Keeping to the point…

I had a meeting with clients yesterday and they showed me a competitior’s materials as an example of materials they wanted. Well, the concept they wanted but not the materials themselves.

The document they showed me was 10 or 12 pages long, with a covering letter attached. I only skim read the document but it was clear who had written it – the owner of the business has written it about his precious business and service, and because of his passion and motivations, he tried to tell potential customers everything there is to know about his services.

It is important to know the purpose of any document and just stick to it. If your document (as was the one I saw yesterday) is more detailed than a flyer but is still meant to just give an overview of the service, then just give an overview. Your customers don’t need to know you use a PC or  Mac to produce their pdf – and what’s more, they don’t care.

Telling too much will just bore your customers which could well mean they’ll go elsewhere. If they want to know the technical details they’ll ask for them, but you can bet most people won’t.

When writing for clients, I frequently cut back  on the amount of information included in a document with the result being a cleaner, simpler document that works.

So as you’re writing ask yourself “Is this really necessary? Does this suit my purpose?”

PS I have a new article on knowing your purpose – you can read it here.

Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs