There’s no mystery to creating effective business communications. Common sense tells us that careful organization, the arrangement of words, pictures, and other components, is our main goal. To help you improve the effectiveness of your business documents, keep in mind the following list of suggestions, or building blocks, as you develop your own business communications.

Direct the Reader into Your Document.

Your document’s composition, otherwise known as layout in the publishing world, should not call attention to itself. It should only serve as a frame within which the various elements are arranged. The trick is to organize the elements so that there is an unmistakable entry point, a single dominant element like a feature photograph or a strong headline. From there, the reader is guided through the material in a logical sequence of subordinate elements, like body text, inset photographs, or smaller graphic components.

Graphics Should Appeal to the Reader

Try to graphically visualize and dramatize your topic or proposition. Take into account the job description of your target audience or interest group. This should dictate the type of scene you portray. Design engineers work with drawings. Construction engineers like to see products at work. Chemical engineers are comfortable with flow charts. Managers relate to pictures of people. Keep this in mind when you consider which images to display.

Reflect Your Company’s Character

A company’s online and print communications represents the best opportunity to portray it’s personality. A confusing sales proposition indicates a confused management. Advertisements that brag and boast suggest your company is more interested in itself than the customer. A dull looking brochure or Web site raises the possibility that your company offers nothing to get excited about, or is behind the times. Try to reflect your company’s true character in every document you produce.

Make Documents Easy to Read

This principle should seem obvious, but the fact remains that typography is the least understood communications element. The Web and the business press are jammed with advertisements and other documents in which the most essential part of the message (the text type) appears in type too small to be easily read, or is printed over part of a photograph or illustration. Text type should never be smaller than 9-point in size. It should appear black against white, or at least a very light contrasting color. It should stand clear of interference from any other part of the document. Keep your column widths (in printed matter) no wider than one-half the width of the document.

Provide Visual Magnetism

Today, because there’s so much information available, only a small number of documents in any medium (Web, business press, direct mail, etc.) will capture the attention of any one reader. Some will be passed-by because the subject matter is of no interest. But others, even though they may have something to offer, fail to stop the reader in his scanning. Most advertisements in newspapers and magazines fail because they just lie there on the page, flat and gray, and are cluttered, noisy and hard to read. Your documents should be constructed so that a single component dominates the area, a picture, or the headline or text, but never the company name or logo. Obviously, the more compelling the picture, the more appealing the headline, the more interesting the copy appears, the better your chances are that someone will thoroughly explore your content.

Target the Right Audience

Often, a Web site, editorial article or advertisement is the first meeting place of two parties looking for each other. There should be something in it that, at the reader’s first glance, will identify it as a source of information relating to his need or interest, a problem he has or an opportunity he will welcome. This is done by means either of a picture or a headline, preferably both. The document should say to him first off, “Hey, this information is just what you’ve been looking for.”

Emphasizes the Service, Not the Source

Sometimes, clients will insist that the company name or logo be the dominant element in the document, or that the company name appears within the headline, or that it be set in bold-face wherever it appears within the body copy. A document should make the reader want to buy, or at least consider buying, before telling him where to buy it. You wouldn’t start off your sales presentation by telling the prospect what the cost was first, before telling him anything about the features and benefits.

Promise a Reward

Documents will get read only if the reader is given reason to expect that if he continues on, he will learn something of value. A brag-and-boast headline, a generalization, an advertising platitude will turn him off before he reads very far. The reward can be explicit or implicit. The promise should be specific. The headline “How to reduce downtime & quote; is not as effective as “How to cut downtime and increase productivity 25%.”

Back Up the Promise

Your documents should provide evidence that any claims you make are valid. Providing a clear description of your product’s operating characteristics may be all you need to support your claim. Comparisons with competing products can be convincing and will make the reward appear attainable. Use “They say” testimonials or case histories where possible. These can be more convincing than “We say” arguments. Whatever you do, make the promise believable.

Talk Person To Person

Much of the trade or industrial advertising copy I’ve read talks one company or industry to another. Copy could be more persuasive if you talk to the reader one on one, just like you were talking to a friend. Good advertising copy always uses terminology the reader will be familiar with, speaking in their business vocabulary, and not that of the writer’s or advertiser’s. Keep the writing style simple: short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, active rather than passive voice, and keep away from advertising clichés. Make frequent use of the personal pronoun “you”. A more friendly tone results when the copy refers to the reader in the first person: “we” rather than “the company name”.

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