Pick up any marketing book and you'll read chapters on marketing strategy, pricing strategy, distribution strategy, product management and communication.

Yet none of the books discuss how to communicate when writing. With the advent of the Internet,  communication has become instant and with it, there is a  need to communicate more and more with the written word.

As business owners, we are writing more and more to promote our businesses, whether it's email, blog posts or website, facebook or twitter updates. That's not taking into account traditional marketing techniques of adverts, newsletters and flyers.

All in all, what it means is that the more technologically aware we become, we need to hone our writing skills.  

Very few of us are taught how to write after sixth class in school. By the time we get to secondary school, we are taught to improve our comprehension and our ability to understand poetic nuances.

All very well in theory, but in order to promote our businesses, we need to know how to write - to engage with our customer as if we were in front of them and ultimately help them buy our services.

The good thing, however, is that business writing is a skill that can be taught or learned. I work with business owners and I see it every day; if you grasp the basics and make continual improvements, you will notice that writing becomes easier.

Here are five steps to make you a better business writer

Step 1: Understand who you are writing for

It's tough to please a crowd. But if you break that crowd into small chunks or sections, then it's much easier to write to them. You'll get to understand what they like, what they don't like, what tone of voice you should write to them in and when to write to them. A little bit of research at this stage will go a long way.

Step 2: Give your ideal customer a personality

I sometimes write to one person when I send my ezines. I have over 1,000 people who subscribe to my newsletter. But I write to one person on that listing. Do you ever find that it's easier to talk to one person than it is to three or four or more at one time? If you do, then just write to one person. The others will listen in.

So visualise one person for whom to write to. If you write as if you're talking to them, the words will flow. Pick one person from your ezine listing or one prospect that you would love to work with and write to them only.

Step 3: Write three points you want to get across

There is nothing worse than a blank page in front of you when you sit down to write. So take my advice and just jot down three points that you want to say. You might want to talk about the benefits of your product so give three reasons why someone should buy your product or service.

Look to the emotional components of your product or service. If you can manage to get inside the head of your prospect when they are already thinking about their problem, then you're half way to a sale. Write three points as to how you can solve the problem they are having.

Step 4: Edit your document

More than likely if you started out with three points to discuss, the chances are that you now have five. It's time to cull some text and tighten it up. Many people think editing is going through the document looking for grammar mistakes and typos and that is part of editing. But editing also includes checking the tone, sentence structure and layout of the document.

It also requires you to ask yourself 'so what?' about each point. If each sentence you write in the document doesn't make sense to you or doesn't flow, then it's time to remove it or re-write it.

Step 5: Let the content settle

Once you're happy with your document, then leave it there for a while. Like a pint of stout, it needs time to settle. You'll come back to your document with fresh eyes and you may want to change a few things before you hit the publish button.

To finish, business writing is a skill but like all skills that you've discovered as a business professional, it can be learned and it can be practiced. Use these five steps to make you a better writer and just practice, practice, practice.