Creating Business Communications That Beg To Be Read

In this fast paced world, your audience (customer, client, other business, employees) wants a message tailored to their needs – the “what’s in it for me?” principle. Therefore, your marketing and sales materials must clearly communicate what you have to offer. They have to convince the reader that your product or service provides a benefit. And those materials must motivate them to take some form of action.

To complicate matters even further, your communication vehicle can be:
> Old-fashioned print
> Modern electronic computer based e-mail or website content
> Or high tech multimedia presentations/brochures

Each medium requires a different approach, format, and style of writing!

Communication is the life blood of your business
Since you invested time and money in creating your communications you cannot afford for your message to be tossed aside and ignored. Poor writing and unstructured content will bury that message, thus failing to obtain leads, your original objective. In the long range, potential sales will be lost, and your revenues won’t increase. The strength of your market position might also be jeopardized. So how do you, in a world of short attention spans and information overload, make sure your message is read?

Your communications must go “beyond words”!
It’s not just what you say but how you say it! Your communications must be built on a firm foundation. They have to be understandable, readable, and addressed to the needs of your audience.
How do you create communications that go beyond words and motivate the reader to action?

You have to:
1. Tightly target your audience, focusing in on exactly who would benefit from reading your message.
2. Analyze the purpose of your message and pair it to the needs of that audience.
3. Make sure your content is of high quality. Communications material is next to useless if the content is difficult to read, understand, use, or remember.
4. You can achieve the previous goal of clarity by structuring the writing to improve performance and comprehension.
5. And by organizing your content into well defined modular units.
6. Finally, you must select the most effective way to present the information.

The heart of good communications is the KIS principle: Keep it Simple. If you develop and write a clear and targeted message, format it appropriately for the medium, and stay away from distracting graphics, colors, etc. your communications will be read and acted upon.

Business communications that engage the audience and motivate to action don’t just happen. Contact me to learn how YOUR communication materials can go “Beyond Words™” and generate the results you desire. Limited time “Start the year ‘write’ checkup” offer: Now through January 30, 2008 receive a free 1 hour consultation on the effectiveness of your promotional materials. I will critique the copy and format, check for clarity and provide suggestions for improvements. To take advantage of this great offer, e-mail me now Beyond-Words@worldnet.att.net
© 2007 Leona M Seufert