One of my jobs is to help my clients get confident enough to click ‘Publish’ on a regular basis; whether they’re publishing marketing content on their website, or on the social media platforms they’re using. One of the biggest barriers I’ve found to building that confidence, is the fear of getting it wrong. Of saying the ‘wrong’ things, or having the ‘wrong’ opinions. And getting laughed out of town as a result.
This has never happened to any client of mine. No client of mine has been laughed out of business for anything they’ve published on their blog or social media. But for some people it doesn’t matter that I extol their right to an opinion, or cite their business triumphs and extensive client list as evidence of their expertise, or explain that the content strategy we put in place will safeguard them from publishing disaster. Fear is a powerful protector, and until it can see that it has no purpose to serve, it’s hard to beat. But to get that evidence you have to publish. More than once. Regularly. It’s a bit of a Catch 22.
So here are three ways to find the confidence to publish online marketing content. Three ways that will help you feel more comfortable with clicking the Publish or Post button, and help to build your confidence when you realise that the sky is still exactly where it should be.
One: Share Other People’s Online Content
Keep a list of news sources that have information relevant to your market, industry, and customer base; and share articles, blog posts, and videos from them. Write a couple of short sentences saying why you’re sharing it and who you think will find it the most useful. After a while, when you feel more confident, you can write a bit more, offering more of an opinion about the piece.
Two: Write About Something You Do That You Know Has Helped Your Customers
Notice what you spend a lot of your time talking to your customers about. What do you absolutely know has helped them? What part of the service you offer are you the most confident talking about off the top of your head? Pretend you’re talking to your client and they’ve just asked you that question you get asked so often. If so many people ask the question, and have benefitted from the solution you’ve proposed, surely you can feel confident enough to write a blog post about it, or record a video if that’s more comfortable for you.
Three: Share Useful Experiences
If you write about something you’ve experienced, it can’t be wrong. So write about your business journey: how did you start out in your business, what were you doing before that, what are the lessons you’ve learned from being in business, what tools have you found useful during your journey, what are your favourite business tools now.
These are only three ways I use to build my clients’ confidence when it comes to creating and publishing awesome marketing content. What are the methods you’ve used to make it easier to click the ‘Publish’ button? Please share them in the Comments section below 🙂