Your sales team is struggling? Maybe bad writing is to blame

Nowadays, the way businesses bring in sales is almost becoming information-driven. Whether you’re looking to win a contract or generate more business leads, your sales team should always have to communicate in writing.

However, if the team has poor business writing, chances are that they’re struggling with their sales efforts, which can lead to losing business to your competitors. If you believe your team’s writing skills should be polished to drive more sales, here are a few tips to consider for improving business writing:

Know your audience

Before you write anything, it’s essential that you know who your target audience is and the outcome you want to achieve. By identifying your readers beforehand, you can be able to communicate effectively, especially if you’re trying to market your products or services. Make sure you invest time and effort in defining your audience and know what their expectations are. Try to picture yourself in the shoes of your readers and imagine what it is like in their situation.

Keep it short but straightforward

These days, people are becoming less willing to read, which is why keeping your sentences short can go a long way to catch your readers’ attention. This situation is particularly true if you’re sending outreach emails and other electronic documents to your prospects. Below are the tips to keep your paper short but straightforward:

  • Cut down the number of words to more or less 500 words.
  • Refrain from using redundant or unnecessary adjectives to avoid long, meandering sentences.
  • Remove windy phrases.
  • Get straight to the point and let them know what you want to say in a professional manner.

If you want to get the most out of your business correspondence for bringing in more sales, it’s best to get your team to take a business writing class to improve their knowledge and skills in writing.

Use active voice

Using an active voice in your sentences can improve the sharpness of your business writing. That’s because a copy written in an active voice is usually shorter and more precise than the ones in the passive voice. If you want to gain more leads and turn them into customers, you should be decisive in your business communications. By writing sentences in the active voice, you can build trust and confidence in your readers.

Write from your customers’ perspective

In business, writing from your customers’ perspective always makes sense. You can do this by describing the specific attributes you like about them rather than bragging about how good your company is. Remember, the overuse of the pronouns “I,” “me,” or “our company” in your business copy may cause your customers and prospects to go away. Instead, equip your business correspondence with “you” or “your” to generate more sales.

Be careful with names, titles, and genders

There’s nothing more embarrassing calling someone “Mr. Anderson” instead of “Ms. Anderson” throughout the copy. If you don’t want to drive prospects and customers away, you should pay attention to names, titles, and genders.

Not knowing the spelling of someone’s name, job title, or even gender isn’t an excuse to address them improperly in the document. So, you better check with someone who does know the information you need. When it comes to gender, practice the use of gender-neutral language like “they” and “their” to be safe.

Write in a conversational tone

Again, it’s crucial that you always know your audience before writing any marketing communications. If you want to make more sales, you should learn how to write in a conversational tone. Don’t be too formal unless you address your business correspondence to someone who prefers formality. When you market your products or services, make sure your copy is as engaging and personal as possible. Craft the document as if you’re having a friendly conversation with an ideal customer. The more you engage many readers with your writing, the more sales you can make over time.

Include a call to action

Aside from being informative, a business document is written to achieve a particular purpose. Thus, don’t forget to include something that your audience is expected to do with the information you’ve given. Remember, you can take advantage of your marketing communications if you have call to action right from the beginning.

Don’t forget to proofread

You may commit errors when writing, and if they’re not appropriately addressed, it may cause trouble for your company. If you don’t want your marketing copy to look stupid due to typo errors, get that document proofread right away. You can use spell checkers or check the material carefully to spot missing words and other mistakes.

Conclusion

Having effective business writing skills can be a valuable asset to your organization. Although it may require talent that not all of us may have, you should always keep in mind that good writing remains to be a learnable skill. If you want your business to inspire more customers to buy, follow the tips above to improve your writing in the best way possible.