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CHAPTER 3: Planning Business Messages
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Chapter 3 introduces students to the first step in the three-step writing process: planning business
messages. Students are guided through important planning stages including analyzing their
situation and developing an audience profile. Other planning stages addressed include gathering
necessary information and adapting the message to the audience and purpose. The discussion of
message adaptation includes detailed coverage of how to choose the best channel and medium
for various message situations. The chapter helps students understand that all media are not
equally effective in all situations. The chapter guides readers through the activities involved in
organizing a message: defining the main idea, limiting the scope of the main idea, choosing
between direct and indirect organizational approaches, and outlining content.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Understanding the Three-Step Writing Process
Analyzing the Situation
Defining Your Purpose
Developing an Audience Profile
Gathering Information
Uncovering Audience Needs
Providing Required Information
Selecting the Best Combination of Media and Channels
The Most Common Media and Channel Choices
Oral Medium, In-Person Channel
Oral Medium, Digital Channel
Written Medium, Print Channel
Written Medium, Digital Channel
Visual Medium, Print Channel
Visual Medium, Digital Channel
The Unique Challenges of Communication on Mobile Devices
Factors to Consider When Choosing Media and Channels
Organizing Your Message
Defining Your Main Idea
Limiting Your Scope
Choosing Between Direct and Indirect Approaches
Outlining Your Content
Building Reader Interest with Storytelling Techniques
The Future of Communication: Haptic Technologies
What’s Your Prediction?
Chapter Review and Activities
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TEACHING NOTES
Understanding the Three-Step Writing Process
Whether your writing task is routine or more complex, your goal is to create messages that are
effective and efficient.
Following the three-step writing process will help meet these goals:
• Planning business messages
Analyze the situation
Gather information
Select the right media and channels
Organize the information
• Writing business messages
Adapt your audience
Compose the message
• Completing business messages
Revise the message
Produce the message
Proofread the message
Distribute the message
To schedule your time over the three-step process:
• Use roughly half your available time for planning.
• Use a quarter of your time for actual writing.
• Use the remaining quarter of your time for completing the project.
Analyzing the Situation
Successful messages start with a clear purpose that connects the sender’s needs with the
audience’s needs.
All business messages have a general purpose and a specific purpose. General purposes of
business messages are:
• To inform
• To persuade
• To collaborate
• To initiate a conversation
Specific purposes of business messages include:
• What you hope to accomplish with the message
• How your audience should respond after receiving your message
Ask yourself these questions before proceeding, to ensure that the purpose merits the time and
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effort required for you to prepare the message:
• Will anything change as a result of your message?
• Is your purpose realistic?
• Is the time right?
• Is your purpose acceptable to your organization?
Audiences must know what’s in it for them—which of their needs will be met or what problems
will be solved by listening to your advice or doing what you ask? Develop an audience profile by
completing the following steps:
• Identify your primary audience.
• Determine audience size and geographic distribution.
Gathering Information
After you’ve generated a clear picture of your audience, the next step is to assemble the
information that you will include in your message.
Formal techniques for finding, evaluating, and processing information are discussed in Chapter
10.
A variety of informal techniques enable you to gather insights and focus your research efforts:
• Consider the audience’s perspective.
• Listen to the community.
Different situations will require varying amounts of effort to determine your audience’s
information needs. In some cases, those needs will be readily apparent, while others will require
some detective work to find out what information is needed.
Once you’ve identified your audience’s information needs, your next step is to satisfy those
needs completely; be sure to deliver the right quantity of required information as well as verify
the quality of that information. Before including information in your document, be sure your
information is:
Selecting the Best Combination of Media and Channels
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The medium is the form a message takes and the channel is the system used to deliver it.
Media can be divided into oral, written, and visual forms. All three can be distributed through
digital and non-digital channels.
Oral medium, in-person channel: includes face–to-face conversations, interviews, speeches, and
in-person presentations and meetings.
Advantages include:
• Opportunity for immediate feedback
Disadvantages include:
• Limited reach
Oral medium, digital channel: includes telephone calls, voice-mail messages, and podcasts.
