Compliance teams are not the enemy. It might feel like they exist purely to ruin your fun, but in a strange teenager/parent dynamic, the compliance team is there to protect you, prevent you from getting into trouble, and steer you in the right direction.
For those working in tightly regulated sectors such as financial services and healthcare, it is possible to create content that satisfies guidelines without sacrificing impact. The key is to work with compliance rather than against them.
Learn the rules
The obvious but important one. Make sure your content team are familiar with the regulatory guidelines that govern your industry. This is no mean feat, especially as there may be more than one set of rules to follow alongside your own in-house style guide. Therefore, it’s not enough to simply email a document round and ask people to familiarise themselves with it. Discuss how the guidelines relate to your copy and have a plan in place to stay on top of updates.
Get into the right habits
Understanding what you can and can’t say, especially regarding claims, guarantees, or outcomes, will save time and prevent issues later. Avoid superlatives, and soften language such as ‘will’, ‘does’ and ‘all’ to alternatives like ‘can’, ‘may’ and ‘many’. Generalisations and other sweeping statements also need to go.
It can take a while to get into these habits, but once you do, you’ll be writing everything in this style, even when you don’t need to. Sometimes I have to stop myself from texting people with a paragraph-long disclaimer.
Involve compliance early
Compliance teams shouldn’t just appear at the final approval stage. Bringing them into the process early allows you to identify potential issues before they become major rewrites.
Sharing outlines, messaging frameworks, or early drafts can help align expectations and reduce back-and-forth later. It ensures your creative direction is realistic from the outset, wasting less time for everyone involved.
Build a relationship with them
You know what they say – keep your friends close and your enemies closer!
Just kidding – as with any departments that work alongside each other, building a strong working relationship makes collaboration smoother and more productive. A cup of tea and a smile can go a long way when you need a favour in the future!
Take time to understand their perspectives and priorities. A better understanding of what their role requires can turn what might feel like a hurdle into a valuable source of guidance and expertise.
Give them context
When you do come to submit your copy, make sure your compliance team have all the context they need to make the right judgements. This includes where it will appear, and if that’s not your own website, who the audience are. Is it a standalone piece or part of a wider project?
For example, if they’re unaware that you’re drafting some commentary for a journalist to use in a wider piece, they might question why some elements are missing. You may have deliberately not introduced the audience to your topic, as the author will have that covered. Or you might have been instructed to comment on the industry as a whole rather than how your company does things – but unless your compliance team know this, there’s a good chance they’ll question it.
Cite everything
Back up every claim and number you include. I can’t imagine how boring it gets for compliance teams to continually send work back that doesn’t have references, so make their jobs easier and link to your sources. Try to find the initial source where possible, not an article summarising that research.
Create a ‘cheat sheet’
Craft a ‘cheat sheet’ that outlines specific content pitfalls to avoid, and keep it readily available for use as a guide during the content review and approval process. Ensure everyone involved in content creation has access to this sheet, and update it regularly to maintain compliance. This just helps you avoid making the same mistakes and provides the team with successful alternative phrasing.
Getting compliance right doesn’t mean sacrificing creativity; it just means working within clear boundaries to produce content that is both effective and responsible. With the right approach, compliance becomes part of the process, not a barrier to it.