Effective business communication letters Writing

Effective business writing is as important as oral communication

Know Your Audience

A detailed step-by-step document for a project plan will be written differently from a sales letter mailed to a list of prospects. The first key to successful business writing is to know your audience. This not only affects the actual words you will use, but also the tone of what you write. The tone of a detailed plan will be concise, logical, and to-the-point. A sales letter will be more emotional in tone and more persuasive.

Formats

Word processing and spreadsheet software has made many writing formats available to business writers. The choice of format is important and can help you communicate your message better. The project plan will most likely be communicated, at least in part, by the use of spreadsheets, while a sales letter is usually no longer than a page and placed on company letterhead.

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Composition and Style

When you actually start writing, there are composition and style considerations that help the process. Creating an outline-especially useful if you are writing a long document-helps break your task up into manageable pieces of information that are ultimately more readable by your audience. Use simple language that will be understandable to all who read your piece. Make sure your main theme is not lost in your rhetoric. Everything you write should support the main theme so your message does not get lost.

Reader Friendly Documents

Short paragraphs communicate better than longer ones and headers need to grab your reader's attention. Adding graphs and charts, again easy with today's software, breaks up text and adds to understanding.

Watch Your Grammar

Nothing looks more unprofessional than a document with grammatical mistakes and spelling errors. Even with spelling and grammar checks in today's software programs, it is easy to have mistakes in a document that detract from the document's message. Make sure you read through what you have written from the perspective of your reader and make sure it is letter perfect. Check for ambiguities as well. Clear, direct language helps ensure that your message will be understood.