Is your business writing causing headaches?

3 signs that your business writing is lousy

 

While positive reinforcement and constructive criticism is key to motivating better results, sometimes you just have to say it – your business writing sucks.

The content you use to promote your goods and services to clients needs to be of a certain calibre to stand out from your competitors. Unfortunately, a lot business writing stands out for all the wrong reasons.

Unnecessary hyperbole, metaphors that don’t make sense and cliches that really should be retired. The inclusion of any of these inferior writing techniques can turn your business copy from industry-leading to laughable.

Does your content desperately need some help? Consider investing in business writing training and, for a more immediate solution, keep an eye out for these three signs that your correspondence is lousy.

You’re wasting words

Like a high school student trying to meet a minimum word count in an essay, many corporate content writers add unnecessary detail into their writing. Business writing should not contain too many adjectives, so put down the thesaurus and stick to the facts.

You’ve included overused phrases

Cliches become popular because they work perfectly in their context. However, the inclusion of tired words and phrases, such as ‘best-in-class’ or ‘win-win situations’, is likely to convince the reader that you are unimaginative and dry.

Rather than adding a cliched phrase into your copy, you can either choose more straight-forward wording or create a new and unique phrase yourself.

You attempt to sell something too soon

In most cases, business writing is released into the world with the purpose of selling a product or service. However, if you’re attempting to create a thought-leadership piece, you need to set your business objectives aside – at least until the audience has completely committed.

Long-form copy, such as white papers and case studies, should draw the reader in with informed and interesting content, saving the call to action or sales pitch for the conclusion to avoid discouraging passive audiences.


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