Today I wanted to address something that really should hit home with alot of business professionals. Finding and administering standards for a common form of letter writing.

As we become increasingly dependent on sending and receiving e-mail it seems that we are focusing more on our message rather than writing as professional business persons. The way we write e-mail to each other really shows that and I’m sure everyone can agree. I do not know what it is, a pure lack of unprofessionalism or maybe we are doing so much now that we don’t have enough time to take the few extra seconds to form a proper letter or e-mail.

So I wanted to provide this refresher course. Today I sent out around 20 direct mail marketing letters for my web design business, MankatoWebDesign.com, in the hopes of gaining a new client or two. But sales letters are a completely different story. Nonetheless, I still found it useful to research and help explain what a proper block style letter should contain and how it should be organized. It is very important to make sure you understand how to properly write a business letter.

I made the example below as a guideline. Please credit it if you use it for your web site.

Business Letter Writing Tips:

-If you do not want to use to example below, you can download a sample business letter format

- Special Mailing Notifications: Type this part of the letter in caps such as AIRMAIL, FEDERAL MAIL, etc.

- Arrival Notification: Type this part of the letter in caps. Include the same Arrival Notification on the front of the envelope or in the e-mail message title. Examples include CONFIDENTIAL or PERSONAL.

- Do not type in the brackets [ ] when writing the letter. They are only guidelines.

- Limit your letter to one page. Use Microsoft Word or another writing program to center the message horiztonally and vertically along the page length and height.

- Check your margins, or the white spacing going around your message. This can be check in your Microsoft Word Page Setup or Print Properties settings. They should measued 1 1/2″.

- Some of the more formal components such as cc: (carbon copy), bc: (used to notify who the message should exlude), Special Mailing Notifications, and Arrival Notification should be used only when necessary. If you choose not to use them then do not make space for them.ÂÂ

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