Communication is the key to success in any business. Whether you are selling a product, a service, or an idea, you need to communicate clearly and persuasively with your potential customers. But how do you communicate effectively in the 21st century, when the world is changing rapidly and technology is transforming the way we communicate?
Know Your Audience
The first aspect of business writing is to know your audience. Who are they? What are their needs, wants, problems, and goals? How can your offer help them? What are their objections and questions? What are their preferences and expectations?
Knowing your audience will help you tailor your message to their specific needs and interests. It will also help you choose the right tone, style, language, and format for your communication.
For example, if you are selling a software solution to a technical audience, you may want to use more jargon, data, and facts to demonstrate your expertise and credibility. But if you are selling a lifestyle product to a general audience, you may want to use more emotions, stories, and benefits to appeal to their desires and aspirations.
To know your audience better, you can use various methods such as:
- Conducting market research or surveys
- Analysing customer feedback or reviews
- Creating customer personas or profiles
- Segmenting your audience by demographics, psychographics, or behaviour
- Asking open-ended questions or listening actively
Craft Your Message
The second aspect of business writing is to craft your message. Your message should be clear, concise, compelling, and consistent. It should also follow the AIDA formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.
- Attention: You need to capture your audience’s attention with a catchy headline, a hook, or a question that piques their curiosity.
- Interest: You need to keep your audience’s interest with relevant information, facts, statistics, stories, or examples that support your main point.
- Desire: You need to create desire in your audience by highlighting the benefits of your offer, showing testimonials or social proof, addressing objections or concerns, or creating urgency or scarcity.
- Action: You need to prompt your audience to take action by giving them a clear and specific call-to-action that tells them what to do next, such as “click here”, “sign up now”, “buy now”, “call now”, or “contact us”.
Easy Communication
Easy communication in sales and marketing is crucial. We have all had sales reps on the phone talking in a know-it-all tone which serves only to make us wish we had never accepted the call! Better still is to ask three or four leading questions that will cause the buyer to give YOU information rather than the other way round.
For instance a question such as “do you like baked beans?” is more effective than “can I sell you a dozen tins of baked beans?”
It’s a bit like ‘smell the coffee’ before it has arrived!
In this blog post, we will discuss the three main aspects of business writing that you need to consider when communicating in the 21st century: your audience, your message, and your medium.
Choose Your Medium
The third aspect of business writing is to choose your medium. Your medium is the channel or platform that you use to deliver your message to your audience. It can be written, oral, or visual, such as:
- Letter
- Report
- Proposal
- Presentation
- Blog post
- Social media post
- Video
- Podcast
- Infographic
Choosing the right medium for your message depends on various factors, such as:
- Your purpose and goal
- Your audience and their preferences
- The nature and complexity of your message
- The urgency and timeliness of your message
- The resources and budget available
For example, if you want to inform your audience about a new product launch, you may want to use a combination of email, social media, video, and blog post to reach them through different channels and formats. But if you want to persuade your audience to buy your product, you may want to use a presentation, a proposal, or a video testimonial to showcase your product features and benefits.
To choose the best medium for your message, you can use the following questions as a guide:
- What is the main purpose and goal of your message?
- Who is your target audience and what are their needs, wants, problems, and goals?
- How do they prefer to receive information and communication?
- What is the best way to capture their attention and interest?
- What is the best way to create desire and action in them?
- How complex or simple is your message?
- How urgent or timely is your message?
- How much time and money do you have to create and deliver your message?
By choosing the right medium for your message, you can increase the effectiveness and impact of your communication.
Conclusion
Communication is the key to success in any business. To communicate effectively in the 21st century, you need to consider three main aspects of business writing: your audience, your message, and your medium. By knowing your audience, crafting your message, and choosing your medium, you can create engaging and persuasive communication that will help you achieve your goals.
About OutSec
OutSec is the UK’s leading online transcription company whose business has grown substantially since 2002. We are one of the most successful transcription companies in the United Kingdom.
OutSec provides secure outsourced transcription services to the medical, legal, property and surveying, universities, media and interviews, advisory boards, conferences & seminars, inventories, financial, corporate, HR, recruitment and Executive Search sectors.
Why is Dictation More Efficient than Typing?
Well, the simple fact is that we can all speak considerably faster than we can physically type:
“The average person types between 38 and 40 words per minute”.
A “good rate of speech ranges between 140 -160 words per minute.”
In other words, dictation is up to four times faster than we can type. Therefore, simply dictating a document is more cost-efficient, giving you more time to dedicate your efforts elsewhere in your business.
Therefore why not add OutSec as a business continuity option for your business? Accounts are free, you pay on a per-minute basis (rounded to the nearest minute) on a pay-as-you-go basis, with no contracts or minimum spend. What do you have to lose? Why not open an account today!
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