Five Tips To Improve Your Business Writing

In a fast-paced world of smart phones, tablets, and e-readers, communicating to customers and stakeholders is both more complex and more challenging than ever. With a higher quantity of words exchanged from day to day, the quality of those words is more and more important to employees and owners. Here are five tips for improving the effectiveness of your business communications.

1. Keep it simple. It's an age-old rule that cuts across many industries, but it applies to writing as much as anything else. Sometimes we are tempted to express how much we know by using big words and complicated sentences. But your customer is interested in what you offer as a business owner or manager, not who you are as a big word user. Give them what they want. Keep it simple.
2. Keep it relevant. When you write for a customer, you need to strike a balance between too much and too little information. If you offer too little, you risk confusing your reader, or letting your reader read unintended content into your message. If you offer too much, you risk losing your reader's interest. You're selling your content to your customers; keep them wanting more while giving them what they need.
3. Think about it. Often, we “write” by typing a final copy. Write out your purpose first, and have a structure in mind before you start. You might even sketch a structure that will guide your sentences or paragraphs. Remember that the crystal clarity of the thoughts in your head  does not always transfer so easily to others'. If you think through what you want to say, step by step, what you write will be clearer, and your audience will appreciate its clarity.
4. Proofread. If you rely only on spellcheck, there's a good chance that you'll still have errors in your writing. It's best to read your whole document carefully before you send it out, and better yet, read it out loud if you have time. Doing so gives you a better sense of how it will sound to your reader, and often reveals surprisingly simple errors.
5. Get a second opinion. Especially if you're writing something like a press-release, or an email to a large group of customers, have at least one colleague read it and comment on it first. Better still, give that colleague your outline or preliminary thoughts (as mentioned in point 3 above) and make sure that all of your points come across clearly.

Like any skill, writing improves with practice. The tips above are meant to be guides for that practice, but like any guide, it is incomplete. Really good writers tune their ears to cadence, grammar, sentence structures, pacing, and so forth. With enough practice, and attentive reading, you'll be able to do the same. For me, one rule trumps all others: write like you have something to say, not like you have something to prove. Your customers will know the difference, and if you're not telling them like it is, they won't buy it.