Five Steps for Effective Business Writing

By ThinkAvenue Editor

When you're preparing to write for business, it's not only important to clearly get your point across, you also need to always remain focused on the most concise and effective way to communicate with clients, customers, and employees. From composing basic emails to announcing a new acquisition, follow these important tips and you'll be confident that your writing is clear, succinct and efficient.

Step 1: Have a Purpose
Before you take the plunge and start typing, figure out exactly what it is you want to communicate. Defining your purpose may be simple: you're writing a letter to new customers. Or, you're completing a project plan to introduce a new product. Once you realize your objective, and simplify it in your own mind, you're well on your way to finding the right words to express it to other people.

Step 2: Break it Down
If you think about writing an entire document, oftentimes, complete panic can strike. Where do you begin? What should you say? How long should your correspondence be? The best step you can take is to sketch out an outline. It doesn't have to be fancy, sometimes just a few bullet points is all you need to determine your main topics. Creating an outline forces you to organize your thoughts and identify your main focus. Outlining is also an excellent way to make longer projects more manageable. When working with an outline, you can easily break the project into pieces while staying organized.

Step 3: To Whom Are You Writing?
The tone and style of your writing greatly depends on whom you are addressing. You want to make certain that you are not too technical with what you are saying if your audience is new customers who may or may not realize all the benefits and intricacies of your product. If you're writing an announcement email to existing clients, however, you might choose a casual, friendly tone. If you are trying to establish yourself as an authority or expert on something, a formal writing style is more appropriate. The important thing to keep in mind is that there isn't one catchall way to effectively communicate, you need to keep your audience in mind while you're writing.

Step 4: Let It Flow
Even if you don't know the precise words you want to use, there's something to be said for simply starting to write. Once you've completed your outline, and you have a basic idea of what you want included, then it's just a matter of getting started. No, you may not write the strongest piece possible on the first attempt, but actually seeing words on the page is much more encouraging than staring at a blinking cursor.

Step 5: Draft and Redraft
Even if you're convinced you've written something worthy of a Pulitzer Prize on your first attempt, you are not finished. Resist the urge to turn your written work out into the world before proofreading and editing it. Make sure that everything you wrote makes sense, properly addresses your audience, covers all of the topics you wanted to include, and just plain sounds good. Read it out loud and see if you stumble on any of the sentences and then take the time to make them smoother. Your clients, employees and customers will all be glad that you did.


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