Business Writing Examples
There are numerous types of business writing, which is by no means restricted to letters or emails, but memos, business letters, and emails are the most common.
Business Memo
A memo is generally an internal business document that is sent from one person within a company to another person in the same department in that company or a different department in that company. A sample memo, adapted from Purdue OWL, might read:
TO: Kelly Anderson, Marketing Executive
FROM: Jonathon Fitzgerald, Market Research Assistant
DATE: May 23, 2018
SUBJECT: Fall Clothes Line Promotion
Market research and analysis show that the proposed advertising media for the new fall lines need to be reprioritized and changed. Findings from focus groups and surveys have made it apparent that we need to update our advertising efforts to align them with the styles and trends of young adults today. No longer are young adults interested in sitcoms as they watch reality televisions shows. Also, it is has become increasingly important to use the internet as a tool to communicate with our target audience to show our dominance in the clothing industry.
Internet Advertising
XYZ Company needs to focus advertising on internet sites that appeal to young people. According to surveys, 72 percent of our target market uses the internet for five hours or more per week. The following list shows in order of popularity the most frequented sites:
Shifting our efforts from our other media sources such as radio and magazine to these popular internet sites will more effectively promote our product sales. Young adults are spending more and more time on the internet downloading music, communicating and researching for homework and less and less time reading paper magazines and listening to the radio. As the trend for cultural icons is to go digital, so must our marketing plans.
Television Advertising
It used to be common to advertise for our products on shows like Blue Bloods and Chicago Med for our target audience, but even the face of television is changing. Young adults are tuning into reality television shows for their entertainment. Results from the focus group show that our target audience is most interested in shows like America's Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance, and American Ninja Warrior. The only nonreality television show to be ranked in the top 10 most commonly watched shows by females 18 to 25 is The Bachelor. At Blue Incorporated, we need to focus our advertising budget on reality television shows and reduce the amount of advertising spent on other programs.
By refocusing our advertising efforts of our new line of clothing we will be able to maximize the exposure of our product to our target market and therefore increase our sales. Tapping into the trends of young adults will help us gain market share and sales through effective advertising.
Attachments: Focus Group Results, January–May 2018; Survey Findings, January–April 2018
Note a few important stylistic and grammatical norms here: The salutation is very direct; the "TO," "FROM," "DATE," and "SUBJECT" are in all caps, though that is not a hard-and-fast rule. It is also acceptable to uppercase just the first letter of each part of the salutation. The name of the person sending the memo (such as you) is listed in full, followed by your title. On the next line, with one space in between, list the name and title of the person receiving the memo, followed on the next line (leaving one space) by the date, followed on the next line with the subject. In four short lines, the sender, receiver, date, and subject are known.
Include an introductory paragraph, just as described above, followed by body paragraphs that give the details, or in this case, explain the argument (that research shows that advertising should be geared toward younger adults). Because the memo is longer than four or five paragraphs, the writer correctly broke up the text under informative subheads. Just as in most newspaper and other writing styles, the subheads are in title case (with major words starting with an uppercase letter and minor words all in lowercase).
As shown here, list any attachments (and their dates) at the end of the memo.