can help amplify your diversity story and ensure your social media isn’t tone deaf or worse. Join to ensure you’re authentically and appropriately advancing DE&I on social media. You’ll discover:
- Workshop Breakout: Come prepared to update or craft an inclusive social media statement
- How to transform social media campaigns so they’re more inclusive and accessible
(incl. alt text descriptions, video captions, emojis and more) - Channel-by-channel copy guide: How to change your verbiage to include and engage audiences in their preferred style across different social platforms
- When (and how) to pen and post responses to national crises about race, gender or identity—and when to put a pin in it
- Strategies for composing messages that amplify the work of diverse partner organizations that align with your values
Compelling writing is the No. 1 skill execs seek in communication hiring and promotions—yet it’s also the hardest to find. In this session, you’ll discover how to boost your writing chops with proven newsroom tenets and tricks to elevate everything you pen—from press releases and social media posts to newsletters, speeches and more. You’ll learn how to:
- Apply news value principles to hook internal and external readers
(e.g., timeliness, impact, oddity, relevance, conflict and more) - Get the big stuff right: headlines, teasers and leads
- Add color, context and detail to your stories
- Use visual verbs to give your writing more punch
- Edit like a pro and avoid embarrassing mistakes that kill credibility
(hint: that includes eliminating jargon and corporate speak!)
Producing a steady stream of copy and content can be exhausting. So how do you keep up and deliver at a higher level without burning out or missing a deadline? Answer: Throw out the traditional rules of content marketing and spend more time focused on quality. Hear how it’s done firsthand from two leading content strategists. In this session, you’ll learn:
- Solution 1: Maximize the 80/20 rule – Spend less time on content creation and more
on quality of distribution to connect more effectively with your audiences - Solution 2: Do less, God bless – Elevate your brand with a smarter content strategy that won’t turn you into a content pump
- Solution 3: Solve “Orphan Annie Syndrome” – Build campaigns around marquis content
- Solution 4: The ripple effect – Increase ROI by white labeling for customer journeys and engaging influential leaders
- Bonus: How to write faster to streamline content creation (hint: write it like you say it)
What do successful content marketers know that others don’t? What are their secrets of crafting copy that captivates and converts? Answer: They harness data to pinpoint hot buttons and compel interest—whether via blog posts, whitepapers or even e-books. Join to hear how to plan and pen campaigns that attract, engage and retain audiences. You’ll learn:
- Habit 1: Start with numbers—assigning your copy a business goal
- Habit 2: Don’t go it alone—building an integrated content team
- Habit 3: Develop stories in five stages—from brainstorming to deadline
- Habit 4: Supercharge SEO—quick optimization tips for creatives
- Habit 5: Audit, assess and rewrite content continually
The Cleveland Clinic has built a blog that drives over 13 million sessions per month—and feeds an amazing wealth of content across its social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat. Join to hear how its content team fills the funnel with clear, colorful, colloquial, concise and comedic copy. You’ll learn:
- Elements to include in your social media style guide (and why it matters)
- How to attract and keep eyeballs: Secrets of snappy headlines, listicles and fun posts
- Quick tips for writing sharable infographics and interactive content for social media
- The 5 Cs at Work: Examples of social media posts that are clear, colorful, colloquial, concise and comedic —and how to emulate them on your own channels
- Writing for LOLs: Ideas for writing for social media visuals—from social cards to funny captions that blend words (like this Pinterest post: “Does drinking cause hanxiety?”)
Storytelling may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the Federal Reserve System. But the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, one of 12 Reserve Banks across the country, has a robust storytelling culture to make “humdrum” topics come alive and move the hearts and minds of the real people it serves. Join to hear how writing and storytelling works at the Cleveland Fed. You’ll learn:
- The magic of “make it human” and “make it matter”—how to transform your copywriting mindset from writing words to “engineering experiences”
- Storytelling tricks and techniques every communicator can use:
- Finding good stories with thoughtful questions during interviews
- Extracting sensory details and weaving them into copy
- Breaking chronological order and traditional sequencing
- Finding and incorporating “conflict” into any corporate story or project
- Plot diagrams for communicators: “Origin Story” and “Data+People+Emotion” story templates—and how to emulate them in your work
Storytelling may be the most critical competitive advantage for you company, career and content. It connects us as people—and companies with our employees, customers and audiences. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy—especially when you’re on deadline. Here’s your cheat sheet to help speed up and supercharge your storytelling. You’ll learn:
- The neuroscience behind storytelling’s amazing power
- How to simplify your messaging to break through content pollution
- The one StoryHack you need to quickly take the complexity out of your storytelling and start creating better content faster
- Inspiring examples: A crash course in the “And But Therefore” framework
- Bonus: Use cases from Oprah, LeBron James, and the producers of “The Book of Mormon.”
