When you’re writing a proposal, you have one chance to send the intended message to the recipient. If your words aren’t understood correctly, you could miss out on potential clients. Every client wants to know exactly what your products or services are about after reading the proposal and without having to ask a lot of questions. The readability of your proposal content is just as important as any other information. Here are some effective strategies to ensure your proposal content is readable.

The Layout Should Be Easy To Scan Through

Your business proposal should not have big chunks of text with very little white space. The recipient of your proposal will take a couple of seconds to scan through it and look for highlights that might interest them. If you don’t use bold headings and subheadings, strategic graphics, tables, and other eye-catchers, then you don’t have a scannable document. 

When it comes to headings and subheadings in your proposal content, make them bold, larger fonts, a different color, or a different style that stands out. Your recipient might not read the entire proposal, but if there are headings that interest them, they’ll save it for later rather than trash it immediately. One major point about graphics is to use just enough to break up your text, but not too much that it clutters everything else.

Use Simple And Direct Words

Your proposal writing should be much different from virtually every other type of writing you do. It’s tempting to elaborate too much in your business proposal to try to sell your products or services. This can be counterproductive, though, since it won’t make your content readable. Focus on eliminating redundancies, modifiers, and prepositions. Use strong verbs and avoid nominalizations to enhance your proposal writing. Doing so will ensure your sentences are concise and direct, which will make them easier to read and understand.

Active Voice Is Better Than Passive Voice

Active voice is almost always better than passive voice, but we naturally write in passive voice most of the time. When writing in an active voice, the sentence’s subject is first and will perform the action described in the sentence. You will write sharper sentences with an active voice and reduce the chances of writing wordy sentences too. You’ll also enhance the readability of your business proposal significantly. When your proposal content flows smoothly and is easy to read, your recipient will be more likely to spend time reading it.

Use Tools And Resources To Make Proposal Content Readable

You should leave nothing to chance with your business proposal content. Using all tools and resources available to you means utilizing spelling and grammar checkers, built-in readability features, readability tests, and more. However, you should not solely rely on these tools and resources to finalize your business proposal. When you use these tools during your writing, you can stay on track with keeping the content consistent. 

Be Concise With Sentence Structures

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with proposal content is having too many wordy sentences. If you have to read a sentence more than once to understand the content, then you need to rework it. Sentences should be a maximum of 20 words, but the sentence length should vary throughout your business proposal.

You should also default to making short paragraphs. Two to four sentences in a paragraph are sufficient in a business proposal, but you should also vary the lengths. Always think back to your recipient scanning the document initially, so it must be easy on the eyes. Shorter paragraphs with white space in between are much more attractive than big blocks of text.

Readability Matters In Your Business Proposal

Readability tests should be used when your business proposal is complete so you can see how you did. Your readability score might not be ideal after your first draft, but when you make the necessary revisions, you can transform it into a readable document. But again, while this tool is very helpful, it should not be solely relied upon. Never underestimate the power of another human proofreading your document, especially a professional editor or proofreader.

When It Makes Sense To Hire A Proposal Writer

Most people don’t use the same writing strategies to write a proposal in their day-to-day lives. If you’ll be writing numerous proposals in the future, then it could be worth your time to fine-tune your writing skills. However, this can take a lot of time and effort that you could be using in other areas of your business. Hiring a business proposal writer is valuable since you don’t have to hire them full-time. After a meeting or two to discuss your proposal, they can craft a concise and clear business proposal for you to present to your potential clients. 

When you hire a proposal writer at iwebcontent, you’ll feel like they are a part of your team. We strive to deliver exactly what you have in mind for your proposal, and we do it by taking the time to understand your business thoroughly. Our goal is to grow with your business and we see your success as our success. We have experience in many different industries and are ready to help you thrive. Don’t hesitate to contact us to learn more about how the process works and start delivering high-quality business proposals.