Audience: Know Your Humans

Marketing 2200G Supplement
By Amy Bettridge

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1. Know Your Audience
2. Build Goodwill
3. Demonstrate You Attitude
4. Be Positive
5. Use Inclusive Language
6. Use Appropriate Tone

Watch: 'A Writing Process to Improve Your Business Writing'

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Use the following resources to learn more about audience-focused writing and you attitude.

• "The Curse of Knowledge" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Harvard Business Review
• "Guidelines for Adopting the 'You Attitude' in Professional Writing" by Richard Nordquist, ThoughtCo.com
• "The Importance of Knowing Your Audience," ExpressProofreading.com

Meet the Author

Your Written Business Communication faculty member, Amy Bettridge, is a unabashed logophile. I have been teaching at UVU for around 15 years. I've spent those years writing the WSB Style Guide, developing content for our Business Communication course, revising the Canvas course annually, and dabbling in poetry and creative nonfiction. I'm a proud mother of three and mother-in-law to two UVU alumni. My husband received his master's degree from UVU in Public Administration. So pretty much--we bleed green.

No matter what question you ask about business writing, the answer is always, "It depends." What you write and how you write it will always depend on who your audience is, what your relationship is with the audience, how the document will be used, how the message will be received, and what you want the reader(s) to do. Many times the answers to these questions are intuitive--you've texted your boss a hundred times, but deciding what to write and how to approach a complex topic will require reflection, planning, and even research. (Refer to the "Analyze" chapter of the Management Communication textbook for additional resources.)

1 Know Your Audience

Before you write any business message, you should visualize your audience. Avoid writing to a computer screen. Instead, visualize a reader; and write to that person in terms of language, motivation, and prior knowledge. Will the reader be pleased or displeased with your conclusions and recommendations? Will deductive (direct) or inductive (indirect) order be more appropriate?

Once you have your reader(s) in your mind's eye, consider the following suggestions.

Know your purpose. Why is this document being prepared? What is the central issue of the problem? What considerations must be determined before the finished product is delivered? What will be the nature of the conclusions? Following the introduction, what direction will the written presentation take? What strategy will you employ to achieve your objectives.

Determine the content. Answer these questions: What does my reader already know? What additional information do I need to provide? Then gather information; brainstorm the possibilities of the content and the manner in which it can be stated. Sort out any ideas not relevant to the topic at hand. Are some ideas interesting but not really related to the issue? Select those facts that support your purpose, and discard unrelated notes. Complete your research, obtaining all material needed for the presentation.

Organize your facts. All good written presentations have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Develop an outline so the document flows logically from one topic to the next. Make your outline as complete as possible so the actual writing proceeds without interruption.

Choose the Format and Channel. As shown in Figure 2, you have many choices for how to communication with your audience. Your choices range from "snail mail" to text. For some, texting your supervisor may be preferred; for others, face-to-face communication is best. Your job is to navigate your business relationships to determine the most efficient channel.

According to Dr. David Olson, hyper-communication (excessive volumes of information) causes "stress, overload, communication misalignment, and, ultimately, distractedness that impares an employee's work efficiency."

As a supervisor, you should implement the most efficient communication techniques. What will you use? email? Microsoft Teams? slack? Any of these, while essential business tools, can also be distractions. Workers who stop a project to check email will not resume their project for an average of 23 minutes. And how many times a day does someone check email? Recommendations from Dr. Olson include allowing people to choose their preferred communication channels, setting clear response time expectations, and implementing communication blackout periods when workers can concentrate on projects while ignoring emails.

2 Build Goodwill

Every business document is written to accomplish at least one of the following three purposes:

1. To help the reader know something.
2. To get the reader to do something.
3. To build or maintain goodwill.

Let's consider how building goodwill will initiate and maintain business relationships.

As illustrated in Figure 3, goodwill is the nonmonetary value of a company. For example, in 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion. At the time, YouTube was not profitable. The reasons Google would pay so much for a company not making money are obvious—its reputation and potential. (For more information about how goodwill is calculated, read this article from Investopedia.com.)

Your job as a writer is to maintain and build your own goodwill. As a supervisor, employee, client, or team member, you want to be recognized for your clear communication and accessible documents. Be the type of write whose messages people open immediately because they'll anticipate clear communication. In addition to tailoring the message to your audience, you'll want to employ to the following strategies: you attitude, positive emphasis, inclusive language, and appropriate tone.

3 Demonstrate You Attitude

One of the most important principles in writer relations is putting yourself in the reader's position—that is, looking at things from the reader’s point of view. This ability is known as using you attitude or you viewpoint and is developed through the writer’s use of pronouns and emphasis. Writers who incorporate you attitude in their writing will build goodwill with the reader.

Pronouns. One way to promote you attitude is through the use of appropriate pronouns. Focus on replacing I or we references with you and your references. Use you and your pronouns liberally, and scale down the use of the pronouns I, me, my, we, and our. However, when presenting negative information or bad news, you attitude is better expressed without using you or your. Use passive voice to (1) improve the you attitude or (2) avoid placing blame.

