We talk with so many small business owners who really get the importance of blog content, email content, customer engagement content. They know it’s important for SEO and also the best way to form a tight connection with their audience and customers.
The only problem is … not everyone likes to write.
In fact, probably most people kind of hate it.
So today we’ll talk about a few ideas for those who are not “natural writers.” These also work if you’re a decent writer yourself, but you really just don’t enjoy it.
1. Start with audio or video
Some people are intimidated at the thought of producing audio or video content. But because you need to produce it basically in “real time,” the initial content creation is much faster and smoother than it is with a piece of writing.
The simplest way to implement this is to work up a collection of frequent customer questions or problems, fire up the recording program on your computer, and record answers to them one at a time.
Pick the questions you get asked over and over again, and that have relatively straightforward answers. Things like,
What’s the best way to get started with (your topic)
or
Is (your topic) going to hurt my back / cost a lot of money / annoy my family / (insert your favorite beginner objection here)
Record your answer in a simple audio editing program. You don’t have to go insane putting a home recording studio together — just get a reasonably priced headset mic and use a program like GarageBand (for Mac) or Audacity (for multiple platforms, including Windows and Linux).
Congratulations, you now have some content. Get it transcribed. Take a few minutes to run through that transcript and make it look a little more like written English. Now you have two pieces of content — text and audio.
Lots of content marketers produce their “written” content as audio first, because it’s a fast way to knock out your first draft, and it will reduce your tendency to sound “stuffy” in your writing. Even if you never use the audio as published content, this is a technique worth experimenting with.
2. Use a speech recognition program
You can also use a program like Dragon Naturally Speaking to “transcribe” your voice as you speak. These programs aren’t perfect, but with some tweaking they can work surprisingly well. If you go this route, be sure and take a look at Jon Morrow’s classic post for Problogger on Speech Recognition for Bloggers.
Otherwise, the steps are similar to those above. You really do need to go through audio-first content and give it an edit to make it look like written English. Delete tangents, random rambling, and all those “Ums.”
You’ll also want to be on the lookout for things that the program has mis-understood. (Also true for a human transcriber, by the way.)
It’s still work, but it’s a lot faster than sitting there looking at a blank screen trying to make the words flow. Speaker’s block is about a million times less common than writer’s block.
3. Partner up
For some people, the audio-first method is all they need … a quick, simple way to get out of writer’s block and get some words onto the screen.
But if you really can’t stand to write, or you really just aren’t very good at it, you’ll probably want to find a contract writer or, potentially, a content partner.
(This also goes for people who hate to work on the technical aspects of their website, or who hate to do accounting … or any other important aspect of being a business owner.)
If you suck at some important aspect of your business … get out and find someone who’s great at that and who loves to do it. You can hire them as a freelancer, or you may even decide it makes sense to go into a full business partnership together.
For many years, we didn’t have much advice to offer on how to find that kind of writer — the ones who have both a great writing voice and a solid understanding of marketing strategy.
That’s why we created a training program for writers — so they could become the kinds of highly trained, super capable freelancers you need to make your content marketing program work.
You can find the complete list of certified writers here:
Copyblogger Certified Content Marketers
Each writer has been vetted by a member of the Copyblogger editorial team, for writing ability, strategic knowledge, and professionalism. And each writer stays current with online marketing by participating in Authority, our community of professional content marketers.
Whichever way you decide to go, content can be a powerful force to find leads, nurture prospects, and convert online visitors into happy repeat customers. Don’t let a little thing like writing stand in your way …
– The Copyblogger Team