How To Write Effectively: Lesson from a Caffe Latte
You sit with a good friend in your favorite coffee shop.
You sip your caffe latte served at a most perfect 185 degrees.
What's more, the rich full-bodied espresso and steamed milk in your Italian handcrafted ceramic coffee cup could not taste better.
You exchange stories about your relationships, your jobs, your lives.
Thanks to that wonderful coffee drink, your conversation flows effortlessly.
And that's how it is with effective marketing communications.
Effective communication is always conversational.
It resembles nothing remotely close to what is found in a textbook or academic paper or Harvard Business Review.
You must begin with a simple conversation to engage your key stakeholders.
Forget about "marketing-speak" or industry "buzz terms."
Just be conversational.
Need a simple hint on how you do that? Write with your ears. In other words, write as people speak.
And keep in mind these proven basics of effective communicators:
· Your sentences should be short and simple.
· Your language needs to be jargon-free (see above).
· And keep paragraphs to just 3 to 4 sentences for easier scanning and reading.
Also, write in active voice. It grabs hold of your audience. (Kind of a like coffee does with your brain.)
Keep these simple tips in mind the next time you need to write an important memo.
Or a put up a blog post.
Or craft a newsletter.
Your ability to be conversational is crucial if you want to engage your audience and get your message to resonate.
Nothing like a handcrafted caffe latte to get you stimulated to do just that.
~HCollaborative.com~