Everybody is creative, but not everybody knows it. Close out the day’s intensive writing training with a refreshing, inspiring look at how to unleash your inner creator, unlock your imagination and take your writing to the next level. You’ll experience what poetry teaches us about persuasion and how to translate that to your next assignment. You’ll learn:
- Step 1: Open Heart – Breaking limiting modalities of thinking to unearth truths
that translate to more emotive writing (it can be scary—but we’ll do it together) - Step 2: Open Mind – Brainstorming solo or in team settings to loosen up,
access your creativity and get to the best ideas faster - Step 3: Visual Thinking – Painting pictures with words to ignite imagination
- Step 4: Finding Story – Stepping back from any writing project to find dramatic throughlines that move audiences
- Step 5: The Critic – How to benefit from self-testing, critique and feedback
- Bonus Case Study: Lessons in turning (boring) research into riveting stories
We’ll share the top tactics and strategies from the virtual conference as you prepare to implement these ideas for your organization.
If you are interested in submitting a speaker proposal, please contact Amanda Jorgensen at AmandaJ@ragan.com
| Early Bird Rates (until 11/19/21) |
Regular Rates | |
|---|---|---|
| Registration - Conference | $699 | $799 |
| Registration - All-Access Pass | $899 | $999 |
| Ragan Insider Registration - Conference | $599 | $699 |
| Ragan Insider Registration - All-Access Pass | $799 | $899 |
| Nonprofit/Gov/Edu Registration - Conference |
$549 | $649 |
| Nonprofit/Gov/Edu Registration - All-Access Pass |
$749 | $849 |
Purchase the All-Access Pass to attend the conference and the Pre-Conference Workshop.
Ragan Insider Members receive $100 off the current registration price. If you aren’t a member, you can become one during the registration process! Members receive discounts to Ragan conferences, workshops and webinars, along with access to premium site content.
Phone registrations and group pricing: For group orders please contact our customer service team at 800-878-5331 or cservice@ragan.com
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
You should attend if you spend at least a quarter of your time in any of these areas:
Writing • Editing • Content Strategy • Storytelling • Brand Journalism • Internal Communications • Executive Communications • Employee Engagement• Social Media • Public Relations • Digital Marketing • Content Marketing • Community Management • Crisis Communications • Corporate Communications • Strategic Communications • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Communications
Register now for the entire two-day conference
Top reasons to attend this virtual conference
- You’ll learn from and interact with the top writing, editing, content strategy, brand storytelling and DE&I communications professionals.
- You'll get essential takeaways you can apply right away.
- You'll be able to watch from anywhere.
- You'll receive all presentation slides and handouts.
- You'll get access to the on-demand recording for 12 months.
Register now for ONLY the pre-conference workshop
Thank you to our current sponsors and partners
Join us as an event sponsor and meet your target audience, showcase your products, present thought leadership, generate leads and boost your brand.
Here are a few examples of opportunities we offer:
- Exhibitor booths
- Speaking sessions on our main agenda
- Lightning talks on our main agenda
- Pre-conference workshop sessions
- Bonus breakfast sessions
- Networking lunches
- Private networking dinners
- Cocktail receptions
- One-on-one meetings
- Networking passes
- Marketing collateral and on-site branding
- Ragan and PR Daily Awards sponsorship
For more information on opportunities available at this specific event, reach out to hannahl@ragan.com.
Ragan events are educational, inspirational and fun!
Our sponsors are an important part of the success of each event.
Registration
For questions related to event registrations, please contact:
Shallon Blackburn
Customer Service & Sales Manager
ShallonB@ragan.com
Sponsorship
If you’re interested in sponsoring this event, please contact:
Hannah Lavelle
Sales & Client Relations Manager
HannahL@ragan.com
Program
For information on programming and speakers please contact:
Amanda Jorgensen
Manager of Strategic Programming
amandaj@ragan.com
PRESENTED BY:
