Benefits of writing a book: Can writing a book improve the credibility of your products and services?

What could be the benefits of writing a book? Suppose you can write a book to addresses the conversations in the customers’ minds while gaining trust for answering those questions?

Do you think that would place you in a position for success?

Think about this. You can give your readers, your target customer, the impression that you are knowledgeable, thus establishing credibility in your field.

This makes them interested in you. and what you are selling becomes what they desire. With the right content writing, a book relevant to your company’s target audience can go a long way in fueling your company’s growth. 

On my B2B Digital Marketer Podcast, I discussed with Raza Imam the topic of Writing Your Own Book to Establish Authority. There are several things that he mentioned that I found quite interesting.

I have published a few books of my own, and I am always seeking a way to make it easier.

Earning More: Big Benefits of Writing a Book

According to Grammar Factory, “34% of the entrepreneurs surveyed reported their earnings have doubled since the publication of their book.”

After writing a book, most entrepreneurs received media opportunities – 63% were featured in online magazines, 43% in newspapers, and 33% on the radio, and 10% on TV. (source)

Are you thinking of writing a book? Are not sure if you should go for it? Read ahead and understand how it can boost your social currency and how to make it easier to decide.

Benefits of Writing a Book To Establishing Credibility in B2B Digital Marketing

Consider the impact of writing a book and sending it to your prospective customers instead of making countless phone calls to the various companies to get them to purchase.

If you need sales and leads for your product, you always want to focus on your ideal customer profile. Your focus is not only on the demographics but the psychographics, their problems, perceived challenges, and their obstacles.

In my view, if you write a book and you don’t know how to market it, avoid mass marketing. Come up with a dream list of dream 50 clients and send a physical copy of your book.

It could be to the executive team, the CEO, the CFO, the COO with a handwritten note of how the book can help. When you reach out to them, it’s not a cold call because you’ve already preempted yourself.

You’ve already shown such immense value and built internal creditability. By making your potential customers curious, you have already built a name.

I recently read an article on Forbes that acknowledged that writing a book is good for you and your business. A. A. Milne said, “Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being,” and this seems to be true in many instances.

Benefits of Writing a Book For Busy Entrepreneurs

Most Entrepreneurs don’t want to write books because they fear they will not be good enough. However, you do not have to start with blank paper.

Octavia E. Butler once said, “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually, you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” You don’t have to have it all figured out. The important thing is to use what you have and start where you are.

You can start by making use of your already available sources of content. For example, webinars, podcasts, white papers, power points, and slide decks. Taking existing content and assembling that into your draft manuscript that an editor will go through.

It becomes easier to write a book when you take your existing assets and leverage them and compile them into a book. There is little value in time spent writing a book.

Take all of your content and be more precise on who you want to talk to, the problems they have taking your existing content, compiling it, and assembling it.

Mike Schultz in an article in Business Week said “The vast majority of the authors we surveyed — 96% — said they did realize a significant positive impact on their businesses from writing a book and would recommend the practice.” (source)

Establishing Credibilty Through Repurposing Content

Amongst the many benefits of writing a book, repurposing readily-available content is one of my favorite. I, too, have used this strategy many times before.

Some do repurposing in the digital sense through the use of videos and podcasts. You don’t even have to rewrite or retype everything. Take your existing content, repurpose it, whether it’s videos or podcasts or whatever.

Repurpose it, get it transcribed. Repurpose existing content and use tools and systems that are already available to make it easier.

The Quality Of A Book Helps In Establishing Credibility

Some questions or fears can stop you. Some people go way overboard in their production, trying to create something that would be perceived as credible and of quality.

Some books put off customers because they look like textbooks. There is a happy medium between credibility and crud that is important to find. A great book doesn’t need to be in-depth, textbook level 300 pages of highly technical information to be successful.

In my own experience, most people avoid reading books that are too formal and academic. They engage more with books, making them feel like they are talking to a friend or a colleague.

