How to Write a Great Business Letter

Emails are by far the most common form of written business communication and are becoming shorter and more abrupt.  Text-speak is slowly but surely making its way into the business lexicon (OMG! LOL … :).  People are becoming accustomed to communicating in bursts of 140 characters or less. 

It seems like the ability to craft a well-written, well-formatted, convincing and persuasive business letter is a dying art.  However, at some point in your business life you’re probably going to have to write an important business letter: to get a sales appointment with a prospective customer, to close a sales opportunity, to be considered for a promotion, or to engage someone in creating a strategic partnership.

Here are some points to keep in mind when you’re faced with the daunting task of writing a great business letter:

• Understand the Purpose:  Before you even open up your favourite word processor you must understand what the purpose of the letter is – if you don’t then the letter will lack focus and effectiveness and you could lose credibility with your reader.
• Focus on One (and Only One!) Point:  Your letter will be more effective if you only focus on one key point.  Every word of the letter should support your key point.  This could be difficult if you feel that you have several things that the reader will be interested in, but isolate the most important point and focus on it.

• Make Your Letter About Them:  It makes little difference to them if your company has over 1,000 employees worldwide, offices in nine countries and has been in business for over 50 years.  None of this helps them at all.  If you want them to read past the first few lines then you’ve got to quickly get to the point where it’s all about them.
• Focus on Value:  Quickly establish what value they could get by dealing with you.  In the business world the value that most people are looking for is financial: they want to either increase their revenues or decrease their costs.  Many people focus on features – like how their product is so much faster or smaller or newer than the competition’s – but if you don’t emphasize the value that translates into (… our machine works 20% faster and can reduce your labour costs by the same amount …) then your reader won’t be motivated to engage with you.  There are other values that you could deliver, such as an emotional value, a social value or an environmental value but in the harsh world of business (and please excuse the pun) you’ll get more bang for your buck by focusing on the financial value.

• Use a Professional Tone & Format:  The only acceptable tone for a professional business letter is a formal one.  Refrain from using abbreviations and use a professional format (click this link for an example and check out our blog post on writing tone).  Typically you would print, sign and mail the letter but it’s becoming more common to send the letter electronically as a PDF or other non-editable document.
• Tell the Reader What You Want Them To Do Next:  In the final portion of the letter, set up what you want to happen next.  This could be a call-to-action to get them to do something (“Call us now …” or “Visit our website …”) but it could also be something less actionable (“I will call you next week to discuss this further …”).  Either way, the letter is only one part of a longer process and you should finish your letter with what the next steps in the process are.

Conclusion

If you’re in the business world you’re going to need to write a great business letter sooner or later.  If you truly understand what your reason for writing the letter is before you start, use every word in the letter to support that key point, focus on the value that the reader will get by acting on the letter and finishing with a direct and definitive path for moving forward, then you’re on the right path to crafting a professional, engaging and persuasive letter that’s got a good chance of achieving your objectives.

Other Blog Posts

If you liked this blog post, here are some other blog posts that you might also like:

• Don’t End Up Like Killface: 5 Grammatical Errors to Avoid
• The Importance of Tone in Business Writing
• Six Great Ways to Dissolve Your Writer’s Block

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Amanda Hartley, Managing Partner

Fering Communications Inc.

Website: www.feringcommunications.com
Email: amanda.hartley@feringcommunications.com