Some business owners thrive on content creation to attract prospects to their business. A large bulk of content creation hinges on writing for prospective clients. This week’s article focuses on how business owners or their representatives can write in a way that appeals to their readers because they are their customers. There ought to be a conversational manner deployed to keep the flow of writing interactive and fun to read. To succeed in doing this, think about what you would appreciate if you were the one savouring the content.
The need to have fellow feeling and compassion as you write for your audience cannot be overemphasized. For one thing, putting yourself in the shoes of your readers forces you to think about several things you ought to do as you write. For example, think about the recipients of your business document. Your ability to categorise your readers helps you to know how to write for them – you can consider their language ability, level of education, media preference, age, etc. This greatly helps you in tailoring custom made content that suits their purpose and interest. Because your primary goal lies in effectively communicating and selling your brand, you want to do so in a way that would appeal to their hearts and move them to action, and one thing to do to achieve this is to keep things short and simple.
Keeping things short and simple entails that in writing you do not bore your readers with verbose and irrelevant details. There are some kinds of writing that you should by all means avoid. Kindly do not use two negatives in one sentence because not everyone understands that double negatives in one sentence means that the sentence is positive. What I mean is that in a sentence such as ‘I do not think that you dislike her’, I actually mean that ‘I think that you like her’! How about ‘They project that it is unlikely that the dollar won’t continue to rise against the Naira’? This, in other words, means it is likely the dollar will continue to rise against the dollar. Did you find that a bit confusing too? And have you heard people use double negatives when they really mean the negative? So why use the double negatives which could be confusing to your readers? Consider also the next example: ‘It was not without some struggles that he achieved his victory.’ Wouldn’t it have been much easier for the reader to understand the point if the writer had this as ‘It was with some struggles that he achieved his victory’? By all means then, aim to avoid the use of negatives as much as you possibly can in your writing.
Yet another strategy for writing and appealing faster to your audience is the use of simple expressions. With simplicity saturating your writing, you always impress your readers. Verbose and redundant expressions do not appeal to most people. Imagine sending out a business letter and your receiver – your client – has to check their dictionary (or Google) for the meaning of words! That’d be a disaster for your business! Granted, there is technical jargon that suits the purpose of certain professions. That notwithstanding, feel free to switch things up and explain what the jargon means if you fear that your reader may not understand its use. Undoubtedly, some people believe that to impress others they need to use highfalutin – pompous or pretentious – expressions. This is in a bid to earn the respect of others, but most times the opposite is the case. Who wouldn’t prefer to be written to in a manner that makes them understand even difficult and rather complex concepts? I’m sure you would! Imagine receiving a court judgment riddled with lots of jargon and old-fashioned expressions! How does that help the client at all? Many people nowadays prefer writers who keep it simple, understandable, and easy to act upon.
One last strategy I share with you here is that of constructing your writing mostly in the active voice. In the English language, we have the active and the passive voice in writing. My intention here is not to bore you with technical jargon! But I do want you to appreciate what both uses can do for your writing and how the use of the active voice will facilitate your reaching your readers’ heart quicker.
For one thing, use of the active voice means that the subject of the sentence performs the action of the verb. Its use is precise and unambiguous to the reader – they can easily tell who is doing what in the sentence. To illustrate: ‘The CEO of Build-Well Integrated Services, Mr Uchechukwu Oji, commended his staff members for their diligence and dedication to the company.’ From the sentence you can identify the subject as ‘The CEO of Build-Well Integrated Services’ – to identify the subject of your sentence, simply ask the question ‘who/what verb(s) or verb(ed); in this case, we ask, ‘Who commended his staff members for their diligence and dedication to the company?’ The answer we get is the subject of the sentence/verb. It is thus clear, isn’t it, that the one who performed the action of commending is the CEO. And just from reading the sentence – because it is written in the active voice – the point is easily taken.
On the contrary, use of the passive voice means that the subject of the sentence is acted upon or receives the action of the verb. The construction often takes a ‘by the …’ form where the agent that performs the action is placed. I often say to my students that people who in writing like to hide agency – that is the one(s) performing the action – use the passive voice. The drawback is that your reader does not connect much with you when you passivise your sentence. They may judge you as trying to withhold information from them! Let’s see an example of a passive sentence: ‘The secretary was laid off by the Human Resources manager.’ In this sentence, the focus is on the secretary being laid off. The secretary is the subject of the sentence because it answers the question, ‘Who was laid off by the Human Resources manager?’ Do you however notice that this sentence structure pays less attention to who did the laying off? Yes, the focus is on the receiver of the action.
Additionally, some passive sentences completely remove the agent that perform the action: ‘Three hundred billion Naira was stolen from the Accountant General’s office.’ Now, we do not know who did the stealing. A reader may be absolutely confused and not know what to make out of such information. In other cases, however, some deliberately use the passive voice to hide information that isn’t necessary for public consumption: ‘An apology has been sent to the public’ as opposed to ‘The president has apologised to the public.’ In order to avoid a blame-game or to avoid exposing the wrongdoing of an elite, the passive voice is deployed. This may lead people to worry less about the doer and focus more on the action. Bottom line? If you consider your readers as customers, you want them to see through your writing that they matter to you. Go ahead and use active voice sentences unless any of the reasons for using passive voice sentences appeals to you.