How to Write a Good Business Letter
A business Letter is used to convey a written message formally or professionally between the organizations, between the company and clients, to the employees, employers, suppliers, managers, etc. An effective Business Letter is used in many ways, like sending invoices, offering Letters, apologies, invitations, orders, instructions, meetings to be held, allocation of work, etc. An excellent qualified Business Letter plays a vital role in the workplace. So let's understand what makes a good Business Letter, parts of a Business Letter, essential qualities of a good Business Letter, how it impacts, etc.
As the Business Letter helps to create a reasonable opinion on the company, one should be attentive and try to impress the receiver with an Effective Business Letter. We should concentrate on the essential qualities of a formal letter to make it more effective. So while writing a Business Letter, everyone should remember these points. Let us understand the characteristics of a good Business Letter in detail.
How to Start a Good Business Letter?
We can start a good Business Letter in a particular format. It has specific rules and regulations to make it more effective. Also, there are different parts of a perfect professional Letter. A minimum of 10 to 12 parts is essential for a good Business Letter. A professional letter can be written in various forms like block style, semi-block and modular block, etc.
Essentials of Effective Business Letter
While writing an effective Business Letter, we should consider these essential characteristics as given below:
The tone of the letter should be professional
One should write a formal Letter professionally. The tone of your Business Letter should be confident, sincere, encouraging and polite. The superiors or subordinates, whoever will read, should be pleased and can feel the liveliness of your Letter. It should not appear like a copy-paste or a machine's work. Then only we can say that the essential Business Letter will act as the best communication tool.
Clarity of Thought
One should write a Business Letter clearly and concisely. Whatever the sender wants to convey should reach the reader straight away. We should not prolong or add unnecessary stuff to the Letter, which leads to miscommunication. The clarity of thought is one of the best characteristics of an Effective Business Letter.
Organized Information
It is another essential quality for a good Business Letter. If you need to send the formal Letter to multiple receivers, the information must be organized and it should be clear as to which instruction applies to whom. One also needs to form multiple paragraphs if necessary. The content of an effective Business Letter should be logical and clear.
Highlight the Special Words with Colour
It is a great idea to colour the words which you think will get the receiver's attention. You may just highlight the words or phrases you want. However, make sure to choose a colour if it needs to be given for printing because some colours may not appear.
Auto Text
It is an additional feature for which we need to modify settings so that the company name, sender's name, etc. some vital information will appear with colour without giving commands. There will be no need to add colour to every word. It helps not only in highlighting but also in saving time.
Show your Optimism
A good Business Letter should build a positive and smooth relationship between the sender and the receiver. It helps to maintain Business activities with pleasure.
Estimate the Pulse of the Reader
The sender needs to forecast how the receiver can react with the proposal posting in that particular Business Letter. Based on that, the sender needs to write professionally.
Conclude with a Reminder
The conclusion part of a professional Letter should be like a calling option or to make the receiver react etc.
Proofreading
Proofreading is the most characteristic of a good Business Letter. Before sending it, it's better to check once or twice is always suggestible.
These are some of the essentials for a good Business Letter. Besides these, we have some more characteristics to make the formal Letter more effective. They are categorized as Inner Quality and Outer Quality.
Inner Quality
Clear: try using simple and lucid sentences. Do not complicate things and explain them with ease. Do not use huge sentences and complicated vocabulary.
Concise: A Letter should always convey the matter with minimum usage of words. You can use particular terms which sum up the meaning of an entire topic. Try to use those kinds of words in the Letters to save your time and also the reader’s time.
Concrete
Courtesy
Accuracy
Well mannered
Completeness etc.
Outer Quality
Size, colour, quality of the paper, etc. Sometimes, we get instructions about Letter writing format, like the font size, colour and paper size to be used. Try to stick to the instructions to maintain uniformity.
Envelope
Way of folding etc. Try not to crumple the Letter and keep it neat and clean. This way, it appears formal and pleasant. The reader will also like to read a Letter that looks pleasant.
Also, the characteristics of an effective Business Letter can be explained with a principle of 7 C's. It can be shown below.
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Hence, by constituting all the above points, one can say that using all essentials of a Business Letter only will make it an effective and professional way of communication.
