WRITING BUSINESS MESSAGES

Effective BusinessWriting

Purposeful ConciseAudience-Centered

Three-Step Writing Process

Step 1 Step 3Step 2

Planning Writing Completing

I. Planning the message

1. Define your purpose

2. Develop an audience profile

3. Adapt your message

1.Defining your purpose

• General purpose :

– To inform

– To persuade

• Specific purpose

– The exact goal to be accomplished

– E.g.. Placing an order, or convincing management about a given proposal.

2. Developing audience profile

• Identifying primary audience

• Determining audience size

• Audience composition

• Level of understanding

• Expectations and preferences

Audience characteristics

• Establish credibility

• Choice of preferred media

• Appropriate communication of required information.

Purpose

3. Adapt your message• 3.1 Adopting an audience centred approach.

– ‘YOU’ attitude instead of ‘I’.

We shipped your order today.

Your order will arrive on Thursday.

Dear Mr. Jones

I am happy to inform you that we have approved your loan.

Dear Mr. Jones,

Congratulations! Your loan has been approved

• 3.2 Feature Vs benefit approach

The printer prints 17 pages per minute

You can turn out one of your 100 page document in six minutes.

• 3.3 Emphasize the positive points

– ‘Focus on the silver lining not the clouds’

– Substitute mild terms

• Cheap economical

• Used cars resale cars

• High calorie high energy

The problem with thisdepartment is a failure tocontrol costs.

The performance can beimproved by tightening upcost controls

• 3.4 Use a Polite Tone

– Being courteous, showing consideration for the needs of audience.

• 3.5 Using a bias free language:

– Avoid gender bias

– INSTEAD OF USE

• Mankind Humanity

• Salesman Sales representatives

• Manpower Workforce

II. WRITING

1. Organise

• A message is well organised if all the information flows together in a coherent manner.

• Organising – Saves time

– Improves efficiency

– Helps audience understand and accept your message.

• To organise

– Define your main idea

– Structure your message

– Limit your scope

General purpose

• To inform

Specific purpose

• Teach customer service reps how to file insurance claims

Topic

• Insurance claims

Main idea

• Proper filing by reps saves the company time and money

• Main Point 1• Sub point a

• Sub point b

• Main Point 2• Sub point a

• Sub point b

OUTLINE

2. Composing :

– Use a tone that suits the situation

– Select appropriate words

– Create effective sentences and paragraphs

III. REVISING

• Evaluate the content, organisation, style and tone

• Review for readability– Proper vocabulary

– Right mix of short and long sentences

– Headings and subheadings

• Edit for clarity and conciseness