A Business Letter is a professional business write-up usually written for various business purposes. We prepared sample professional business letter formats you can check these below. It is important to follow the requisite professional writing format in order to ensure that you win the proposal or any other purpose for which you are writing the letter.
It is very likely that you will write a business letter with a letterhead but it can also be written without a letterhead. You need to ensure that the sender’s address, date, inside address, salutation, body and closure of the business letter is made top notch.
There are formal formats for a business letter:
There are basically three formats available for writing a formal letter. You can use any one of these formats when writing your letter, however, you must ensure professionalism at every part of your writing and make sure that it is well structured.
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Block Format
The block format is the most common format or layout of a letter. The letter is justified to the left. When using this format ensure that you give a single spacing between the lines but the spaces between the paragraphs should be double spaced.
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Modified Block
Modified block format is also a widely used format for writing business letters. This involves the justification to the left of the sender’s and recipient’s address as well as the body of the letter. They are also given single spacing just like a block format. In this format, you need to tab a little to the center to write the date and the closure as well as the body of the letter.
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Semi-Block
Semi-Block format is the least used of the three formal writing formats. The only difference between this format and the modified block format is that in this format the paragraphs are not left justified but rather they are indented.
Proper structuring and the use of fonts
A special attention should be paid not only to the format of a letter but also to the font. Your use of fonts in a formal letter will determine how professional it will look. Thus, avoid the use of multiple fonts. You can stick to two font styles, one at the heading and the other at the body. Ensure consistency in font usage. Times New Roman is usually used in most formal letter. In addition, the format used depends largely on what the company which you are writing to wants. Some companies specify their choice of business letter format and in such a case, you have to stick to it.
The punctuation is also very important when writing a letter. The proper way to punctuate your letter is to use a colon after your salutation and a comma after your closure. In some cases, open punctuation style might as well be used in which no punctuation is used at the opening and closure. Professionalism is very important in writing a formal letter and you need to ensure that professional processes are adhered to in every sense.
The body of the business letter
The body of the letter is very important and the following should be adhered to when writing the body:
- Begin the letter with a friendly approach and then go straight to the main point,
- Support your points with details in the subsequent paragraphs.
