Hi and welcome to this video which covers audience and purpose, tone and style in memo writing. Imagine that you need to write a memo to your marketing department, informing them about budget cuts that will effect the advertising or marketing campaign that's been running at the moment. And you need to address it to the marketing head who is also your personal friend. Please start with, hey Pete, bad news, the budget cuts means we'll have to scale down your ad plans and it might also mean some job cuts along the way in the near future. Do you think this is using the appropriate audience focus and purpose? You're probably thinking that language is not really appropriate. It's more suitable for private message or email and you'd be right in thinking so. By the end of this video, we want you to be able to learn how to choose appropriate audience and purpose for memo's and also use the appropriate tone and style in memo writing. Let's do a quick recap on memo writing, remember it's usually in cases of one too many communication or many too many. Members are usually informative, miscommunication internally within a firm or organization, it goes part of official records, formal, semi-formal, or neutral tone and style is the preferred option. So there are many purposes of memos. But as I mentioned before memos are usually informative in nature. And they can include anything from policies to procedures, instructions and announcements. Sometimes they can be persuasive. So in terms of policies, they usually inform staff or colleagues about a new policy or a change to an existing or current policy. For example, a smoking ban or maybe a new initiative for recycling. Memos can also be procedural, so they will inform the audience of a step by step approach on how a policy could be implemented. For example, if there's a new marketing campaign then a memo could inform the audience about step by step procedures to carry this or implement the marketing plan. Also along with procedures, they can be instructional as well, perhaps the step by step. Guide to tell colleagues for example if they need to file a complaint about colleague to human resources. Many memos can make announcements or notifications such at a time or venue for a meeting. Or perhaps even showing a list of newly promoted staff or colleagues. They're not always informative, they can ought to be persuasive in nature, for example, seeking approval to submit a proposal to see any management The purpose of a memo is usually within the opening paragraph. And it contains a clear purpose, some context to the issue or the problem. Together with some sort of action point or task that needs to be completed which fits the purpose. They're often compared with emails and I know emails are fast replacing the function of memos but some of the same principles for memo writing need to be applied to email. So with emails, it's easily to CC or copy your whole department. But it's not such a big issue because sometimes emails can be easily deleted or overlooked. So, with memo writing, you need to be careful because physical copy is usually delivered to the audience and you really don't want to waste time or resource. So how do you identify the appropriate audience for your memo? Which is defined or identify your purpose. You need to think about with your memo really concern your target audience. You want to avoid wasting the time or resources in this aspect, so the key thing to remember is, is your memo relevant to your target audience? How do you do this? Well, you need to identify your primary, secondary audiences. You need think about whether your memo really has an impact or really effects your audience. So, who needs to know? After you've identified that, then you need to identify who does not need to know to make sure that the memo doesn't get to an audience that doesn't really care about your memo. For example, if you've identified that certain department which has been perhaps printed too much paper or wasting resources. You need to target that audience with that particular memo. Next we'll move on to using the appropriate tone and style in memos. So remember with tone and style, it's how you want to sound, and how you deliver your message. In memos, as we mentioned, they are mostly formal in tone because of their official nature. But they also have to match the purpose of your memo. For example, if you are trying to communicate the seriousness of the smoking ban because perhaps people have not been following it. You'll have to choose the appropriate language that reflects this. For example, if we see this slide, and we look at the language. Smoking in all public areas will NOT be tolerated and will carry severe penalties. So the language really reflects the seriousness of this tone. But also in memos, you probably know your audience, and they know you, so if you use overly formal tone, it may not be appropriate, so perhaps it's better to use a neutral tone in some memos. In some cases even you could use informal tone. Such as the announcing to the staff about the time and location, or the details of a Christmas party, but usually most often than not, memos, because of their official nature tend to use formal, semi-formal or neutral tone. So remember, it's very important to identify purpose and audience with all communication. Including memo writing. And once you define the appropriate purpose and the appropriate audience focus, that will help you decide on the appropriate time for your message. But as I mentioned, with most memo writing it's usually neutral semi formal, or formal in nature. So let's do a recap of what we covered today in this video. You were able to learn how to choose the appropriate audience and purpose in memos, and also what's the appropriate tone and style for memo writing. Thank you for watching.