Advantages include:
• Can provided opportunity for immediate feedback
Disadvantages include:
• Lack of nonverbal cues other than voice inflection
• Recorded messages can be tedious to listen to
Written medium, print channel: includes memos, letter, reports, and proposals.
Advantages include:
• Allow writers to plan and control messages
• Can reach geographically dispersed audience
• Offer a permanent, verifiable record
Disadvantages include:
• Limited opportunities for timely feedback
Written medium, digital channel includes tweets, website content, PDFs, email, IMs, blogs, and
social networking.
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Advantages include:
• Generally, all advantages of written printed plus fast delivery
• Flexibility of format, structure
Disadvantages include:
• Can be limited in reach and capability
• Requires Internet or mobile phone connectivity
Visual medium, print channel includes photographs, diagrams, as standalones or supporting
material in printed documents.
Advantages include:
• Convey complex ideas and relationships quickly
• Less intimidating than long blocks of text
Disadvantages include:
• Can require artistic skills to design and technical skills to create
• Require some technical skills to create
Visual medium, digital channel includes infographics, interactive diagrams, animation, and
digital video.
Advantages include:
• Generally, all advantages of visual printed and written digital
Disadvantages include:
The mobile digital channel has become significant in business communication of all types, but it
presents some challenges that must be considered.
• Screen size and resolution
To select the best medium for your message, consider the following factors:
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• Media richness
• Message formality
Organizing Your Message
Organizing your message well helps your audience understand and accept your message, and
saves time for both you and your audience.
In addition to saving time and energy for your readers, good organization saves you time and
energy by allowing you to focus on how you want to say something, rather than struggling with
what you want to say next.
When you are having difficulties determining your main idea, try the following strategies:
• Brainstorming
• Journalistic approach
The scope of the message is the range of information presented, the overall length, and the level
of detail. It is important for the scope of the project to correspond with the main idea.
After you’ve defined your main ideas, you are now ready to decide between two sequences used
to present your information: the direct or indirect approaches.
• Direct approaches are best used when you know that your audience will be receptive to
After you’ve decided on your approach, use one of the two outline forms to sketch out your ideas
(alphanumeric or decimal outlines).
Whichever outline form is used, the following three steps should be followed:
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• Define the main idea.
• Identify major supporting points.
• Provide examples and evidence.
The Future of Communication: Haptic Technologies
Haptic communication, or haptics, is the study of touch in a communication context. Touch is a vital
aspect of human-to–human and human-to–machine interaction, but it is missing from most forms of digital
communication. However, the field of haptic technology is enabling touch and tactile sensations in a
growing number of ways. Many video game controllers use haptic feedback to give players some sense of
the feel of driving a racecar, for example.
Mobile devices and wearables such as smartwatches are incorporating haptic input and output in ways
that simulate the nuances of human touch. The ability to remotely manipulate objects and machines
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OVERCOMING DIFFICULTIES STUDENTS OFTEN FACE
Many of your students will have difficulty in planning, composing, and completing effective
business messages because of their lack of business experience and lack of understanding
regarding business processes and procedures.
Students often have trouble distinguishing between a topic and the main idea. Provide numerous
examples of both topics and main ideas, and ask students to identify the main idea in each one.
This practice should help them include the main idea in the first paragraph of good news, routine,
and goodwill messages.
Students rarely have an immediate appreciation for the three-step writing process. They want to
dive right in, often before they have completed any type of planning, and perhaps before they
fully understand the communication situation. Take time to explore Figure 3.1, the Three-Step
information is necessary to eliminate time-consuming follow-ups (i.e., those calls, emails, and
letters that people must initiate to obtain missing information).
