Content is king, they say. It’s everywhere, and everyone is doing it, and rightly so. What’s often overlooked is the importance of effective writing. By sharing your knowledge and experience, you can become a thought leader in your industry. Competition may be fierce, but content writing allows you to tell your story; why your business is different and better than the rest.
Content writing is crucial for any business that wants to make an impact, online or offline. It helps you build brand awareness, improve your SEO, establish your business, build customer retention, and much more.
According to research, 80% of executives and business owners prefer to receive information from a company through content writing. This is a prime opportunity for businesses to reach this demographic through blogs, guides, case studies, guest posts, videos and any type of evergreen content.
Furthermore, customers trust the content. Over 95% of B2B buyers say that they consider content as a trustworthy source when evaluating a company.
So with this in mind, let’s discuss how you can use content to become a thought leader in your industry.
What is Thought Leadership?
Thought leadership began as a buzzword and can be defined in different ways by different people. It stems from business owners, entrepreneurs and CEOs alike sharing their tips and tricks of the trade through content, whether it’s off-page (guest blogs etc.) or on-page (blogs, videos, case studies, etc.) Through this content, they build value and credibility, leading them to be recognized as influencers and authority figures within their respective fields.
If you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, CEO, or executive, thought leadership should be necessary for you. But keep in mind that a true thought leader is authentic, disruptive and transparent.
Through thought leadership, you have the opportunity to guide and influence your target audience with your insights and expertise. Having that influence and brand positioning can bring you business without you needing to go after it. It can be an effective way of building your personal or business brand through cementing yourself as an expert - a thought leader - in your industry.
Business leaders often take their knowledge and perspective for granted; whereas, it can be highly valuable to others. You’ve spent years gaining this valuable knowledge, so why not share it?
The Case For Content
Customers buy from businesses they know and trust. That starts by providing them with a value from day one, and that begins with the content you produce on your website.
“Pre-framing” is a term that refers to how your website visitors perceive your business before they even know anything about it.
Picture this: you visit a company’s website for the first time, but the content is scarce. They say they’re the best in their field, but you can’t find any information on their website to back this up. So you leave and find a similar website with all of the information you were expecting to find.
With all of this in mind; take a look at your website. Do you feel that the content you have on your website sufficiently answers the queries of your visitors? Does your expertise read clearly and make you stand out? If not, you are losing potential leads to your competitors. And those competitors more than likely producing and sharing, great content.
Why Writing Gives You A Bigger Impact
Establishes your business
Content can help build brand awareness through publishing and pushing content on social media. It’s an opportunity for you to communicate and connect with prospects; it drives traffic to your website, helps you generate new leads and potentially creates PR opportunities. Plus, posting content regularly will keep your audience interested.
Build trust and retention
Your experience is unique. Create original pieces of content and fill a gap in your industry. Sharing your knowledge through content writing provides value to prospects, building brand loyalty, and keeping your customers coming back.
It’s an important part of the sales funnel
Content is an essential part of any lead generation strategy, and creating evergreen content goes hand in hand. Educate your audience, address their pain points and share your product results through case studies.
How to Get Started with Thought Leadership
A true thought leader will not only publish content on their website, but they are also active online, sharing and engaging with their community, sparking conversations. They listen to their audience and develop content that will help their customers and prospects succeed.
To get started, you must identify the opportunity for written content. Think about what makes you different from your competitors and what knowledge you can share from your vast experience? You can create an abundance of topics from just thinking and researching these things.
The idea of business writing can seem challenging and somewhat intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. It all starts with a plan. Start with your company blog, for example. According to Hubspot, businesses using blogs as part of their content marketing mix get 67% more leads than those who don’t.
Once you have created your topics, you can develop them into blogs, videos, guides, case studies, ebooks and much more. Create an editorial calendar to keep track, and publish them on your website, social media channels and third-party websites to drive traffic to your company website and build your online community.
Conclusion
Positioning yourself and your business as experts in your industry is absolutely vital if you want to build a loyal and engaged following. Content that comes from you and your business can massively influence your audience's decisions about you.
Thought leadership requires consistency to see results; never underestimate the power that content writing can have on your business.
