Business Writing: Do you write to help others?

The main purpose of writing to promote your business is to help others. If the content you create is not fulfilling this intent, it’s virtually no good, and certainly a waste of your precious time.

The purpose of writing

You must come to the realization that there is a purpose for writing, and it isn’t just to throw something in the wind to “hopefully” gain your business some attention. At the core, there are really two purposes of using writing in your business.

most important reasons for writing

1. Give your expert advice. As a business owner, you (should) have experience unique to your business. This experience can be translated into valuable content.
2. Teach what you learn. When you pull from personal experience, you will write more passionately about the subject. This emotion translates into knowledge and helps build trust among you and your customer base.

For example, let’s say you are the owner and operator of a virtual assistant business. You are an expert at administrative duties. To take it a step further, you are extremely knowledgeable in creating databases. This is a unique skillset that could potentially attract major corporate clients. But if they don’t know about your knowledge, why should they care that you are a V.A.?

Use your knowledge and experience to create written content that:

• shows you know what you’re taking about.
• promotes your prior experience/jobs, within this specific niche.
• explains examples of what you can do.

 

3 quick ways you can help others with your writing

1. Solve a problem.
2. Answer a question.
3. Provide helpful tips.

Business Writing: Know Your Audience

Before you sit down to write anything, there are three important questions you first need to ask yourself. Don’t even think about writing a word, until you know the answer to each of these questions.

Question #1: Who are you writing to/for?

The answer to this question should shape every piece of written content you produce and use to promote your business. If you don’t know the answer, how can you successfully reach the people to whom you want to sell your product or service?

Question #2: How well do you know your customers?

Do you truly know the needs, desires, and expectations of your customers? Or do you blindly throw your business into the world and hope and pray the right people find you and invest in your business? A serious mistake many make is writing content they think will attract potential customers, when they don’t have a clue as to who their target market is. Do not make this mistake. Get to know your prospective clients/customers from the get-go.

Question #3: Are you writing material based on your customers’ needs?

Never approach the task of writing articles for your website to promote your business with the notion that if you simply write keyword-rich articles, it will bump your site in search engine ranks. Yes, keywords are an important part of creating SEO-friendly websites and blogs, but it is not the most important aspect. Your website needs to be your voice. Use the language and ideas that will interest the people you want to reach.

final tip:

Start spending more time getting to know your customers. Find out who they are, what they want, and why they want it. Then use this information to write articles and blog posts tailored to meet those needs.