How to Address a Business Letter

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Teri Lynne and in this segment I'm going to teach you how to address a business letter. So the first thing you want to do if you have business stationary, you want to put it on your official stationary. It just looks more official. And if you don't, just regular old computer paper will do. And then the next thing you want to do is you want to type in the date on the top left hand corner. And no abbreviations, try to be, this is an official business letter so do not Feb 16th or Feb 24th, February 16th, 2009, not a slash 09. Be very, do everything in long form. Next a line or two under that on the left hand side, you want to address who the letter is going to and again specific, if it's a business, put the person's name that you want to receive the letter. Now on the right hand margin across from where their information is, you put yours. Your full name, your address, e-mail address and phone number. Very important to include your phone so they know how to contact you as well as e-mail address. Then you don't want to say to whom it may concern or dear Ms. or Mrs. Again, specific with whose ever name it is that you're addressing to. Dear John Smith or Dear Mrs. Adams or Ms. Adams, whoever it is. And then go ahead and fill in the information you want to send them and then at the very end just a best regards or sincerely, just something short and sweet and your name and leave a gap in there between the closing note and your name so you can do a signature with a pen. So no electronic signatures, try to actually do an official signature on there as well. Then of course you're going to fold it business style into three folds, place it in your envelope and mail it out to them. And that's how you do an official business letter."