Although students may be experienced in using the “direct” approach, they may not be familiar
with the term. They may also be unfamiliar with the indirect approach. Be sure to explain that
the direct approach is also known as the deductive approach, since many students will also be
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SUGGESTED CLASSROOM EXERCISES
1. Application Exercises. This chapter provides a great opportunity for getting students to work
with shorter components of a document. Students enjoy working on the various end-of-
2. Planning Effective Messages. Lead a discussion about sample messages that are unclear,
incomplete, and full of errors. (It is especially effective when faculty provide examples of
these messages that come from your own files.) Then ask students to plan a memo to
3. Analyzing Your Audience. Assign students to work in teams. Provide a list of situations and
ask the teams to complete an audience profile for each situation. Conduct a discussion to
4. Selecting Effective Channel and Media. Compile a list of communication situations and ask
students to identify two effective communication media/channel combinations, and one
5. Critiquing Poorly Organized Messages. Ask students to critique poorly written documents
that you distribute. You may use a document from your files, or you could provide a
6. Choosing Between Direct and Indirect Approaches. Provide students with a list of situations.
Refer them to Figure 3.6, and ask them to determine which organizational approach would be
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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
3-69. The three major steps in the writing process are (1) planning, (2) writing, and (3)
completing business messages. (LO 3.1; AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-3. To develop an audience profile, one needs to identify the primary audience, determine the
size of the audience and its geographic distribution, determine the composition of the
3-4. The three attributes of quality information are that it is accurate, ethical, and pertinent. (LO
3-5. Answers to starred discussion items not provided.
3-6. It would be better to send a printed letter rather than a digital message when the audience
may not have Internet or mobile phone connectivity. There are also privacy and security
3-7. The topic of your message is the overall subject, such as employee insurance claims. Your
main idea is a specific statement about the topic of your message, such as your belief that a
new web-based claim filing system would reduce costs for the company and reduce
reimbursement delays for employees. (LO 3.5; AACSB Tag: Written and oral
communication)
APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE
3-9. The medium/channel combination that should be used is written digital. It allows for fast
delivery and can reach geographically dispersed audience, like these manufacturers around
3-10. Answers to starred discussion items not provided.
3-11. Fourteen points to support your main idea is excessive; review your main points and try to
group them together so that you have no more than a half dozen main points. (LO 3.5;
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PRACTICE YOUR SKILLS
Exercises for Perfecting Your Writing
Specific Purpose. Statements of purpose should be similar to the following:
3-12. I want to inform the manager about the type and number of outdated items in the
3-14. I want to encourage employees to save water. (LO 3.2; AACSB Tag: Written and oral
communication)
3-16. I want to explain how the content management system works. (LO 3.2; AACSB Tag:
Written and oral communication)
3-17. The reader is a dealer in financial trouble who is likely to be embarrassed and hostile when
3-18. The readers of the ad are people who read the food section of the local newspaper. They
3-19. The reader is the manager of the property management company who will most likely be
displeased to receive this letter since the writer has been experiencing “persistent
3-20. The reader will be a recruiter who receives hundreds of similar résumés and who will be
basically indifferent unless the company is actively recruiting large numbers of new
3-21. The reader is a customer service representative who is likely to be detached about the
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letter, having dealt with many similar problems. If satisfied that the customer has a
justifiable claim, the reader will probably approve the adjustment. The letter should explain
how the damage occurred and justify the $150 estimated for repairs. (LO 3.2; AACSB
Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-22–3-36. Answers will vary based on the examples that students cite. (LOs 3.2 and 3.4;
AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-40. Indirect: Again, a neutral buffer would make the audience more receptive. Presenting the
3-41. Indirect: To persuade the reader to pay the debt, the writer should begin by pointing out how
the reader will benefit from this course of action. However, if the indirect approach repeatedly
Message Organization: Drafting Persuasive Messages. If you were trying to persuade people to
take the following actions, how would you organize your argument? Write direct or indirect in
3-42. Indirect: The reader will be motivated mainly by “bottom–line” considerations.
Copyright © 2019 Pearson Education, Inc.
3-43. Direct: The company recruiter will be looking for a qualified person to fill existing openings.
