Whether it’s crafting compelling reports, persuasive emails, or engaging website content, honing your writing skills will help you connect and communicate effectively in an increasingly digital and interconnected work environment.
Writing and communicating with the professional mindset is arguably one of the most important skill sets to help you advance your career.
Professional writing often demonstrates your thinking, your ability to develop strategies and plans, your level of effectiveness, and your professional brand.
Professional writing is how we communicate business information. It involves conveying important information to the reader using clear and concise language. It could be through reports, emails, memos, notices, proposals, presentations, or websites.
Professional communication differs from personal conversations, which are informal exchanges between individuals. The ability to craft professional messages is crucial for business success. So, being clear and concise is one of the most important elements of professional writing.
People don’t have a lot of time in the workplace today. Executives especially don’t have a lot of time. They’re very time constrained. So, if they see a long email, they may not read it. They just literally don’t have the time.
Let’s look at the essential aspects necessary for crafting effective professional communication. The purpose of the message is the most essential aspect of professional communication.
Your writing must reflect exactly what you want to convey. To identify the purpose of your message, start with some basic questions. Most importantly, ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve with your message. Why are you sending it? Are you informing, persuading, or making a request? Think about what you want the reader to do after they read your message. Based on your answers, your purpose could be to share information, make a request, or persuade the reader to take some action.
Sharing information might include explaining how things work, how to get tasks done, or how to solve problems. For instance, memos, user manuals, and product specifications provide directions. This type of writing also provides data to help make decisions like minutes of a meeting, reports, or financial statements. Alternatively, your purpose might be to make a request asking the reader for specific information. This occurs in daily business communication through emails, letters, direct messages, forms, or invoices seeking responses from colleagues or clients.
Another purpose could be persuasion, where you encourage the reader to make a decision or take action, such as buying a product or using a service. This type of writing is aimed at impressing the reader, highlighting the value of a particular product or service.
Think about, say, project proposals, sales pitches, marketing emails, advertisements, and press releases.
Having a clear purpose guides your language and how you’ll structure the message. A single, well-defined purpose enhances clarity and effectiveness, helping you achieve your goals seamlessly.
Once you know the purpose of your message, it’s important to consider the audience of the message.
In the course of your daily work, you’re likely to engage with colleagues from various disciplines.
Consider whether you’re addressing the message to a vice president or a team member.
Understanding your audience will help you gauge the appropriate level of communication and tailor your writing accordingly.
Depending on your audience’s background, knowledge level, and priorities, you can determine the tone, formality, and content of your written communication.
Apart from the purpose and audience, the tone of the message is another essential aspect of professional communication. Knowing when to use a conversational tone versus a professional tone in your writing is very important.
In technical documents, you might dive into complex terms and scientific jargon, but in everyday business communication, it’s perfectly fine to use simple words and even contractions.
When dealing with investors, a formal tone might be necessary, but when engaging with customers, keeping it conversational often works better. Always be respectful and polite.
Readers will be less receptive if your language doesn’t convey respect and professionalism. Use appropriate greetings, titles, and names in formal emails and letters. Be sensitive to cultural differences, and wherever it makes sense, use gender-neutral language. Be aware of any unconscious biases that might sneak into your writing.
Try to focus on the positive rather than the negative whenever possible. Being clear about your purpose and audience and using the right tone can increase efficiency and speed up decision-making. Think about your own communications. Do you consider your audience when writing a professional email? How do you adjust the tone of your message for your audience?
If you know why you’re writing and who you’re writing to, you can then move on to how you’ll write.
Focusing on your writing is crucial because it’s likely to affect the response you receive from your colleagues, managers, or customers.
To get the desired result from your audience, you need to recognize strategies for crafting effective and professional written communication. Studies indicate that our attention spans have dwindled over the years, now standing at just around nine seconds.
That’s why it’s a good idea to provide the most important information first. Put the key takeaways or summary of your message at the start. Whether you’re communicating via email, text, or in a collaboration space, it’s best to start with the “why” behind the message. While most messages are short, some require a messaging hierarchy where you put your most important information first and add supporting details later. State your purpose either in the subject line or the opening line of your communication. Using brief bullet points to support your main message can help decision-make research a conclusion quickly.
In business communication, it’s important to be formal and direct. Using the active voice makes the content more direct and easier to understand. Ensure that the information you provide is relevant, value-additive, and complete.
If your content is irrelevant to the audience or contains inaccurate facts, it undermines your message. Avoid slang and other language that might sound informal or offend the reader. Don’t use jargon, buzzwords, or acronyms. Your reader may be unfamiliar with these and lose interest in your content. Use “you” to address the reader, “I” to express your personal viewpoint, and “we” to refer to your company.
Given the overload of information we all experience, be clear and concise. This helps people to quickly understand and act upon your message.
- Cut unnecessary words and sentences that don’t support your main point.
- Avoid using too many prepositions.
For example, you could use the word viewpoint instead of point of view. Use action words wherever possible; for instance, instead of provided protection to, write protected. Before you send, review your message for clarity and concision.
Another key strategy for crafting your professional written communications is to use the appropriate tone. Although professional writing tends to be formal, it’s perfectly fine to tone it down for informal messages.
But when addressing someone in a position of authority or whom you don’t know well, it’s best to maintain a formal tone. Once you pick a tone, use it consistently throughout your document or message. Choose words that resonate with your audience and their interests.
For example, when drafting a press release or newsletter, you’ll likely opt for friendly language. For websites and presentations, use a conversational tone to create a dialogue with the audience. If your organization has a writing style guide, consult and follow it to ensure the right tone and vocabulary. And to the extent possible, keep the message short.
Research indicates that our brain’s processing is highest when reading short and simple content. When you keep your sentences short and simple, using familiar words, your readers don’t have to exert themselves to understand your meaning.
Try to get your point across in as few words as possible. Use short sentences, 25 words or fewer, and paragraphs with no more than 3 or 4 lines. Maintain one point of focus in each paragraph. Consider breaking long sentences into bullet points and using a readability tool to reduce the length and complexity of sentences. Think about business communications you’ve gotten in the past. How do you react when you get a long, rambling email that takes forever to get to the point?
How could you make such an email short and simple? What steps do you take to review and revise your own messages?
