We all have to create business letters sooner or later. We need to prepare them for various occasions in our lives.
Even students need to produce them when they have to present excuse letters, make formal requests and apply for scholarships or participation in some events.
Each of us has the capability to make business letters. But can we make them effective that they’ll have positive results?
Well, yes, we can make them work for our own advantage. Here’s how:
Take into consideration the persons who’ll be reading our business letters.
First of all, let’s make sure that we encode the names without spelling them the wrong way, and that includes the manner we should address them (Dr., Mr. Mrs. and the like).
Then we have to research about their current designations, company/institution, and complete address.
If the receivers know us pretty well, we should no longer write a long introduction about ourselves. We just need to inform them if we’re requesting something for them and that that their contributions are a big factor for the fulfillment of our requests.
Determine how familiar our receivers are on the contents of our business letters or requests.
If they have no idea about the topic, then let’s provide a background on our topic the best way it can be understood. However, if they already know about our topic and concerns, then we just have to provide reasons why we are making our requests.
Be straight to the point and brief.
We must immediately make our requests after our introduction of the topic. There’s really no need to beat around the bush. Business correspondents should always be concise.
Use simple words without being informal.
There’s no need to use highfalutin words when we compose letters. We just have to make sure that we get our message across without using slang and informal words or phrases.
Always be polite and sincere.
We should always be conscious of the tone of our letters. The receivers can always tell if we’re sarcastic, impatient, demanding, overconfident, to name a few. We won’t fail to get a positive response when our tone is polite, courteous and friendly.
Use active instead of passive voice in business letters.
It’s better to always use active voice in our sentences to show how enthusiastic we are about our topics or requests. It also shows how involved and committed we are about our requests.
Apply the same courtesy when we send e-mails.
We shouldn’t be too informal with emails that we forget how to properly address our recipients. There are netiquettes we must follow when writing emails. Some of these are using subject lines accurately, being brief and concise, showing respect to the recipient of the email, to name a few.
Always review the business letters before sending them.
It’s unpleasant to write letters in haste without reviewing its contents and without rectifying mistakes in grammar and sentence construction.
Aside from this, we should make sure that our letter looks neat and in good quality when the receiver gets hold of it.
End our business letters on a positive note and with gratitude.
Officials and heads of of institutions and offices have big responsibilities and could even be under a lot of pressure. And yet when they find the time to read our letters, we should really express our gratitude, even though we’re not yet sure if they are in favor of our letters or not. It’s still the best thing to do to express our thanks.
Business letters represent our own selves. It’s like talking personally to the receivers, as the tone of the letter speaks for our own voices. That’s why it’s of utmost importance that we compose our letters the best way we can because we’re expressing our own personalities when we create them.
There’s really no wrong letters, but just wrong tones or wrong phrasing of words. Let’s just keep in mind all the things we need to say and that should all be presented in our letters in positive, formal and respectful ways.
