How Marketers Can Improve Their Business Communication Skills

It takes more than just knowing the ins and outs of your marketing software to be successful as a marketer. In order to truly succeed in this role, you must also have exceptional communication skills. Communication skills are often overlooked as a necessity when it comes to success in any job, but they can make or break your career if you don’t hone them. If you find that your communication skills aren’t at the level you want them to be, now is the perfect time to start improving them and boosting your marketing career. After all, communication is a necessary skill for almost every career field—not just marketing. The good news is that there are plenty of ways you can improve your business communication skills so that you can thrive in the role of marketer and continue on with your career path.

In this guest post today, Mr. Erik Bergmang will explain six ways to improve your business communication skills as a marketer. So, with all that said, let’s jump into it.

Why Are Business Communication Skills Essential?

Before we discuss the ways to improve your business communication skills as a marketer, we have to establish the reasons why business communication skills are important.

Businesses are constantly exchanging information. In addition, employees communicate with internal and external personnel as part of their day-to-day jobs. To facilitate good communication, people in your organization mustn’t disrupt the constant flow of information. Therefore, learning ways to improve business communication skills becomes a top priority for any professional.

With proper business communication, professionals facilitate the success and growth of the organization. But they also benefit themselves. Namely, business communication skills can put you in a good spot to move up the chain.

So, you’re not only facilitating the organization’s success, but the higher-ups take notice of your particularly useful skillset. That means every professional must work on improving their business communication skills. But how? Let’s find out!

6 Ways to Improve Business Communication Skills

Business communication skills include soft skills, hard skills, and traits essential for conveying information around the workplace. These skills are essential for your personal success and the organization’s success, which also benefits you.

So, there’s no harm in improving your business communication skills. Here is how:

1. Communicating In a Clear and Concise Way

Communication — whether spoken or written — must be done clearly and concisely. Clear and concise communication is essential in business for a few reasons.

Firstly, it eliminates uncertainty and repetitiveness – if you convey information clearly and concisely, there is no room for mistakes. Secondly, it doesn’t interrupt the constant flow of information.

Therefore, you must develop the skill to communicate clearly and concisely. So how do you develop this particular skill?

Well, what you can do is create a checklist. Namely, before engaging in official business communication with other parties, think about what you hope to achieve.

Next, determine what sort of information you want to convey. And lastly, eliminate any irrelevancies that might confuse the other party or make them ask for further clarification.

This simple checklist is easy to memorize. Think of it as a template for future communication.

2. Master the Art of Digital Communication

Written communication is becoming increasingly popular in the modern workplace. Nowadays, businesses primarily rely on email to communicate internally and externally.

But written communication is different from speaking. Furthermore, email communication is vastly different from using messenger applications or texts. Each digital means of communication is different. But for the sake of it, every professional must be able to write an email.

As such, part of your business communication skills training must involve mastering digital communication.

3. Learn To Listen

Listening is a core component of business communication. Therefore, you must learn how to listen before you can speak. Much like learning how to crawl before you can walk, an adept business communicator must become adept at core social skills to communicate properly in a business setting.

So how do you learn how to listen? Well, you engage in conversations and hear what the other party says. Furthermore, being a good listener is a trait found in successful leaders. Leaders will often hear what others have to say before passing judgment.

Listening also helps you exchange ideas, which is essential for the organization’s success and your career. Professionals who want to excel at business communication must implement an internal feedback loop. That means listening to what others say and incorporating it into your communication.

4. Engage In In-Person Communication

The best way to develop business communication skills is to talk to other professionals in person. Digital communication gives us time to formulate our message and respond. But in-person communication is, well, personal. You don’t get nearly the same time to respond to someone when engaging in in-person communication.

That puts you on the spot. There’s no room for error, and anxiety often kicks in if you’re not the social kind. But luckily, practice makes perfect and in-person communication makes it much easier to convey information.

Sure, you might struggle every now and then, but engaging in in-person communication will greatly improve your business communication skills in the long run.

5. Work On Your Body Language

Body language is regarded as a critical aspect of business communication. The way you carry yourself, make eye contact, and gesture all play a role in how effectively you communicate with other parties.

Therefore, to be a better communicator, it’s essential to work on your body language. Luckily, there’s more than one way to maintain the perfect body language and be ready for a verbal encounter.

Start by keeping a straight posture and looking the person in the eye when engaging verbally. Next, use hand gestures naturally to assist your communication. Lastly, listen and nod in agreement to tell the other person you agree with their points.

Your body language greatly dictates how effectively your verbal encounters go. In addition, professionals love when someone knows how to “walk the walk and talk the talk.”

6. Always Be Ready for Small Talk

Small talk can be annoying and scary at the same time. Small talk is probably your biggest challenge around the office if you’re not the social kind.

But even small talk has its place in business communication. After all, business isn’t always the topic of discussion in the workplace. To assist with small talk, pay attention to the FORD method, which includes four topics: Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Dreams.

The FORD method is a popular small talk method that professionals can always turn to when small talk becomes challenging.

Conclusion

That concludes this guide on the ways to improve your business communication skills. As you can see, business communication goes far beyond writing emails and using messenger applications with clients, customers, and business associates.

To excel at business communication, you need to pay close attention to the many sub-skills that fall under the greater communication umbrella. By perfecting these skills, you put yourself one step closer to becoming an excellent business communicator.

Erik Bergman

Guest Author

Erik Bergman co-founded Catena Media and helped grow it to over 300 employees and a $200 million valuation before stepping away to start Great.com, an iGaming organization that donates 100% of its profits to environmental charities. In addition to running a successful online affiliate business, Erik also hosts the Becoming Great podcast, shares entrepreneurship tips with his more than 1 million social media followers, and contributes to sites like Entrepreneuer.com, Business Insider, Foundr, and Forbes.