How to Use Collaboration for Marketing Content

By Kathleen Allardyce 🔹

As a small business owner, you know how important it is to present your company in writing. Usually, it’s the first introduction you have to a potential customer. But, small business owners need to wear a lot of hats and you can’t be an expert in everything. Collaborating with a freelance writer is an excellent way to get the marketing and writing expertise you need to make your business stand out from the crowd.

My Collaboration with Cove

I had applied to an ad I saw from Cove looking for a freelance writer. Then, Alex Loos, the co-founder of Cove, got in touch with me and we met on a Zoom call. I was impressed with the fact that she was starting a small business networking platform. And, I thought the ideas she had for making it truly beneficial to the members were excellent.

Alex took a collaborative approach from our very first meeting. We exchanged perspectives and she asked for my input about the work that needed to be done. That made me comfortable enough to make suggestions based on my marketing experience that went beyond simply discussing topics and word counts.

I became interested in helping Alex to make the platform a success. It made the work more interesting for me, and the outcome was more effective than it might have been otherwise. Alex shared her perspective on our collaboration:

“I worked with Kathleen on several projects and appreciate her always asking questions. This helps me ensure that I have considered all aspects of a project. She appears genuinely interested in our projects and wants Cove.eco, the community I co-founded, to succeed, which builds trust between us. Kathleen's feedback is valuable not only to Cove, as it helps us maintain focus on content development, but also for me as I gained more confidence writing short marketing content.”

Why Collaboration on Marketing Content Works

If you are a small business owner, there are a limited number of things you can delegate. Critical things such as creating a roadmap for your company’s growth is something you need to maintain control over. And, there are other things that need your personal touch, like networking to grow a professional network that will help support you and your business, along with helping you find partners and new customers.

When you look at your to-do list, you’ll see some tasks that you need to do yourself, some that you have the skill and experience to do, and some that you aren’t comfortable with due to lack of interest or lack of experience. So, what should you delegate? Marketing is something that many small business owners aren’t trained to do. And, writing is something that many small business owners don’t think they do well, and often have no interest in. Therefore, writing marketing content is something that is very reasonable to outsource.

The owner sets the goals and provides insight into the target market and the product or service. The writer, especially if they have experience in marketing, provides the structure for reaching the market and the writing that will help the owner do that. It’s a win-win situation.

Marketing Content Tips for Small Business Owners

Before you start any marketing efforts, especially if you haven’t prepared a formal marketing plan, there are a couple things that will help you get on the right path.

Write a Value Proposition

You need a succinct way to describe what you do. This description goes under many different names such as value proposition, or unique selling proposition, or brand definition. In fact, in marketing terms, branding is not only about your logo, it’s also about how you define what you do.

Describing your product or service seems like it should be easy, but very often it’s not. You’re very close to the business, and there are a lot of things about your offering that are so much a part of you, it’s sometimes difficult to describe. A good value proposition tells the reader why they should work with you as opposed to your competitors. It should be a document that you review and update regularly as you get to know more about your market and your competitors.

Write Buyer Persona(s)

You know who your target buyer is. But, until you write it down and incorporate it into your marketing, it’s not helping you grow your business. A buyer persona, and most businesses have more than one, describes your buyer in detail, including things such as demographics, work goals, challenges, pain points, and more. This should be a living document that you update as you learn more about your market and the decision-makers who populate it.

Once you have a value proposition and buyer personas, keep them at hand when you’re working on marketing issues.

Starting a Blog

Blogs are excellent ways to attract prospects and convert them into customers. In fact, Hubspot, a premier content marketing company, has an interesting article that explains why and how blogs lead to purchases. So, if you’re just starting a blog or want to improve your results, here are some quick tips.

Don’t write the way you talk. Wait. What? Yes, many experts tell you to write the way you talk, but I’d prefer to say, “Write the way your prospects talk.” I write for several tech companies, and the thing they appreciate most about my writing is that decision-makers can understand it. Keep that buyer persona close and write how they talk.
Expand on the list of challenges and pain points. When people read blogs, they want information that will help them understand their industry better and help them solve the problems they’re facing.
Don’t sell your offering. People don’t want to be “sold.” They want to be educated. So, make sure your blog posts have good and useful information for your audience. On the other hand, your blog is intended to grow your business, and people usually won’t contact you unless you ask them. Therefore, including a call to action isn’t selling—it’s extending an invitation.

You can also apply the tips above to collaborating with a freelance writer if that’s the direction that makes most sense to you. If you want to expand your network and find partners to help you grow your business, the Cove community can help you meet those goals. Learn more and start your free trial today.

About the Author

Kathleen Allardyce is a freelance writer who serves forward-thinking companies that want to use effective content marketing to increase leads, convert leads to customers, and grow their business.