Letters are one of the most important and frequently used business tools, however all too often businesses fail to ensure that their document provides the right, professional image.

Here are some of the important considerations that will help ensure your letterheads get the right message across to customers:

It may sound obvious but the letterhead should be geared towards its audience as well as the user. This means it is necessary to consider what the letters will be used for, who they will be written by and who they will be distributed to.

Most companies needs to write to their customers at some point, so the letterhead needs to function well as just that: a piece of paper that includes branding and allows a letter to be printed out without too much formatting i.e. shunting around text to accommodate huge logos or badly placed contact information.

However, a letterhead is used for many other purposes over and above just writing to clients. It is used for proposals, for pitch documents, invitations, agendas, meeting notes, reports - the list is endless and varies greatly depending on each industry. Some of these documents may also end up in the hands of external organisations, suppliers or other people connected to the business so it is important to make sure that headed paper can be used in other situations too.

If the letterhead is to be used by various different departments within the organisation it is important to consider which contact details should be provided. It may be more appropriate to include one generic telephone number on the letter, as opposed to having a department-specific contact number. It can be worth checking with all user groups about their specific needs before ordering reams of new paper.

Understandably one of the key concerns of most businesses when designing their letterheads is ensuring that their business logo and details are clearly visible. However, the best designs tend to strike a balance between clearly displaying the information, and still allowing plenty of space for the letter. If in doubt it is best to keep your design clean, simple and professional, such as displaying the company logo on the top of the headed paper, and having the business contact information at the bottom of the document. If in doubt, keep logos and contact information on the smaller side.

This also means carefully considering what information is necessary and what can be excluded from the letter. Is it necessary to include the business Twitter address and Facebook account details, or is it more appropriate to simply include the website address?

When a letter is several pages in length, it can be worth using continuation paper as opposed to using a letterhead for each page of the document. This basically means using a more simplified version of the letterhead design for the following pages of the document, helping create a more professional look. It can also be possible to have double-sided letterheads.

Most companies are used to seeing their logo displayed in a glossy format on company signs or brochures. It is vital to liaise with the printer to ensure that any company logos appear in such high quality on headed paper too - particularly if you have a very complicated logo or it is in a colour such as orange which can be difficult to print.

One final consideration, is ensuring that the letterhead is printed on suitable paper, 100gsm or 120gsm is ideal.