An offer is an important and integral tool to attract customers. Whether your reader turns into a customer or a client or not will depend on how you write and compose it. An offer may be a failure if you do not make an offer properly. As a rule, this part receives less attention than deserves. Here is the check-list which will help you increase the chances of a commercial offer considerably.
- Make sure that the main text of your commercial offer (without supplements) is not longer than 2 pages. One page would be ideal.
- Check if you have been following the rule: a printed text – serif fonts, electronic text – sans serif fonts.
- Make sure that the font size of your letter is as comfortable as possible (for reading from the screen and in the printed form) – for example: Verdana 12, Tahoma 11, Calibri 14.
- Even if you are preparing a commercial offer on the base of an individual design (including a typesetting one), remember that reading “black on white” is more comfortable than “white on black”.
- If you use the colors, make sure that the document has not more than 2-3 color shades.
- Remember that a commercial offer made in colors (printed and electronic versions) is read more absorbedly.
- Your text should include not more than 2 different fonts, the more different fonts the less it is convenient to read the text.
- There is no need to specify your bank details at the top of your commercial offer near the contact data – you haven’t make a deal yet.
- In big companies commercial offers are registered and dated – before you send it, make sure that your offer has a date and a number (the date, by the way, should be actual).
- Check out that instead of the phrase “Commercial offer” you use a heading. An exception is the situation when you yourself are asked to send or prepare a specific “commercial offer”. In this case, after the phrase “commercial offer” a short specification will be relevant. For example, “Commercial offer on promotion of the website __________ in Facebook”. It is written in two lines: the first is “Commercial offer” (in bigger font), the second – the specification itself.
- Make sure that the heading is not longer than two lines. 1 line and 3-5 words would be ideal.
- The heading of the commercial offer should be written in bigger font (comparing to the main text) and centered.
- Check carefully that your commercial offer does not have blank lines to fill in by hand (“________________”) – it looks like a template.
- Make sure that you use one type of aligning the main text (by the left side or by width), and that there are no visual blanks.
- Subheadings should be made in bold font. And, as a rule, they should be left-aligned.
- Make sure that the paragraphs in your commercial offer consist of not more than four lines.
- Check that the sentences are not more than two lines long.
- The width of the line most comfortable for reading is 60-80 characters with spaces.
- Make sure that the paragraphs have “the air” (a space, a blank line) between them.
- 0. Remember that enumerations should be made as a bullet or a numbered list (customers, advantages, characteristics, product versions etc.)
- Check if you have highlighted (that is, accented) the key points in your text by visual or graphic tools.
- Try to limit the number of words written in capital letters, especially in headings and subheadings.
- If you use direct speech or quotes in the text of your commercial offer – you better make them in italics or use a cursive.
- If you offer a product, make sure you attached a product photo to your commercial offer (from different angles). The “photos in action” work well, where the product is used for purpose already.
- In electronic text you should “attach” links to a certain phrase (especially when you call to action), than put them as they are.
- If you send a commercial offer by email, it would be better if you don’t attach it as a document but put it in the letter field (especially in the form of a designer corporate template).
- No “smileys”!
- Make sure that in each case you use not more than one exclamation (question) mark.
- Don’t overdo suspension points.
- Make sure that postscript is visually highlighted – namely “P.S.”, not any other symbols. And moreover, one postscript is enough for a commercial offer.
- The signature on the commercial offer should be made with blue paste or ink (on condition that the main text is in black).
- If you use supplements to your commercial offer – don’t forget to mention them in the main text. Besides, each supplement should have a number and a clear heading. For example: “Supplement #1. Efficiency evaluation”. In this case “Supplement #1” is aligned by the top right edge, and “Efficiency evaluation …” is a full-size heading.
- If you attach a business card to your commercial offer, don’t forget to fold the top right edge: according to business etiquette it means that you pass the business card with your own hand.
- Before sending the offer, test the quality of design. By email – send it to your second box. By fax – send it to another fax number and make sure everything is legible and clear.
- If you send a text document by email, you’d better transform it into a PDF format. You should remove visual underscore in green and red from the MS Word version beforehand, as they point out grammar inaccuracies.
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