It’s hard to avoid using bullet points in business (not that you should avoid them). But effective bullet points are a language of their own. Few people really use them well.
Bullet points are a list of specific, important items. As such, they deserve to be crafted well. Readers will be skimming through them, so they need to work as well as headlines, even when they’re a bit longer. As such, every bullet point ought to show a benefit …and if they’re on a web page, it’s quite possible to put links in them.
They also need to be kept simple. No multi-level bullets, or paragraph-long ones; just simple headline-like statements. It’s also nice to make them work well together – keep them a similar length, and definitely in the same tone of voice.
For example, a bullet point list of product features might be presented like this:
Our Blue Widgets:
- Help users find them by being blue
- Reduce your waste with their drying bin
- Slash running costs – or your money back
There are lots of good examples of effective bullet points around the web if you look – Amazon can be a good place to start, on its own products.