Example	Improved You Attitude
We provide six paid vacation days per year.	As a full-time employee, you will have six paid vacation days per year.
We have approved your loan	Your loan has been approved. (Passive voice improves the you attitude.)
We are excited to announce the opening of the new gym!	The new gym will open Friday at 7 a.m.
We have shipped your product.	Your order of six ergonomic desk chairs will arrive by Friday, August 2.
You did not provide all the necessary information.	To process your claim, we need a copy of your receipt.
You neglected to account for inflation.	No accounting for inflation was made in this report. (Passive voice avoids placing blame.)

Emphasis. Show how your reader will benefit from whatever the message requests or announces. Meet the reader’s needs in the message and in the presentation of the message. You can do this through choosing the appropriate emphasis.

Because the most emphasized part of a sentence, the part that stands out the most, is the beginning, you can often arrange the order of the ideas in the sentence to stress the reader's needs and benefits. Notice the difference in emphasis in the examples on the right: the first set of sentences emphasizes the writer, while the second set emphasizes the reader.

Because the beginning of a message has the greatest emphasis, a good business writer will generally avoid beginning a letter with I or we. The editing process of any business correspondence should include looking for we-oriented ideas and replacing them with you-oriented ideas where appropriate.

4 Be Positive

To build goodwill with positive emphasis, apply the following principles.

	Negative	Positive
Mention what can be done.	No, you can't buy a one-month policy.	The shortest term for a policy is six months.
Offer an alternative.	You are not eligible for a refund.	Store credit is available with a valid receipt.
Be proactive.	I don't know the answer.	I will find someone who can help.
Use positive words.	I don't like the font on the website.	Let's try Palantino as the body font.
Avoid placing blame.	Your team didn't finish taking inventory.	Inventory wasn't completed.
Explain policies.	It's our policy.	Hiring from within rewards our current employees for their contributions.
Use a dependent clause.	We don't have any open positions.	Although all positions are currently filled, we will call you if one opens up.

5 Use Inclusive Language

To build goodwill with your reader, use inclusive language. Anticipate any eventuality, and include all the possibilities in your language. If you are inviting your employees to bring a guest to a company retreat, you may be tempted to invite employees and their spouses. Instead, invite employees and their guests.

You can find additional information about avoiding bias in your writing in the WSB Style Guide.

6 Use Appropriate Tone

Communication theory teaches us that senders encode a message—they send it through a channel, and receivers decode it. What can go wrong in this process? Well, if you’ve ever been involved in an email or text misunderstanding, you know messages are not always sent nor received in the way they were intended. Who is to blame for business communication blunders? If your message is misunderstood, fault doesn’t matter. As business writers, we should take responsibility for our message and learn from our mistakes so we can communicate clearly and avoid confusion.

Choose the Right Words. Use appropriate language for the situation. If you are delivering bad news, be careful with your closing. “Better luck next time” might actually be a forward- looking, friendly line, but it is likely to be interpreted as insincere, even mocking. This is because words have explicit meanings (denotations), but they are often interpreted differently (connotations). (For a more nuanced discussion about word meanings, peruse this article from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.) Consider the following list.

• Young vs. immature
• Slim vs. skinny
• Challenging vs.difficult
• Assertive vs. overbearing
• Clever vs. sly

The pairs of words above are synonyms, but the second word of each pair has a negative connotation—that is, one might consider it an insult. Choose words carefully.

In addition to considering the connotation of words, you should also me mindful of the complexity of your vocabulary. According to Herb Weisbaum, NBC writer, half of American adults read at a 9th grade level or below. For reference, "Hary Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is written at the 8th-grade level, and the Book of Exodus in the King James version of the Bible is written at the 10th-grade level." According to creditcards.com, credit card contracts are usually written in language that's too complex for the average consumer.

As always, however, your choice of vocabulary will depend on your audience. A PhD thesis is written for a relatively small group of experts who work in the field, but an annual report is written for a wide audience that includes shareholders, potential investors, financial analysts, the media, and employees. The more broad your audience, the more accessible your communication should be.

Let's be clear. Always choose the word that is the most precise. Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter. Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” In other words, close but not quite may actually change the idea completely. Also check for a personal and conversational approach. Would you use the same wording if you were talking with the person?

Be Confident, Courteous, and Sincere.Having proper tone for a business message includes being confident, not arrogant; courteous, not presumptuous; and sincere, not flippant. Consider the following examples.

Not	But
Given these arguments, you must agree I deserve the position.	My qualifications in these areas exceed your requirements.
This training will help you become a better manager.	This training will help you become an even better manager.
I hope this is the information you wanted.	Attached is the markting report you requested. You'll find the answers to your specific questions on page 12.
Thank you for the confidence you've shown by buying our product.	Thank you for your purchase.
I remember two occasions when you contributed something.	You are a valuable member of our team.
I hope this message finds you well.	Omit this sentence.

Respect Relationships. Your relationship with the reader is always relevant. As a supervisor, sometimes you'll want to wield your authority, and doing that may be appropriate. More frequently, however, writers should check their egos and use strategy and persuasion to achieve their purposes.

Utah Valley University | English 3340 | amy.bettridge@uvu.edu