Beatles used semaphore signals to promote Help!, their 5th British album. On original British cover, band members hand-gestured to spell out LPUS (on reverse print) or Help Us.
It’s a clever use no doubt; but how do you communicate business messages? Do you hand gesture? Or, do you use homing pigeons and torch signals? Definitely not! It’s the age of computer and World Wide Web. Like every façade of life, technology has invaded business communication space rightfully. In fact, improved communication technology helped businesses to have a global reach.
Unlike social and inter-personal communications, information sharing in business is more important as it involves money. So, you must comply all the 7Cs of effective business communication;
- Clarity
- Correctness
- Completeness
- Consideration
- Concreteness
- Conciseness
- Courtesy
Do they sound memorable to you?
Classes of business communication
Today there are 4 broad ways of communications – “face to face”, “print media”, “electronic media” and “broadcast media”. In case we consider 7Cs as a scale, each of them has its merits and demerits.
- “Fact to face” is arguably the best way of communication between two interested business parties. No technology can substitute qualities of a good human communicator. Though, it has its limited reach and excessive dependence human resource. After all, effective communication is no standard characteristic of human nature. Even for a seasoned human communicator, quality can surely fluctuate from time to time.
- Print media is time-tested way of business communication; but it serves only static content. Newspapers and magazines have very short shelf lives. That unnecessarily increases cost of communication. Besides, communiqué on print media itself is becoming expensive everyday due to skyrocketing production cost.
- Electronic media, like, mobile phone and internet, is fast growing as legitimate solutions to effective business communication. They are cost effective, reliable, offer broader reach and, no doubt, future of effective business communication. However, in developing countries electronic media has still very limited reach both in terms of technology and number of users.
- Though broadcast media is here since quite a long time, it’s evolving steadily. Digital signage could be an appropriate example. It helps to reach out to targeted group of people with rich and dynamic business content. Compelling content again helps easy absorption of business communications. You can have several digital bill boards, displays and banners in network and broadcast your business content from a central location at much reduced cost.
So, use technology judiciously and devise a right communication strategy for your business. It could make or break your prospect.
Leave a Reply