Getting Started in Business Writing: Establishing the Who, What, When, and Why

The difficulty....is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

Business writing, unlike academic writing, is meant for a varied audience and is action-oriented. In academic writing, the audience might be teachers and professors, and your aim is to impress them with your expertise on a particular subject. Business writing is a completely different ball game. It is a means to an end.

Through your business communication you seek to achieve a resultant action, and you want to convince the reader to make it. Business writing can take various forms and may target wide cross sections of a potential audience, each of which will have a different set of needs and requirements. As the creator of business communication, you will seek to understand the pulse of your audience so that you can deliver accordingly.

In this lesson we will discuss three critical aspects of business communication that need to be considered before starting:

1) audience analysis, 2) organization of ideas , and 3) guidelines for how to overcome writer's block and create successful business communications.

Audience analysis:

Traditionally, your audience is the group of people who reads a certain piece of written communication from you. An audience can be both homogeneous and heterogeneous. In business writing, your audience could be your co-worker, boss, client, subordinates, board of directors, vendors, or even consumers. Before you begin creating a business document, you need to determine your audience.

Here are a few of the questions you will need to ask yourself before you begin. These will go a long way in helping you analyze your audience:

Who are the audience members? Are they men or women? What age are they? What is their background, including education, occupation, and orientation in terms of society, politics, and faith?

What level of information is appropriate for your readers? Are they lay readers who have no information about the subject, or managers who have some background in the subject but require more information, or absolute experts who will be the most challenging of the lot?

What is the context in which they will view your writing? Are you sending them personalized letters or e-mails, or is it a sales letter or a proposal? Are they reading your piece in an annual report, magazine, Internet site, or journal?

Once these questions are answered, you will have a clearer picture of your objectives, as well as the purpose of your writing. On the basis of this, you can determine the content of your writing and the tone of voice and language to use. This way, you tailor your document according to the needs of your audience.

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