Begin with the type of job you’re seeking; then explain your qualifications for that job. (LO
3.5; AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-44. Direct: The bank will be motivated by financial considerations. You need to demonstrate
3-45. Direct: You want to collect a small amount from a regular customer whose account is only
3-46. Indirect: The person is either unable or unwilling to pay. You need to provide a real
incentive to settle the debt. Point out the consequences of failing to pay. You might also
offer to arrange a repayment schedule that is practical, given the person’s financial
position. (LO 3.5; AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
ACTIVITIES
3-47. Students will find that the chairperson is writing primarily for investors. The general
purpose is to inform the audience about PepsiCo’s financial results and business
3-48. Students’ responses will vary based on their chosen Facebook pages. Responses should
include the idea that each site has identified its primary audience and targeted its message
3-49. Students’ responses will vary based on their chosen websites. Responses should include at
least three modifications to improve the site for readability on a smartphone, targeting
some of the following issues: content should be created/modified taking the screen size and
resolution of a smartphone into consideration; attention should be paid to the input
required from readers; content should be created/modified to account for the fact that not
3-50. Student answers should focus on what they need to know about the audience in order to
respond effectively. They must address two audiences: the disgruntled passenger, and the
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other readers of the newspaper who may be potential cruise customers. A personal letter to
the passenger would be appropriate, as would a diplomatically worded letter to the editor.
For the travel publication, it would be best to respond directly to the customer (if possible),
provide an answer letter to be published in the publication, and perhaps send out a special
mailing to travel agents (if that seems warranted). A secondary audience in both cases
would be the cruise line’s management, who would be monitoring the handling of the
situation. (LO 3.4: AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-51. To some extent, the decision about what is relevant depends on what the students assume
about the audience. Suggest that they begin by putting themselves in the position of a top
manager. What would they need to know in order to make a decision about the new heating
system? What factors would influence their decision?
The line between what is essential and what is irrelevant is debatable. For example, some
boards might be interested in seeing two-year cost projections. Others would not want to
consider such fine detail.
The following list shows the points that are probably of least value, arranged with the least
valuable first:
depending on the attitudes and level of knowledge of the audience. For example, if the top
managers know virtually nothing about cogeneration, students would probably want to
include a brief introduction that explained cogeneration. This introduction might provide
some historical information and data about the developers. Basically, however, this would be
background information to set the stage for more important material.
The body of the presentation could be arranged in three main sections:
I. Installation of the cogeneration process
A. Specifications of the equipment
B. Estimates of time required to phase in equipment
II. Economic impact of the cogeneration process
A. Costs of installing and running equipment
B. Detailed ten-year cost projections (optional)
C. Plans for disposing of old equipment (optional)
III. Advantages and disadvantages of the cogeneration process
A. Stories about successful use in comparable facilities
B. Risks assumed in using the process
C. Alternative systems that might be considered
(LO 3.5: AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-50. Students’ responses should demonstrate a clear understanding of the difference between an
ethical dilemma and an ethical lapse. They should also implement the journalistic approach
by giving specifics on the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the incident. Finally,
their podcasts should draw a general conclusion (based on the specifics they provide) that
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offers advice on what to do and/or avoid doing in order to engage in ethical leadership.
(LO 3.5: AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
EXPAND YOUR SKILLS
Critique the Professionals: In this exercise, students should address specifically how the
examples they select demonstrate effective or ineffective media choices. Criteria for their
IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR, MECHANICS, AND USAGE
Level 1: Self-Assessment—Verbs
3-59. I failed to record the transaction. (AACSB Tag: Written and oral communication)
3-60. Has the claims department notified you of your rights? (AACSB Tag: Written and oral
3-64. Neither the main office nor the branches (is/are) blameless. (AACSB Tag: Written and
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3-80. Libraries can be a challenging yet lucrative market if you learn how to work the “system”
3-81. Either a supermarket or a discount art gallery is scheduled to open in the mall. (AACSB
Tag: Written and oral communication)
Level 3: Document Critique—Well-Written Solution
Date: May 8, 2018
To: Stereo City Managers
Thanks go to you and your staff for your hard work and cooperation during the reorganization of
your stores. We believe revenues will rise to new heights if we reemphasize equipment sales as
Stereo City’s core business and reduce the visibility of our sideline retail products; however, we
want to be certain that these changes are having the positive effect on your cash flow that we all
expect and look forward to.
To help us make that determination in a timely manner, please respond to the following survey
questions and fax them back by the end of next week. Please answer concisely, but use extra
paper if necessary for details and explanations.