In the same vein as the last post, another essential skill to nail down is that of letter writing. It can be really hard to write a good letter that both sells yourself and does not come off as clichéd. However, that is often easier said than done, as we well know. The people here at CBD have been writing a massive range of sales and proposal letters for years on a professional level (see here for our letter writing service page) and so are in a good position to share some of the things they have learnt. Below are found a few tips that we think will help you write a great letter.

Style

1. This letter is not a report, it is more of a formal introduction. Thus, try to use a conversational style that continues the flow of your communication with the customer between a phone call and a letter. A good way to do this is to refer to your original point of contact to assist with this seamless flow.
2. Make sure the letter is clear and easy to read – as a rough guideline, use 20 words per sentence with 4-5 sentences per paragraph. Make sure the letter is clearly laid out with plenty of white space to frame the text. First impressions are important and an aesthetically oriented letter will go a long way towards creating a good first impression.
3. It is important to remain focused on the players involved in the decision-making. Therefore, use lots of pronouns like ‘WE’ and ‘YOU’ to draw in your reader and give them a sense of involvement in the correspondence.

Structure

There is no set formula for writing a letter but we like to use the AIDA plan to structure ours. It is an easily applied and effective format for a good letter:

• Attention - The first paragraph should be used to secure initial interest with a ‘hook’

• Interest – In the second paragraph use the attention to build interest further.

• Desire – In the third paragraph, build solid evidence in of your suitability for the work by highlighting similarities between previous jobs and references.

• Action – Finally, in the fourth paragraph, outline the action you will be taking so as to clarify and to reinforce a sense that you are on top of the project.

Hopefully those tips with send you on your way armed with confidence to write a great letter. As a final note, it is really worth mentioning that it is good to be creative in your letters. The above mentioned ideas are really good guidelines but the best thing about them is that there is a lot of room for variation within them. Don’t be afraid to try out something different.