Business owners may be excellent at their jobs, but that doesn’t guarantee their business will thrive.
To run a successful business, you need to be an effective communicator.
That means avoiding these four common communication mistakes.
1. A weak brand voice
The mistake some business owners make is to write like they talk. What works in a conversation can appear unprofessional when written.
Instead, business owners should develop a professional written style and apply it consistently to all their writing. It’s okay to choose quirky, professional or authoritative, but it should be applied consistently. A distinct brand voice makes communication easier and your brand more memorable. For example, Hunter & Scribe’s style is to use short sentences, short paragraphs and to make every word count. This style is perfect for social media because people have short attention spans. (It’s also cost-effective for our clients, because it means they don’t pay for waffle.)
2. Slow response times
According to HubSpot, 85% of customers who contact a company on Facebook expect a response within six hours and 64% on Twitter want a response within one hour. If you don’t respond at all, 50% of clients say they’ll stop doing business with your company.
So it’s important that you respond quickly, but also professionally. One way to achieve this is to keep pre-written responses so you can copy and paste the right response when needed. Pre-written responses also let you delegate this task to junior staff. An easy way to get professional pre-written responses is to ask Hunter & Scribe to write them for you.
3. Lack of follow-up communication
If your marketing plan doesn’t include follow-up communication, you’re costing yourself sales. Follow-up communication can include auto-replies, checking in with your clients or sharing relevant industry news. This allows you to maintain contact with clients that could lead to more sales in the future.
For example, you can pre-write follow-up emails and automate sending them based on trigger events, like a client filling in a form on your website or signing up for your newsletter. These emails let your potential clients know you’re there, have received their communication and will give you a little more time to write a personal response when necessary.
Another great way to keep in touch is to send out weekly or monthly newsletters with industry news, special offers and helpful advice. Many business owners don’t have the time to write these newsletters, but they can outsource it to Hunter & Scribe.
4. Poorly written communication
If you’re an expert at what you do and pride yourself on perfection, your written content should reflect that. Bad grammar, sloppy sentence structure and poor punctuation present an unprofessional image. If you’re not great at writing or editing, hire a property and finance copywriting agency like Hunter & Scribe. The return on investment will be polished communication that reflects your expertise. You can also hire Hunter & Scribe to write or edit:
Blogs – choose your frequency and topics, or let us suggest some topics for you
Social media posts – we’ll source the information and write the posts for you whether you want daily or weekly social media posts
Website text – we can write, rewrite or edit your website text
Newsletters – we can write interesting articles about your industry for you to include in your newsletters
Media releases – increase your chances of having your media release published by letting us write it for you
Ebooks – we can write an ebook on any topic and let you put your name on it
Emails / EDMs – we can write short articles, brief follow-up messages or in-depth industry analysis pieces
Template letters and responses – reply to clients immediately and always sound professional with prewritten letters and responses
Case studies – tell clients how you solved problems just like theirs for people just like them – give us the details and we’ll write a compelling case study for you
Awards submissions – we can write high-quality submissions that will maximise your chances of getting nominated for prestigious awards
Books – we can ghost-write books for you, which you can then give to potential clients and referral partners
Contact us to discuss how we could help you create high-quality written communications and content marketing.