The Value Of Outsourcing Business Content To Writing Experts
You may be saying: “I’ve been speaking English my whole life; I can write content for my business.†Or, maybe you’re thinking, “No one knows my business like I do; I should write about it.†And in both cases, you’re right…and wrong.
The illusion of fluency
Just because you’ve been talking since you were a child doesn’t mean you automatically understand the nuances of writing. Fluent speakers subconsciously add things to their speech that will never make it to the page. Inflection, tone, and even pace all have their places in the spoken word but are often corrupted or simply missing when the words are written. It takes a professional writer—someone who has spent years understanding the way words live on a page—to be able to add those critical communication elements through type.
Another reason fluency does not automatically equate to good writing is because of the jargon, idiosyncrasies, and slang people tend to adopt when speaking to a particular audience. Those words might work one-on-one with your listener, but you can’t guarantee your reading audience will interpret the message the same way. When it comes to business writing, clear and concise communication is key. Anything that borrows on culture or trending language runs the risk of losing one of those elements.
Too many times, a company full of perfectly intelligent people has produced a piece of content that missed the mark in an embarrassing way—or just slightly enough to be ineffective. Had they used a professional writing service, the company would have benefitted from an expert working to make those words do every ounce of service they were able. In fact, companies who use professional writers to generate content, such as proposals, training materials, or publicity pieces, often have an advantage over their competition.
Too close for comfort
It’s true that an outside professional business writing company won’t know your business the way you do, but that can be a good thing. Being so close to your business can create a blindness that is impossible for you to recognize. This blindness has two elements: assumptions and biases. When you understand something so well that it becomes second-nature—as you do with your business and products—trying to communicate it to others often fails to deliver the desired message. The reason for this miscommunication is assuming too much on behalf of your audience.
Assumptions will destroy the clarity of any written piece, because with typed words only, you can’t watch someone’s eyes glaze over. In other words, there is no way to know whether your reader has failed to understand what you wrote. Not knowing the specifics of what you’re communicating can aggravate the reader to the point where they give up. And a reader who isn’t reading is no longer a potential customer.
Professional writers, on the other hand, train themselves to think outside the expertise—as if they were the reader themselves. This makes their work more thorough because the professional will add detail where you as the owner might not think it necessary. Not only that, but in writing for so many other industries, the writer knows how to phrase things in a way that is easy to grasp, which is something not all owners and entrepreneurs are able to do.
The other element of being too close to the business is the biases you have. Everyone has biases—it’s what makes their views personal—borne from their own intimate experience. Unfortunately for the business owner, your business biases are yours, which makes them difficult to navigate, and even unapproachable by your audience.
Bringing in an outside observer to write for your business can help open the conversation to items or issues that you might have never known existed, or (more likely) you didn’t want to address. And, in today’s socioeconomic climate, candor is cash. Consumers and business partners alike are showing an increased appreciation of honesty in marketing materials.
This is a slippery slope, though—being honest about your business. You could overstate and effectively ruin any trust you might have gained by oversharing. However, with a professional writer at the helm of your internal and external messaging, you leverage the expertise of persuasive communication that can highlight the “marketable honesty†without giving away the hidden ingredients to your company’s secret sauce.
The attention it deserves
You’ve learned how fluency doesn’t automatically make for good writing—especially when effective communication is the lifeline to your marketing efforts. You’re also aware of the double-edged sword of assumptions and biases that can make being too close to your business a liability when building content. But the biggest reason to use a professional writer for your business is because only they can give your content the attention it deserves.
The power of marketing is largely a numbers game. And creating fresh, engaging content is the best way to generate market interest, widening the funnel on your sales stream. But, unless you are a Technical Writing and Editing Company like ProWrite, your business is not to create content. That’s monumental because when seen in that light, no good businessperson would waste time trying to create content themselves.
Hiring a professional writer to build the kind of content your business needs is like hiring an electrical contractor to wire your factory. You task the experts where their expertise is absolutely necessary, thereby freeing your time to do what you do best: your job.
Give your content the attention it deserves by hiring a writing team who knows how to articulate your business in the best possible way.