Many professionals who are polished and well-spoken in-person struggle to translate their communication skills into effective written messages. How do you know whether your written communication is effective or ineffective? If you frequently experience one of the following issues, you may want to further develop your written communication skills:
- Your emails are ignored (no response)
- Responses to your emails are incomplete (i.e. only 1 of your 3 questions is answered)
- When speaking live with email recipients, it’s clear they didn’t read your email
One challenge in getting our message across in writing is how we organize the information. Our readers often scan emails quickly (keeping in mind that people get on average about 120 emails/day) so we need to make it easy for them to digest the information.
Below are six approaches for organizing an effective business email, pulled from Business Writing for Results by Marjorie Brody:
- Order of importance. Start with the most important ideas and facts, or those that are the most time sensitive.
- Chronological. Organize your facts or events in the order in which they happened, or are expected to happen. Chronological order enables you to document events or establish timeframes.
- Maximum impact. Grab the reader’s attention by leading with the fact or idea that has the most impact.
- Compare and contrast. This type of organization is appropriate when you are writing to promote or persuade.
- Cause and effect. This approach is useful when you need to explain why something happened or inform your readers of changes.
- Problem and solution. First describe the problem and then the solution you recommend. (This approach can be persuasive when used to present specific problems facing the reader and how your solution will address them).
Does your team need to improve their written communication? Click the link to learn more about BRODY’s Business Writing for Results workshop.