Communication is all about getting your message across.
There are five basic components of a communication process i.e. The Sender, The Message, The Encoding, The Medium and The Recipient. The sender creates a message which he wants to send to the recipient. The message is then encoded in a format that the recipient can understand. For example, if the recipient understands only French then the message is translated to French or The Enigma Machine encoded the message in a Format that only Nazi’s could understand. Finally, a medium is selected. The medium can be email, phone call, face-to-face discussion, Fax or even Smoke Signals. A successful communication is said to have occurred when the recipient understands the message and send the feedback back to the sender.Â
The communication process if subjected to lot of different barriers which are called “noiseâ€. Noise can occur at every level of communication process. It can be a poor phone line connection to inattentive recipient. There is so much to go wrong that the chances of a successful communication become fairly low. However, we want to focus on the noise that we can control directly and thus improve the chances of a successful communication.
Too often people end up using words which distorts the message and does not coveys the meaning effectively. How do you know that your sales are not suffering because your software license policy or returns policy requires a bunch of lawyers to interpret it? Or Conversion is low on the website because people can’t seem to understand your product descriptions? As marketers, we have to communicate with highly diversified audience and hence it becomes important that we focus on “encoding†our messages in such a way that the meaning can be understood by a broad section of people without any effort.
Here is why using Simple English makes sense:
Effective Communications
A message written in simple English is very effective as people can understand it the first time that they read it.
Cost Savings
As the meaning is clearly understood, it is not open to miscommunications and you do not have to incur administrative costs in having to clarify them or explain them. Thus, you do not have to incur customer service costs.
More Sales
People want to make informed decisions and using simple English builds confidence in the minds of the customer which results in better sales.
Saves Time
Using simple English ensures that you do not have to go through the pain of going through all the re-writing and explanations.
Using simple English gives your organization a professional and friendly image and it builds your credibility as well. Thus, next time you are tempted to use a difficult to understand word – Think Again!
