Whether you own or work for a big company or a small business, you are bound to uphold a professional image. Your company image is also affected by your business letters.
Your emails and proposals go to potential investors and potential clients and because of the importance of these documents, you should write as professionally as you can.
Remember that the more work you put in, the more benefit you get out. Whenever you have to write a business document, analyze, plan, and execute and do not release or send letters that aren’t proofread.
This may seem like a daunting task, but here are some best useful tips on how you can achieve this.
Grammatical and punctuation errors
Everyone makes mistakes because of our imperfections, but this is not an excuse for less-than-average work. After writing a business letter, read through it again or ask a colleague to proofread it for you.
This will help you realize errors you may not have seen while you were writing, or alternatively, you can use a comma checker to avoid punctuation errors. Remember that potential investors or clients will not have much confidence in your work if you put in an average effort when you write for them.
Writing without purpose
Having your target audience in mind when you write will help improve your business writing skills. Don’t write acronyms without explaining what they mean.
Try to understand what the audience’s questions would be and answer them before they ask them. Try to be as concise as possible and don’t make the document hard to scan through but don’t omit any crucial details.
Failing to make a good impression
Don’t have the mentality of just writing the letter and passing on the information but spend time on making your letter make a good strong impression. If your readers are not intrigued from the beginning, your document might not serve its purpose and may just be tossed away.
To avoid this, write an interesting introduction and make the reader see the importance of your letter. Don’t forget the conclusion as well. If your conclusion is good enough, it will leave a long-lasting effect on the reader.
Poor planning
Don’t be tempted to underestimate the power of planning and because of tight deadlines, you may be tempted to start writing instantly before planning your document carefully.
During your planning, consider these questions: Who is this document intended for? What information does this person expect to get from this document? How can I make sure the reader understands the context clearly?
After asking yourself those questions, you may want to write the answers down so you can refer to them while you write.
Appealing to the masses
Writing a business letter with a generalized audience can be a detriment. On the contrary, having a specific target audience and writing for it specifically will improve the impact your letter will have.
The reader will feel the significance he has and will be more prone to support your company. If you are unsure about your target audience, it will be helpful to do research about it during the planning process and then execute your letter on your findings.
Complicated jargon
Based on your target audience, use language that will be simple for them to understand and avoid using big words unnecessarily.
Simple understandable English written in the correct format, grammar, and free of any typos or slang will benefit you and the reader. Do not try to appease the audience by trying to flash your vocabulary to them.
Too much text
Your goal should be to make your document as easy to read as possible so you should space your lines and avoid writing lengthy sentences. Use visuals like graphs, charts, images, etc. if possible, and leave some white space so the reader can read the content without a struggle.
The appearance of your document is also just as important so you should use the correct font and choose the font size wisely. Sans Serif fonts make your document look better and make it easy to read.
Being Vague
Be specific and write the necessary statistics whenever it’s possible. Avoid using non-quantified sentences like “The Company made a lot of profit” but rather specify in detail the amount of money the company made. Write accurate statistics if you are unsure about them research them in other company documents or other trusted sites.
Conclusion
Think about the effect a business letter will have on the business and how your writing skills can bring in more business for the company. Also do not procrastinate when you receive the task of writing a business letter, report, or proposal. Start with it as soon as possible so that you can have enough time to prepare for your task and to double-check everything.
