How to convey your message in print
As a manager, you frequently need to communicate with your staff, clients, customers, or general public through newsletters, brochures, leaflets, and other published materials. Unfortunately, however, although you might print and distribute a newsletter, you might not actually have succeeded in communicating with your readers. So, if you want to develop the ability to communicate effectively in print, consider these guidelines...
1. Know your audience.
Newsletters, brochures, and similar materials are effective and economical vehicles of communication - but only if they appeal to the people who are supposed to read them. If you are writing for a learned profession, your style will be different from what is required for a working-class community. In a nutshell, write from the vantage point of the reader, rather than from that of the manager.
2. Determine what they want to know and provide it.
Your readers usually want information about your organisation, its operation, programs, activities, products, services, and the decisions that affect them. Often they need to be persuaded as well as informed, thus requiring a different style of writing.
3. Avoid jargon.
In some organisations, when you spend most of your day talking to colleagues, it's easy to forget that your shop talk can be largely incomprehensible to an outsider. Don't let jargon sneak into your writing - ever. Convert your specialised language into everyday language for a wider readership.
