FEATURE: 10 ways to improve your communication

Get your communications right, says Sarah Warwick, and your business will win more customers. In this feature, Sarah offers ideas on how to go about it. She's a lady with experience in this area, being a journalist, editor and copywriter and now offering communications advice via www.businesssmiths.co.uk.

From 1 to 10

1.  Speak to your audience in their language. Your potential customers need to know you understand their world, so if they are professionals used to formal communications, then that’s the tone you should adopt, too.
2. Make sure you’ve explained the benefits. It’s clear to you what your business does, but maybe not as clear to potential customers. Try out your words on someone else. Do they understand completely and immediately? If not, redraft.
3. Keep copy concise. Make sure your message is clear but don’t give people more to read than they need to.
4. Make your point at the beginning and in the first paragraph so people don't disappear before reaching the message.
5. Watch out for typos. Have you put ‘you’ instead of ‘yours’ – or ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’? Missed out an ‘of’? Read copy out loud to help you spot the errors.
6. Write for the medium. If you’re writing copy for the web, your choice of words and the structure of what you write will be different from that for print, or direct mail, for example. Think about the situation in which your words will be received.
7. Watch the details. If you’re communicating with a largely female audience, and you need to use a name as a case study or example in your copy, then make sure it’s a woman’s name.
8. Look at the copy you’ve written in context. Have you created a page of dense type with no white space? If it looks off-putting, think about splitting it up into shorter paragraphs.
9. Don’t Sprinkle Copy With Unnecessary Capital Letters; they're distracting for the eye and will detract from your message.
10. Spelling matters. For some audiences, a misspelling is enough to condemn you immediately because they won’t trust you to be accurate in other areas. Other customers might not notice – or care – but it's best to get it right!

Contact Sarah at Business Smiths for advice on your communications.

You can download a pdf of the article here.