Marketing writing guidelines: A cheat sheet

When writing on behalf of Anaplan, always keep these “three Cs” of effective copy in mind:  

• Concise: Keep text minimal and digestible. Shorten paragraphs. Break things up with bullets.   
• Clean: Ensure copy is free of errors and sloppy formatting. Avoid redundancies. Always use a proofreader. 
• Consistent: Maintain uniform formatting. Align to the style rules documented here. Adhere to our brand voice guidelines.​ 

Correct punctuation ensures clarity and professionalism. Here are some of our most commonly occurring punctuation rules: 

Punctuation to avoid:  

• Ampersands (&): Spell out “and” for ADA compliance and consistency. 
• Semicolons (;): Use two separate sentences instead to avoid misuse. 
• Exclamation points (!): Use them sparingly to maintain a professional tone. 
• Ellipses (…): Avoid overusing and do not use in headers. 
• Straight quotes (") and apostrophes (') — please make them curly: 
  • Wrong: "That's a 'magic' shoe."  
  • Right: “That’s a ‘magic’ shoe.”  

​For more details, review our punctuation rules page. 

Use sentence case for all headers including titles, subtitles, subject lines, and most CTAs. 

• Sentence case is exactly what it sounds like, formatted like a sentence with just the initial word capitalized versus title case where the first letter of most words is capitalized.  
• Do not include periods unless the header has multiple independent clauses or if it’s a longer, descriptive subhead such as those on our web pages. 
• Never use a title case header/title (even for event sessions or webinars) unless it’s the official title of a third-party asset, such as an analyst report. 
• ​Note: the first letter following a colon in a header should be capitalized. 

When in doubt, don’t capitalize any word unless it’s starting a sentence, a proper noun, or an officially recognized and documented Anaplan product name, service, or program offering.​ 

• Don’t capitalize line-of-business functions (e.g., “finance”), industries (e.g., “consumer products”), or business use cases (e.g., “revenue growth management”). 
• Do not capitalize words like “platform” or “application,” even when used alongside an official product name (e.g., “Sales Forecasting application”) 
• Abbreviated terms should generally be spelled out in lowercase upon first use, as in “integrated business planning (IBP).” 
• Don’t capitalize job titles in body copy unless formatted as part of the person’s name: 
  • Correct: Chief Marketing Officer Jim Freeze 
  • Correct: Jim Freeze, chief marketing officer of Anaplan 
  • Incorrect: Jim Freeze, Chief Marketing Officer of Anaplan (unless written outside of body copy, such as a pull quote) 

For more details, review our capitalization rules page.  

Default to American English, especially for web copy (e.g., spell “optimize” with a “z” please). Localized exceptions include: 

• Single-region, direct-to-customer material  
• Emails to regional prospects 
• Event booth copy 

Spell out numbers one through nine, but use numerals 1–9 in titles and headers. 

Defer to Merriam-Webster when unsure of spelling (e.g., always hyphenate “decision-making”). 

When writing on behalf of Anaplan, you are expected to uphold our brand standards. Choose every word carefully. Avoid slang and potentially offensive or confusing language.   

For brand consistency, there are specifc phrases we encourage and others we reject to avoid confusion and misrepresentation: