When you write for business, you want to communicate your message clearly and persuasively. But how do you organize and highlight your main points? Here are some tips and best practices to help you structure your writing and make it more effective.
Before you start writing, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and who you are writing for. What is the main goal of your document? What are the key points you want to convey? Who are your readers and what do they need to know? These questions will help you define your purpose and audience, and guide your writing decisions.
Knowing your audience is key as it will help you plan what you want to say and how. For example, if you’re writing for a specialist healthcare audience you’ll be able to get away with using specialist language and terms. If you were writing the same piece for a more generic audience, you should take care to explain niche language. One of the most important things I was taught at journalism school is: never assume knowledge. To engage your audience, you have to educate them on a particular subject and you do that by writing in a way that is engaging and informative. You have to add value.
Having a solid grasp of your purpose and target readers is vital before you start writing. Define your document's goal and the key messages you wish to convey. Also, Identify your readers and their specific needs. This knowledge shapes your writing choices. By being aware of your goal, you can guarantee that your content stays concentrated and pertinent. By tailoring your language, tone, and style based on your audience enables effective engagement and communication.
Not all writing is for everyone! Sometimes you'll want to write for a general audience, but in the case of most business writing, you want to write for a specific audience with a focused pain point. This pain point is key. What are your readers struggling with, and how can you help them? Consider the deliverables of your writing, i.e., what your readers will take away from what you write and how it will help them. Tone is also crucial when you're writing for a specific audience. This is where reader psychology comes into play, as you want to think about the reader's mindset, why they're reading your writing, and how you can best speak to them.
Having a background in journalism I use The Who, What, Why, When, Where, and How to craft a loose outline. I also make sure that I weave in the company mission, vision, or values into the story where appropriate. Identifying the space where the company brand/product intersects the customer pain point is always a great way to get creative around presenting authentically.
A well-structured content and write-ups always grab attention. The best tips to create well-structured content: First figure out PAM - Purpose| Audience | Message Create an outline according to the purpose Under each outline, try to create sub-outline Add relevant figures, data, statistics, and images Use appropriate fonts and styles Always remember: Your presentation brings attention even after it has lack quality! So, focus on both...presentation and structuring.
An outline is a map of your document that shows the main sections, subheadings, and supporting details. It helps you organize your thoughts, plan your content, and avoid repetition or omission. You can use different formats for your outline, such as bullet points, numbers, letters, or symbols. The important thing is to make it clear and consistent. You can also use keywords, phrases, or questions to summarize each section.
Outlining should always be your first step in writing anything, whether it's a blog post or a book. A well-constructed outline allows you to visualize where you're going to begin your writing, what points you're going to cover, and how you're going to conclude what you've written. When building your outline, you don't need to necessarily start at the beginning. If you know what point you want to end with, start there and work backward. If you know what your main points or arguments are, list them out and then build the introduction and conclusion around them in a way that reinforces your ideas. An outline allows you to note any gaps in your writing before you put in the hard work of writing it all out.
I think this really depends on the type of writing you're doing. As a creative writer for both editorial and brands, I actually choose not to work with outlines, as I find the stiffness of that approach can hamper the crafting of more evocative, descriptive writing. Instead, I will start by reviewing my notes from interviews and compiling a list of meaningful quotes (when applicable), and then I actively set them aside to start from a more intuitive place of "What the larger context for this story?" or "What is the most important or essential aspect of this business that I need to convey first?". That doesn't mean what you write first will always start your story (after editing), but I find it leads to a more interesting writing style.
Having an outline can greatly assist in organizing your document effectively. It acts as a plan, showing you the way to the major divisions, subsections, and supplementary particulars. Maintaining coherence and avoiding redundancy or overlooking key points are facilitated by an outline, as it visually structures your thoughts. Using bullet points, numbers, letters, or symbols is important for clarity and consistency. Additionally, incorporating keywords, phrases, or questions for each section can provide concise summaries, enhancing overall comprehension.
Outlines are a great way to organize writing. When doing an outline, it may be helpful to do some brainstorming, jotting down key thoughts, words and phrases. Outlines help the writing process because they summarize what you're going to write and/or present. You may do more than one outline, however, you should combine them all before sitting down to write the rough draft. The final writing piece will be better because you took the time to do the outline and rough draft.
Your document should follow a logical order that makes sense for your purpose and audience. Depending on the type of document, you can use different strategies to arrange your information, such as chronological, problem-solution, cause-effect, or compare-contrast. You can also use transitions, such as words, phrases, or sentences, to connect your sections and show the relationships between your points.
No matter the type of document or style of writing, the beginning of your piece must grab and captivate the reader. This is less about what you say and more about how you say it. Moving on from your introductory sentences, consider how your subject matter is best approached. Is there a main point or thesis to address first? Or is there a foundation that must be laid before you can dive into deeper ideas? Think about an order that both makes sense and enthralls your reader.
Depending on the type of writing, you could use words to express your points and also illustrations, charts, bullet points, indents, etc. Yes, writing in a logical order is important because it keeps the reader engaged; they find it easy to follow along and can keep abreast the points made in your writing. Again, knowing the audience is very important in writing.
Headings and subheadings are visual cues that help your readers navigate your document and find the information they need. They also help you highlight your main points and organize your content into manageable chunks. You should use clear and descriptive headings and subheadings that match your outline and reflect the main idea of each section. You should also use consistent formatting, such as font size, style, and color, to indicate the hierarchy of your headings and subheadings.
A clever heading or subheading title always catches my eye and is one of my favorite things to come up with as a writer. A title that manages to inform the reader about the theme of a given section and create a witty association in their mind has done its job well.
Consistent formatting is important because readers need to have visual insight, recognizable transitions as your writing goes from thought to thought. It's good to make sure that the writing isn't too jammed; readers need to be able to follow along and grasp the information because the writer is clear and concise as opposed to using too many words to explain simplistic ideas. Good writers don't confuse the reader but rather compels them to want to explore further, to read more, to pay attention longer.
You want to make sure that your readers can easily identify and remember your key points. To do that, you can use different techniques to emphasize them, such as bolding, italicizing, underlining, or using colors. However, you should use these techniques sparingly and strategically, and avoid overdoing them or making your document look cluttered. You can also use other methods to highlight your key points, such as summaries, lists, tables, charts, or diagrams.
A summary should come after expressing information on a topic, especially when there's a lot of information being written. Summaries help remind the reader of what they've just read; they help the reader organize the key points. Writers should be careful as to not do too many techniques to emphasize major thoughts. Readers can become confused when reading something that has too much use of bolding or italicizing. Including summaries helps the reader more than the bolds and italics. Bullet points help readers conceptualize main ideas so being strategic about these techniques is vital in the delivery.
The final step of organizing and highlighting your main points is to review and edit your document. You should check your document for clarity, coherence, accuracy, and completeness. You should also proofread your document for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting errors. You can use tools, such as spell checkers, grammar checkers, or online editors, to help you with this process. However, you should also read your document aloud, ask for feedback, or use a checklist to catch any mistakes or improve your writing.
What you write needs to be good, but the way you deliver it needs to be good too. So, sharpening the text and proofreading it is a must.
Do not rely on AI, ChatGPT to do the work for you. You must know your subject so well and be so passionate about it you may not even need to organize your thoughts - you'll be living your passion and sharing with others with the amount of emotion no piece of technology can ever emulate.
What’s the story, and who is the target audience? Begin with these two questions and writing will begin to take purposeful shape. Without knowing the answers, you may lack focus, direction, and audience connection. Next, use bullets with key points and priority content to develop an outline. Once we have these story highlights, the bullets can be broken down and rearranged to develop an outline that tells the story and relates to our audience. Draft, write, edit, rearrange, write more, edit more, and then step away before returning to repeat and review as needed. Don’t be afraid to red-ink your own work to develop experiential and relational content that informs.