I am college freshman writing a business letter for my dad's business oversea. I'm doing so because no one at his place speaks/writers acceptable English. So, I am drafted to write a letter (not e-mail) for him to a big company requesting for partnership. The my dad's marketing manager sketched me general idea that started as a 130 word e-mail.
Talk about responsibility. Even though I plan to be an English major (not business major, and I’m ESL to a certain extent), I have no idea whether I'm doing this right. I've written cover letters for college applications before, but that's a completely different business, no pun intended.
Anyways, I looked through Wikipedia for info on business letters, but I still have a few more questions. I can't broad cast the content of this letter, so I will try to summarize the tricky parts as best as I could.
1. I am supposed to be writing as a marketing manager to this big company and offering them assistance in several events they will be hosting. Does the heading "Offer of Assistance for Future *** Events" sounds stupid?
2. My letterhead contains our company’s name and address. Can I put phone, fax, e-mail, and homepage in the letterhead too? If not, where should I put it? (Technically they’re on the envelope, too. I just want to be sure.)
3. I begin the letter with "I am ***, the International Marketing Manager for *** Information Corporation®." Is that what people do? Or do they start with something else?
4. The general outline of the letter is as follows:
-letterhead
-Date
-Dear Sir or Madam
-Header ("Offer of Assistance for Future *** Events")
-Content (starting with "I am ***, the International Marketing……")
#we would like to help your event in such and such a way
#detail of our plan
#detail of product (includes instruction of getting free trial on-line, which I have an url typed)
#detail/history of company
#ending (includes personal contact info.)
-Sincerely
*** (Signature by hand)
-International Marketing Manager
*** Company
The letter now totals about 3000 words, a little bit more than a page if single-spaced. Anything missing or out of order or whatnot?
5. I wanted to leave an instruction for the receiver if they are interested, so in the penultimate line I said "If our proposal is acceptable, please contact me through e-mail at Icantwritebusinessletter@english.com" The reason why I want them to use e-mail is because the real marketing manager who I am writing as couldn't really speak English, even though he/she reads English pretty well. What is the proper way of leaving personal contact information? I do have a letter head that contains the contact address of the company, but I feel I need to have personal info (e-mail, phone, fax, etc) as well. Where do I put it? After the signature? In what order?
6. What is the etiquette for leaving url and e-mail in an formal letter?
7. I ended the letter with "On behalf of my company, I invite you into this partnership." I think it sounds funny, but I don't know what to do.
8. What do I put after the signature? The example letters Wikipedia had are somewhat conflicting…
9. We have formal envelope for our company, but do I print (as with a printer) the name and address of the receiver, or do I write it with hand with a pen?
10. How do I use the small circled trademark ®? I have it on the righthand corner after every mention of our company's and product's name, though I don’t know if that’s proper. Moreover, if I have “’s” after the names, should I put the R before or after the apostrophe?
11. One problem we have now is that our company does not have formal letter paper, so I have to set it up myself. Are there anything I should be aware of? Do I need to treat the letter with procedures (such as rubber stamps) or use a particular kind of paper?
12. Anything you think I would do wrong and didn’t notice?
I know this is a huge question, but any help will be appreciated, even if you could just point me in the right direction!
Thank you!!