Writing business letters is a real art if you want to achieve your goals. If you think, “they can write my college essay here and deal with a simple business letter as well,” you are not wrong. But to write a competent paper, you need to know a whole range of requirements, rules, and secrets. Rules for writing… Read More »

Writing business letters is a real art if you want to achieve your goals. If you think, “they can write my college essay here and deal with a simple business letter as well,” you are not wrong. But to write a competent paper, you need to know a whole range of requirements, rules, and secrets.

Rules for writing a business letter

A business letter should be composed competently, without spelling, punctuation, and stylistic errors. The presence of obvious and crude mistakes repulses the recipient, gives the impression of shortsightedness, illiteracy. The likelihood of getting a response after receiving such texts drops dramatically.

Before you compose a business letter, you need to decide on its type and determine the purpose of your communication. Break the text into paragraphs, and it will facilitate the perception of the information presented.

The basic rules of business writing include:

  • reliability of the information in the content;
  • completeness of the content;
  • brevity;
  • absence of rudeness and neutral tone;
  • absence of errors;
  • the use of slang and colloquialisms is unacceptable;
  • abbreviations are undesirable;
  • no emotional evaluation (only facts).

One letter must contain one subject and one purpose. Multiple topics are acceptable only if they are interrelated. Otherwise, it is better to send several letters.

The structure of a business letter

  • introductory part (reason and purpose for writing);
  • the main part ( solutions, suggestions, essence, recommendations);
  • the final part (request, proposal, etc., arising from the main part);
  • politeness formula (phrases “with respect”, “hoping for long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation”, “hoping for understanding”, etc.)
  • reference to attachments in the letter (if any);
  • contact information and title of the sender.

What is the purpose of a business email?

Before you write the first word, you need to understand what outcome you expect from the recipient. When you know why you want the email, it will be much easier to write it.

When you have difficulty writing a letter, or when it comes out incoherent, it usually means that you don’t really know what you want from the recipient. So be clear about what you want before you start writing.

Every email should have the same purpose. It should require a single action from the recipient. If the email requires more action, you should break it up into several different emails.

Why? Because if you ask to do several things in one email and some of it is delayed, it will delay the whole response. It also reduces accountability. On the other hand, if a letter requires only one action, it means that what can be done will be done.

Business letter style

Try to state the essence of the case in short, simple sentences. Do not overload the text with adjectives and focus on verbs. Do not use highly specialized and obscure terms that the reader may not understand. This will cause rejection from the recipient of the letter. It is worth using simple words.

The business style of writing excludes low-informative and “blurry” texts and includes as many specifics and facts as possible. Avoid having illogical and incoherent paragraphs. Each paragraph should carry one definite thought.

How to write a letter that gets answered?

Informative headlines

A business letter should have a headline that briefly and conspicuously reveals the content of the text. Such a brief summary makes it much easier for the recipient to process and sort the letters. Imagine the number of emails a person receives every day. Try to make your headline stand out from the rest and be clear to the recipient.

Personalization

Letters written to find business partners and offer products or services are often mass-mailed to recipients about whom they haven’t the slightest idea. You have a choice: take a base of 1000 contacts and send them a mass mailing and get a 1% response, or take 100 contacts and write them a warmer and more personalized letter. The probability of conversion, in this case, will always be higher. With a variety of social networks and accessibility of information, it is not a great challenge to find something about a person you want to contact.

Clarity and concreteness

Business letters written with “blurry” text make a very bad impression. It is a style that includes a lot of verbal garbage and makes it difficult to perceive the essence of the message. Try to edit your text and delete all the unnecessary words and phrases. You will be amazed by how few words you need to express your idea.

No directivity

When writing a business letter, you should not use directive instructions and tell people what to do. With such phrases, you psychologically set people against yourself.

If you remember that there is a real person on the other side of every email, it will help you improve the quality of your business letters. Try to learn to look at things through the eyes of the recipient.


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Updated On 19 Aug 2021 5:55 AM GMT
Mayank Shekhar

Mayank Shekhar

Mayank is an alumnus of the prestigious Faculty of Law, Delhi University. Under his leadership, Legal Bites has been researching and developing resources through blogging, educational resources, competitions, and seminars.

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