
Doug Stern has been a professional
writer and editor for nearly 30 years, earning several PR
and business communication awards, including first place
for Editorial Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Doug taught writing at the college level and has handled
just about every kind of writing assignment, including Web
sites, speeches, brochures, videos, print ads, press releases
and technical reports.
Doug led a popular national Webinar, “THE KILLER
BEs: Sharpening Your Business Development Writing," presented by the Boston-based Legal
Sales and Service Organization. Kate Daisley, Marketing Manager for ALM Research, sat in and later blogged that "Doug Stern provided very smart, common sense tips, and explanations, on how to better communicate effectively through writing...."
He has also published several recent articles on business writing and marketing, most from his editorial home, MarketingProfs.com...
- The 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing Professional Services Online. "Great article...," blogged Eight Black's Simon Chen.
- The KILLER BEs: Sharpening Your Business Development Writing. Featured by Larry Bodine, Esq., on LawMarketing Portal.
- The Myth of the Elevator Speech. Arborlaw's Carol Ruth Shepherd, Esq., wrote an interesting follow-up blog to this article.
- How to Make a Client-Satisfaction Survey Pay Off. This piece was highlighted by the Professional Photographers of America in its May 2007 Industry Insider.
- How to Get the Free Press You Want. Sharon Dotson, Bayou City Public Relations, Houston, wrote "Your advice is realistic and wise, especially when it comes to dealing with the media. Enjoyed every word."
- Wanamaker Was Right: Getting the Most Out of Your Firm's Print Ads
- Holiday Mailings: The What, When, and How of Cutting Through the Clutter
- Trade Show Tips for the Introvert. "I did a follow-up podcast interview to this on Interpretive Exhibits' 'Listening Lounge.'"
"I also free-lanced several feature articles and interview vignettes for a slick, downtown Louisville rah-rah publication produced by the city's alternative weekly, LOUISVILLE ECCENTRIC OBSERVER. Boom! Louisville hit the stands January 2007.
"Plus, I've been contributing to the Louisville Ad Federation's bi-monthly, Communique. Take a look at 'Guerrilla Marketing in Louisville' (October 2007), 'If It's Too Good To Be True: Ethics, Advertising and Marketing'(December 2007) and 'History Sells: Louisville's Oldest Companies Act Their Age' (February 2008)."
Here's a representative sample from Doug Stern's business-writing portfolio.
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Healthcare
- Eye Centers of Louisville,
flexible brochure. "Donald Bennett, M.D., hired me in about 1992 when he
was a couple years into his
ophthalmology
practice. I did a variety
of things to help him build his practice, including development
of an ID program and this collateral piece. John Lair shot it, Jeff Tull designed
it, and I planned, wrote and managed it."
- Muhlenberg
Community Hospital, Greenville, Ky., MRI direct-mail
postcard, 2006. "I didn't
pick or direct the art, but I like the rest of this piece…which
I wrote.
- Outlook, Spring 1993, Eye Centers of Louisville.
"This newsletter was part of series
of collateral pieces I did for Dr. Bennett."
Heritage and urban planning
- Bardstown
Road-Baxter Avenue Design Review Process: A Guide for Developers,
Business Owners & Citizens, January
1992, City of Louisville. "Elee
Bingham designed this, and Donny Weber illustrated. It
won an award from the Public Relations Society of American
and the International Association of Business Communicators.
I had a lot of fun planning, directing and writing it. Plus,
I have a lot of passion for the subject, so it mattered
a lot to me."
- Historic
Preservation Easement, 1984, Jefferson
County Government. "The easement program was the first of its kind
in Kentucky, and the brochure was a promotional piece. Its
companion——which I also planned and wrote——was
an 'owner's manual' complete with model easement agreements
which I helped draft."
- Jefferson County Kentucky:
Guide
to Selected Historic Sites, 1985. “I planned,
edited and managed this piece. A staffer from the National
Trust said something to the effect that this ‘...was
as good or better than anything from the AIA.’”
- Louisville
Downtown Development Plan, August
1989, Louisville Central Area.
"I have a gift for technical translations. I handled several assignments like this brochure
for various local and state planning agencies, including
transportation and airport officials."
- Tyler
Settlement Rural Historic District, June
1986, Jefferson County Government.
"This brochure was one of several pieces I did with
Jeff Tull after I came back to Louisville in 1983 and ran
the county's heritage program."
Legal
- Annual
Report: The Year in Review 2001, Stites
& Harbison. "I still don't know why this
didn't win an LMA award. Julie Breeding designed it, and
Quadrant Photography shot it. I planned, art directed and
managed the project…and wrote or edited all of the
copy. It's one of the best things I've ever done."
- Construction
Law Update, December 2002, Stites
Harbison. "These construction law pieces were
the first of what eventually became five quarterly newsletters
that I wrote, planned, edited, directed or managed while
I was with the firm between 1998 and 2005."
- Construction
Law Update, May 2002, Stites &
Harbison. "In addition to the construction law
service group, I put out newsletters for intellectual property
and entrepreneurial law, banking and real estate, litigation
and employment law."
- Innovation, August 2002, Stites & Harbison. "I was always pleased to hear when clients asked to
be featured on the covers of our newsletters. I worked hard
to make every print piece from the firm more about 'them'
and less about 'us.'"
- Report
To Clients, 2002, Stites & Harbison.
- The
Commercial Mortgage Loan Law Firm, Stites
& Harbison. "The firm's conduit-lending
group was one of the firm's most highly evolved when it
came to business development. They came to me originally
in about 2002 or 2003 wanting a piece to hand out at the
annual mortgage brokers conference in Florida, and this
brochure is what I came up with."
- What
our clients said about us: A report card from Stites & Harbison's October 2003 Client Satisfaction Survey. "This became one of the firm's most effective pitch-pieces."
Public policy
- Equalization
brochure, 1992, Jefferson Co., Ky.,
Property Valuation Administrator. “I wrote
this See-Spot-Run simple…and coupled it with media
relations and other actions designed to dampen the public’s
angst over a countywide property re-assessment.”
Real estate
- Skyword, June 2006, Museum Plaza. This was the first of two newsletters Doug Stern was hired to write for the $465 million development, slated for Louisville's riverfront and designed by New York City's Ramus Ella Architects.
- New
Vision, Spring 1997, Park DuValle. "Hope was riding high, and the Louisville housing authority
wanted a series of newsletters to leverage that message
with stakeholders. This was one of the first, which I planned,
art directed and wrote."
- Tax
Incentives for Historic Preservation, Historic
Landmarks Foundation of Indiana.
“I had lots of experience explaining the ITC when
I worked in Evansville. So, it was easy for me to give HLFI
copy that was clear, concise and to the point…involving
a pretty arcane subject.”
- "You're
Home" print ads, Park DuValle,
2006. "I came up with the
concepts and wrote the copy for this series of print ads.
They're targeted for the final phase of this mixed-income,
mixed-use development in West Louisville."
Doug is also currently working
on a short story (involving the original Declaration of Independence,
the Bill of Rights and Ft. Knox) which he's planning to turn
into a movie treatment. |