Writing is critical to effectively marketing a professional service business.
Everything you do starts with writing, or at least it should. There’s really no way around it. You write your marketing materials, web site copy, articles, special reports, tip sheets, talks and presentations, sales letters, ezines or newsletters, post card mailers, proposals, etc. It all starts with writing.
Don’t panic – we’re not talking about Pulitzer Prize winning literature here. It’s about writing in a way that informs and educates your target market of the value you offer. It’s about writing in a compelling way that gets your target market to take action.
When you write about your business and the services you offer, you will actually gain clarity that hasn’t existed before. Writing about what you do for clients and what they get from your services strengthens your marketing message. You’re able to begin conveying your message more authentically and persuasively.
Just the other day a client asked me about writing. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why should I bother with things like a newsletter or a blog? Have you ever gotten anything from it?”
Good question. The answer is most definitely yes, I do get something from it. Let me give you a couple of recent examples as to why I think you should bother.
Example #1: One of my ezine subscribers has her own monthly email newsletter and has picked up a few of my articles to include in her publication. Within a few days of her last ezine being sent out, I was getting traffic to my web site and new subscribers to my ezine as a result of the articles they were reading. Experience shows me that it’s just a matter of time before a certain percentage of ezine subscribers find something that they are willing to buy – a TeleClass, a marketing audio, a special report, an affiliate product, etc.
Example #2: I just received an email this morning from someone who had been reading some of my articles online. Turns out it is the editor of an online, magazine style web site that would like me to consider submitting articles to include in their weekly e-newsletter. Their subscription base just happens to be 32,000 service business professionals who fit my target niche quite nicely. How long would it take your business to get in front of 32,000 suspects in your target market potentially on a weekly basis?
You see your knowledge and expertise is valuable. It’s what your prospects are looking for when they seeking out information regarding your services. Writing is one of the best ways to express some of that knowledge and expertise in small, manageable quantities. It helps build authority and credibility so prospects will want to know more.
So you tell me – do you get it now? Do you see why small business marketers need to write?
My advice is to go ahead and start writing something at least a couple of times per week. Don’t worry if your writing is not great because it will get better with practice. Just focus on sharing bits and pieces of your knowledge and expertise regarding topics your target market will care about. You’ll end up building up a great little arsenal for promoting your business with tremendous impact.
Good advice! And here are two more ways writing can work for you:
1. Article writing. Simple articles in your area of expertise submitted to online article distributors (or even published on the websites of friends) can be valuable. Not only will the articles help position you or your company as an authority in your field, but the link to your website in your byline will help with your website search engine results.
2. Blog replies. If you don’t have your own blog, it is very useful to reply to blogs for the same reasons listed above.
So get a cup of coffee, sit down at the keyboard, and start writing!