When you deliver a product or a service — whether you are a solo practitioner or you run a company, agency, firm, or clinic — your prospective customers and clients need to trust you.
In business, trust always has been, and always will be, the killer app.
Perhaps you run a wellness service, which requires you to learn very intimate details about a client’s personal life. You may even be laying your healing hands directly on them.
You may offer a home-related service, where you or your staff will be coming right into a person’s home.
Or what if you offer a service to businesses? They may be turning over the most critical elements of their company – whether that is their financial records, the equipment they rely on daily, or the time and money they invest in marketing their business.
Blogging is one way to build the kind of trust required to gain this kind of access to people’s lives. As you answer their most common questions and suggest ways to solve their most pressing problems, you’re building goodwill by being helpful.
Yet if you turn the whole blog writing process over to someone outside your business, you may be educating your readers but failing to build the relationships that are so important in a service-based business. Can you build trust if somebody is writing FOR you?
But I have a business to run!
You don’t have to do this alone. Here are five ways people can write your business blog WITH you — so that it’s you and your people who your readers get to know.
1. Ghostwriters – Mark Schaefer has written about ghost blogging, and the importance of having the author’s voice shine through. It takes thoughtful collaboration, time and effort, especially at the beginning of the process, but a good ghostwriter can capture your tone. Best of all, it is your thoughts and ideas on the page, and no one else’s. Tip: Be honest and upfront with your feedback so your ghostwriter can learn more quickly.
2. Your team – Just because you own the company doesn’t mean you have to do all the blogging. Bring in your staff – especially front line staff who interact most with customers and hear their questions and challenges. Tip: While a team approach spreads the work around, be sure someone is actually in charge of the blog. This could be you, another member of the team, or an external blog manager.
3. Guest experts – Part of your value is how you sift through the confusing maze of information online and help your readers know who to trust for guidance about your topic. Tip: Invite experts to contribute to your site as guest bloggers, or interview them about the topics and issues that are important to your readers.
4. Industry experts – You don’t always need original content created for your blog. You can also bring in valuable outside views by linking to published blog posts or magazine articles, or embedding visual content like videos, infographics or SlideShare presentations. Tip: Add your own voice to the mix by writing at least a paragraph or two of commentary about why you chose to share it, and what you agree or disagree with most in the piece.
5. Customers or vendors – Who is involved in your business that you’d like to spotlight to your readers? Vendor profiles give a unique glimpse behind the scenes of who and what makes your business tick. Customer stories help your readers envision themselves as a future success story. Tip: Include plenty of unique details that will help bring these stories to life. Focus not just on what people say and do, but the reasons behind them, and the feelings that result.
Regardless of who is helping you write your business blog, always make sure it’s your voice is coming through. This will help your prospective clients make a personal connection before putting themselves in your hands.
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