Marketing automation has never been so cost-effective for would-be marketeers. Tools such as MailChimp and Pardot enable any size of organisation to easily share and measure written communications with prospects and customers.

Yet automating the process and measuring the results are just part of the marketing function.  Without great content you’ve got nothing worth automating and nothing to measure. There are plenty of blog posts out there telling you (or more often not really telling you, in my experience) how to create great content.  Very few however, hammer home the point that whatever you write must be well written. Perhaps this is assumed as a given. I’d argue though that it takes little more than a glance at Facebook to see how many otherwise creative and successful people haven’t got a clue how to construct a sentence.

Great business writing skills

My point is, if it takes a prospect more than one attempt to understand your opening paragraph, your email or blog post is a waste of time. Here are a collection of tips to sharpen up that all important opener: One idea per sentence. Give your reader a chance to understand the main thrust of your message. Long rambling sentences full of linking words will leave your reader wondering what you’re going on about. The result? Delete & unsubscribe … Good grammar. My personal favourite. The wrong ‘your’ is a guillotine to your message. Don’t even get me started on ‘there’ … If you’re not sure, get someone to proof-read your work. Don’t apologise. The “I’m sorry to bother you with this  email …” approach. It’s the written equivalent of walking into a room with your shoulders hunched in failure. Start with a more positive ‘I hope you’re doing well’ instead. Use simple language. Long or uncommon words don’t make you look clever. Especially if you get them wrong. I read a Facebook post recently by a blog writer about the child they spurned. They meant spawned … I think … Effective and efficient business writing is a skill. You’ll learn all this and much more in our terrific workshop Writing Dynamics ™.

Find out how Engage Your Reader gives you a writing system to get the best out of your written communications.

  About the author: Catherine Hordern has been with Holst since offloading her second child to school in 2012. She enjoys solving the puzzles posed by Holst’s marketing automation system and WordPress websites. She fanatically advocates the principles of Engage Your Reader.]]>