This is why your writing needs to draw in your audience as a conversation does. When I listen to someone, I want to feel like they are human too, I want to feel like they are just like me and make mistakes, and they are vulnerable just like me.

Three things that an engaging book needs: story, imagery, and emotion. Try to tell a great story using imagery and emotion to make it connect and touch someone’s heart and really strike up their emotions.

It doesn’t matter if it’s 75 pages, a hundred pages, 150 pages. If it speaks directly to your audience in an emotionally vivid illustrative way, that’s a good book.  Have an outside objective set of eyes review.

Even the best authors in the world always have editors.

When it comes to establishing credibility, your writing quality is worth the effort but should never be your stopper. When you write a book, people want to listen to you. Make it easy for them.

What’s Overrated In Establishing Credibility In B2B Digital Marketing?

A one-on-one conversation with the prospect is most impactful, whether it’s one prospect, a stakeholder, or a team of stakeholders.

It would help if you had brand awareness; you should be visible where your customers are. But over and above all, what really is important is understanding who you are selling to on a psychographic level. Understanding their problems, what they are up against etc.

Budget Reallocation When Writing a Book

If you have a team and have the budget, resort to the traditional marketing cycle where you’re doing advertising and running retargeting ads, getting people into your funnel, and tracking all the ads and statistics.

If you don’t have the resources, what is also most effective is just direct outreach. The two channels that give phenomenal success results are LinkedIn and email.

Create your target list and, research and refine and filter out exactly who you intend to reach out to.

Test your messaging and work to create compelling communication that creates intrigue that they feel compelled to respond to.

It’s important to have a copy editor, get different viewpoints. Iterate and keep trying.

Whether big or small, I try to get suggestions and insight from other people in any messaging I make. This helps me to see things from a different perspective that I would have never thought of.

 Making The Right Investment When Writing a Book

Where you put your money largely depends on what you’re selling and who you’re selling to. If you’re selling large scale software, the enterprise, you’re going to want to take a certain path and certain trajectory.

Invest more into branding if you are into enterprise sales. The reason is that they want to make sure that the vendor they’re buying from is legit and has been reviewed by other credible sources.

In the enterprise, it’s a completely different mindset. It’s tougher for them to buy from a smaller, lesser-known vendor without them having many media mentions or industry mentions behind them. Reduce their risk.

When you’re selling a product or service to the enterprise, you need to invest your time and effort in the branding and have a large reach and industry recognition.

If you’re a consultant who sells a very highly specialized high margin service and, I realized that going directly to your ideal customers is always best.

When you’re selling large-scale software products to the enterprise, you may want to invest your time and money into building this large presence, getting mentioned in the wall street journal, getting mentioned by IDC or Forrester Gartner, etc.  

It all depends on who you are and who you sell to. It all starts wit the best strategy.

The One Question Every B2B Digital Marketer Should Be Asking Themselves Before Writing a Book

I suggest you always ask (COVID, non COVID, economic crisis, and no economic crisis): what does my market want?

Understanding your market, what they want, what they need. You have to really refine and target the market. Advice to anyone who’s in a marketing role is to take the pulse of the market, understanding what people want, and then refine your messaging on that.

Conclusion

Writing a book could be the best thing you ever do to boost your business. Some of the benefits of writing a book include giving product knowledge to customers and also giving you authority and credibility in your field.

Becoming a published author helps you stand out and cements you as an expert in your field and is critical in establishing credibility for your brand.

Whether you will self-publish or publish through a publishing house, I advise that you give writing a book a shot and see how it can help you establish credibility.

Watch my interview with Raza Imam On Establishing Authority

Please Comment

• What do you think are the benefits of writing a book for an entrepreneur?
• What do you think makes customers more inclined to deal with a person who has written a book?
• How can you publish your own book using content that you may have already published?
• Do you trust the opinion of a person with a book and why?