FAQs on Essential Qualities of a Good Business Letter
1. What is a Business Letter? What are Its Types and Importance?
Business Letter is a way of conveying the message in a written format that is professionally good. The content we use here is clarity of thought, concise, and effective. The effective Business Letter plays a significant role in organizations. We have various types of Business Letters. Each Letter has a unique format and needs to use different titles. Some of them are,
Offer Letters:- It possesses
Job title, description
Date of joining
Packages, norms, etc.
Cover Letters:- it has essential parts like
Contact Details
Greetings.
Subject
Content
Conclusion
Recommendation Letters:- The essential parts need to include in this are-
Relationship with candidate
Qualification of candidates
Evaluation of candidates
Closing statement
Enclosures.
Interview Letters:- It has titles like-
Overview
Schedule of interview
Eligibility Criteria
Instructions etc
Resignation Letters:- It is usually provided while leaving the job. It includes-
Statement of resignation
Reason for resigning.
Date of joining and leaving.
Request for certificates.
Thanks for the note.
Letters from Sellers:- These are used to promote a product. It has,
Product details
Product description
Prices and offers etc.
2. What is a Letter? What's the Process?
A Letter is a means of communication in the form of written messages and is in practice from the olden days itself. We have various kinds of Letters, namely - formal, informal and semi-formal. We can send these Letters offline by post and online by email. First, the writer or sender will write a Letter to the person to whom he needs to convey a message. Based on his purpose and relationship, the sender needs to follow the proforma and rules to make it more effective. Then he will send it through the postal department if it is online. Otherwise, he will be sent mail from the computer. It reaches the recipient.
3. What is the Significance of Letter Writing?
As communication plays a vital role in our daily lives, Letter-writing also plays a significant role in communication. As we can't see and talk with each other regularly, we use these Letters to convey wishes, to give instructions, to apply for something, to relieve from the job, to make requests, to ask apologies, etc.
The primary importance of sending Letters is the message will convey as it is with no change. Chances are less to change written messages than to verbal messages. If we send it orally, it may change through the intermediate sources. Letter writing is one of the tangible sources of communication unlike a text message, call, video call made through mobiles and laptops. We can re-read the Letters as many times as we want and we don’t need to be afraid of others deleting them or losing them. When you write a Letter, you do not need to think about sending your messages by mistake or sending some errors through autocorrect. And also, Letters are treasured by many people as memories and stored for a long time.
4. What is proofreading?
When you write an article about something, you read it again and again. You try to edit the unnecessary and confusing elements and make necessary corrections. Once the editing part is done, a writer reads it before publishing it or presenting it and this process is known as proofreading. This could be done by an individual or you can hire someone else to proofread your content. It is done to remove all types of errors from the content. It helps in making the content more suitable for the target audience to understand. Proofreading gives a simple overview of the entire article and helps us to understand the content better. It removes all the grammatical errors, capitalization errors, numbering errors from the content. It also does spell check and corrects the wrong punctuations in the content. It also alters the sentence formation and improves it wherever needed to make it more understandable. When you proofread your content by a professional proofreader, it increases the chance of getting published or accepted. Proofreading your CV will help you in getting the job you want. It is the final step between you and the reader before getting published.
5. Tips to improve Letter writing?
We might be good at speaking a language. But, when it comes to writing something, it is different from what we speak. One can not write what he speaks as it looks so informal. Following are some tips to improve your writing skills in general and Letter writing skills in particular:
Try to write something every day, this will improve your writing habit and make it easy for you to rectify mistakes and improve your vocabulary. Try setting targets for every day and meet them. It could be the number of passages, word limit, number of pages etc. Try to finish the daily target.
Start reading what other people write, it will teach you different perspectives, new vocabulary, writing patterns and subtle ways of conveying things. Bring that reading target into the daily targets, you can review someone’s articles. This will not only improve your reading skills but also your writing skills at the same time.
Try to write simply and lucidly. Know your target audience, assess their comprehension level and write according to it. If you are writing an article for school students, you need to keep it basic and simple. If you are writing for a research paper or a company, you need to read extensively about a topic. In the case of a basic article, avoid using long sentences, huge words and complicating the topics.
Have a picture of what you want to convey and make a shorthand note of the entire topic. This will give you a flow while writing and you do not need to refer to your material often
When you write an article, try reading it again and again to improve it. Edit the unnecessary part and add some information if you feel it necessary.