When it comes to capturing the spirit of your organization and the executives that spearhead its mission, ghostwriting—the act of writing copy for publication under someone else’s name—can prove an almost supernaturally effective tactic.
Ghostwriting is not only a great way to get your senior executives noticed on behalf of your company. Creating editorial content attributed to your senior leadership helps drive awareness of their voice and ideas.
Here are seven reasons why executive ghostwriting will work for your organization:
1. Be Wise with Time
Your senior leadership are busy running the company. They don’t have time to sit down and write opinion pieces or long-form articles.
The fact is executives routinely underestimate how time-consuming writing is—until, that is, they try to write something themselves. By hiring an executive ghostwriting service, companies solve this problem by providing an experienced professional who does the bulk of the work while facilitating input from the executive.
Remember that writing for business is not a solitary pursuit. Senior executives must make themselves available to provide input and guidance. Meanwhile, the ghostwriter organizes the material, does the heavy lifting with drafting, and takes lead responsibility for refining and finishing off the work.
2. Craft your Voice
Not only are senior leadership pressed for time, they are generally not prose stylists. While you’re not looking to replicate Austen, you do want to create copy that is clean and compelling. A professional ghostwriter delivers this level of quality, and will work hard to craft a voice that reflects both the executive and the company.
Again, don’t underestimate the time to takes to get this right. Voice is an aspect of style, and well-styled prose doesn’t fall from the sky perfectly formed. The best writers are handy editors, and expect to revise a text multiple times before setting it loose in the wild.
3. Trust an Outside Perspective
Hire a professional ghostwriter rather than picking someone internal. That extra layer of distance proves valuable in generating engaging copy that doesn’t simply parrot the company line.
The key component here is trust. An outside writer will generate material and extract angles that you hadn’t previously considered.
That doesn’t mean you lose control over the material that’s published. It’s your right to make changes and switch up editorial direction. Ultimately, what goes out is in your name.
At the same time, stay open-minded to the ghostwriter’s suggestions and overall approach. Every company operates, at least to some extent, in a bubble. It’s not a bad thing to get outside of your own glass walls.
4. Look Inward Too
Not everything you ghost write needs to be for an external audience. Your writer can do wonders with the quality and output of your internal communications.
From company memos to scripted remarks for all-hands meetings, how you phrase internal messages often conveys as much as about your company as the content of the message itself. Leaders are as recognized by a winning quote or turn of phrase as by the minutiae of their record.
5. Writing as Process
The key to a successful relationship with an independent writer is the development of a regular working process. Maybe your executive sits down every month for an interview-style conversation that keeps the writer up-to-date with the leader's thinking and gives both parties an opportunity to work up new themes.
Writers should, wherever possible, record these conversations. Listening back to the recording will give the writer deeper insights into exactly what was said. This, in turn, will yield richer material for use in company content.
At the same time, the ghost writer must be careful not to indulge their subject by including too much of the interview material. A practiced writer will resist the temptation to include more than needed—by keeping the material lean and leaving out more than is retained, your writer will be rendering a service to the executive in question and (most importantly) to your target readers.
6. Understand Ownership
Remember that your executive and your company ultimately own the messaging behind anything that goes out under their name—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Make sure there is a clear approval process in place.
At a contractual level, be clear on who owns the copyright for any work that is produced—your company or the ghostwriter.
7. Reap what you Sow
Which brings us back to where we started: time. Working with a professional ghostwriter will save you resources and exponentially increase your written output, but it is not a set-and-forget-it arrangement. You and your executive team must invest dedicated time into the relationship on a regular basis for it to prosper long term.
“Not only are senior leadership pressed for time, they are generally not prose stylists. While you are not looking to replicate Austen, you do want to create copy that is clean and compelling. ”
