Book Marketing

In business writing, the memorandum is a common document. Typically it is a short informational message sent from one person in an organization to another. In business writing, the memorandum is sent in a number of different formats: e-mail (most common), electronically formatted and published emailed document, e-mail with an attachment, or hard copy. Often, the hard copy memo is a back-up for one that has been sent electronically.

How to set up a memorandum

Memos are set up in a specific format. The document usually has four tags:

To – (enter the name of the primary receiver(s) of the message here; From- (enter your name if you’re the author) Subject – (no more than six words describing the memo’s main point, and Date – This is usually today’s date, the date the memo is being sent. An additional memo tag is “CC”, which technically stands for “carbon copy” and is meant for secondary readers, those to whom the message is also of interest.

Structuring routine memos

Most business messages are informational and written with a clear and direct opening explaining the main purpose and point of the messages (this is called front-loading). The middle paragraphs or sentences, give more concrete details, developing the message, and finally, the close winds the message down, ends on a note of goodwill and requests any follow-up.

Routine Requests

In business writing, the memorandum is also used for routine requests. These are structured with the direct query somewhere in the memo’s opening. That can be uncomfortable to those who prefer to beat around the bush in the opening and are unaccustomed to asking for anything directly up front.

Don’t be shy; be direct. Since this request is not meant to be terribly controversial or persuasive, the expectation is that reader will be receptive to the request. The body of the memo, then, develops some contextual details, and the close winds down, often giving an end date for the request to be met and asks for additional follow-up if necessary.

Different situations

Memos can also respond to requests, describe a new procedure, or announce some major news. They can be fairly short, such as the invitation to the company picnic. Or they could take up about a screen full of type (anything longer should be sent as an attachment, since the reader’s on screen attention is fairly limited, and typically, he or she is usually busy).

Writing Style

Use plain English and simple words, and keep the tone fairly conversational, using the active voice (please not the passive!). Be sure, too, to avoid using any type of Instant Messaging abbreviations (to ensure that your document has a professional tone). Also, as with any written document, don’t forget to edit and proofread your work.

Writing Your First Newsletter – A Quick Guide

When my marketing director first suggested I write a newsletter, my response was something along the lines of: ‘That won’t be a good use of my time – it won’t bring any profit in to the company.’ Apparently, though, that’s not the point. If you’re interested in learning how to write a good newsletter, read on.

A newsletter helps you to keep in touch with your customers – by providing them with free advice and updating them on what your business is doing. Correspondingly, this helps create kudos for your company in the marketplace; it also allows you to (ever-so-gently) soft-sell your products and services without the need for obviously-signalled calls-to-action.

Here are three tips for writing successful newsletters:

It’s Not All About You: If you write exclusively about your business, people will view your letter as little more than unwanted marketing material and they’ll consign you to their spam folder. Divide your material in to 3 key-sections, therefore – one that focuses on your business’s special offers, another that promotes your readers and a section devoted to delivering free advice to your customers’ inbox. Follow this rule and you’ll be sure to create powerful newsletter content.

Spread the Word: Your ultimate aim is to increase your subscriber list with each issue. Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In to find new contacts. Also give your readers a reason to recommend your newsletter; else, they’ll have no motivation to help. You could tag your promotion as follows: ‘Refer a New Subscriber to me – I’ll Pay You 5% of Any Resulting Business.’ By doing this you’ll increase your newsletter’s circulation.

Optimise the Content: Some businesses upload their newsletters to their websites. Others who like what you’ve written may add it to theirs. Content that is embedded with some search-engine-friendly phrases can allow your copy to spread virally and encourage new subscribers to contact you. Optimising content for newsletters is therefore essential if you’re looking to develop a strong following of loyal customers.

Back in the 70′s I read a book written by a scientist who said that all systems were breaking down; he gave detailed examples of all levels from hydro plants to businesses, to economy, ecology, etc. He gave the results of a study that had been undertaken by an appointed commission who concluded that the paperwork and bureaucracy of documentation within government could be cut by half and more.

This superfluous bureaucracy of documentation in government and business organizations has not stopped. In fact it has grown parallel to the exponential increase of knowledge.

And it all stems from inefficient communication. I have seen abundant government forms, books and other written materials, that were not revised or expanded as should have been the case, but that were instead totally replaced with new materials. Somebody, somewhere in the bureaucracy of government didn’t know that something already existed that could be added to or improved upon. No one could even command a consistency of style and format.

Every time a new person is appointed to up-date or revamp manuals, they re-do everything entirely instead of improving and/or adding to the existing materials. As a result, each year, the public and business sector is forced to re-learn brand new sets of instructions and guides to perform totally new and different sets of exercises. Well government may have the time and resources to re-do every documentation over every year on taxpayers money, but businesses can’t.

For example, when up-dating a book, the author does not re-write the whole work, he or she up-dates and adds current information. Up-dates are inserted within the body of the book where required and the current new information that took place since the last revision is added at the front of the book, along with a summary of the up-dates that have been inserted throughout the body of the book. This way, the reader who is already familiar with the book can quickly go through the newly revised work.

Likewise in a job description, the basic functions of it are the same even though some changes may take place from year to year. You don’t re-write the whole manual – you simply up-date it. The contextual part of all this is the recognition of the immediate surrounding of the job functions and the people performing these jobs. No matter who takes on the job or leaves it, the job possesses a basic, generic way of execution, according to the activities and requirements of the function requirements.

Of course, with the implementation of ISO 9000 standards of some years ago, this is somewhat easier to do now, because job writing processes are being foundationally laid down in such a way that any one taking up the job of up-dating documentation automatically follows the precepts of the previously written material.

But unfortunately most organizations do not have such standards and controls. I’ve seen plenty of instruction manuals that have been put together under some degree of professional business level only to find out they just didn’t make sense. Oh, some of it is impressive to look at, it makes great reading on its own but try and marry it to the actual performing of a function, and it doesn’t work.

Why? Because after it was written, nobody sat down at the job to follow the written procedures alongside the function. You follow every step, you do what the manual says, but the system or process you’re trying to learn or make out to work just doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do — a step is missing, an instruction was left out, a word was omitted at the beginning or somewhere along the process that sent the whole sequence on the wrong pathway. If you’ve bought a product to be assembled at home and followed the instruction, you know what I mean.

But my point at the beginning is that within government agencies or business organizations where there is no central documentation control, too many books and manuals and guides are being completely re-written instead of being merely up-dated by unsupervised trigger-happy individuals who have no concept of the predecessors who already penned the foundational basis to be worked on.

Multiplied by hundreds of hours of writing, this superfluous pool of documentation ads up to multi-million dollars annually – and that is not even counting the readers’ time. The bureaucracy of this all is the mechanical unimaginative way that has insisted on inflexible and blind routine and petty rules.

So how do we avoid this superfluous bureaucracy in an organization? By first becoming aware of its existence, by recognizing it in our own places of communication output and by hiring people who can set the controls to catch the flow of documentation that is lined up for up-dates and revisions. DMH