Write and Grow: How an Essay Helps Me Build a Brand

I remember talking to my mentor, who I met during a NLP training program. For those of you who don’t know, NLP is neuro-linguistic programming. The method teaches you how to organize your thinking, feeling, and behavioral patterns in a way that helps you achieve goals. I asked her what she thought: “Why did my business fail? What can I do to make the next one successful?” Among the other things she said, she also mentioned writing.

“How are your writing skills going? Have you been practicing as I told you?” One of the keys to building a successful brand is communication. Today, most of our communication goes through writing. We’re trying to build positive relationships through effective communication.

I’ll always remember my mentor’s tip: “Write and grow. Write and grow.”

Essay writing really helped me build a brand. I learned how to form a thesis statement, build strong arguments around it, and wrap things up with a strong conclusion. Content marketing is not that stiff and structured as academic writing, but it’s based on the same principle: convince with believable arguments. Academic writing is the foundation for success.

I’ll explain how exactly you can practice essay writing with the intention to build a strong brand:

1. Choose Topics Related to Your Business and Turn Them into Essays

Remember: this is not blogging. When you blog, you maintain a friendly approach and you’re directly addressing the reader. That’s an important skill to develop, too, but you’ll easily get there after you master academic writing.

For now, pick topics that are related to your business. For example, if you’re selling sportswear online, write an essay about the way physical activity affects the self-esteem levels.

How is this important for building a brand? If you adopt the convincing style of academic writing when you’re promoting your business, you’ll have the foundation of a believable campaign. You’ll practically leave the audience with no questions to ask. They will have the facts served, and they will trust that your products or services will affect their lifestyle in a positive way.

1. Do the Research

What did your college professors keep repeating whenever they tried to push you to write an essay? “Do your research and the rest will follow!” Academic writing is based on evidence. If you want to convince the reader to consider and accept your point of view, you’ll have to support your claims with facts, examples, statistics, and scientific research.

Find facts that support your arguments. You can use Google Scholar as a search engine whose results are more relevant to academic writing.

This practice will turn argumentative writing into a habit. When you start writing blog posts, press releases, website content, and social media updates, you’ll always have that authoritative tone.

1. Maintain the Format of Academic Writing

The essay format is simple, yet complex at the same time. Introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion - simple enough, right? However, that introduction will need a strong thesis statement. Each body paragraph needs a leading argument that supports that statement, and the conclusion has to lead the reader with a complete impression. You’ll need to connect each paragraph with the rest of the text in a logical, continuous way.

If you’re having troubles to understand how a proper essay should look like, you can collaborate with the professional writers from XpertWriters. They will guide you through the entire process of research and writing.

1. Gain More Knowledge and Self-Confidence through Academic Writing

You learn new things with each new essay you write. When you’re picking topics that are connected to your business and industry, you’re gaining relevant knowledge you can use. With knowledge, you gain self-confidence, too.

The practice of academic writing supports your efforts of achieving expertise. Self-confidence is an inevitable character trait you gain when you feel like an expert.

1. Remember: You’re Still Communicating with the Reader

Many people make the mistake of thinking that academic writing is useless. They get the impression that essays must contain complex language that the writer himself doesn’t understand. They are wrong. The language in essay writing is still simple. You can even use tools like Hemingway App to make sure your content is readable.

When you’re writing an essay, you have the target reader in mind. You’re trying to explain your ideas in a way they would surely understand. Does that remind you of something? Blogging is based on the same principle. The emails you write to business partners should also contain simple, but convincing tone. Academic writing is the foundation of your overall writing skills.

Write and grow! What does that mean? With every new essay you write, you’re becoming better at expressing thoughts and emotions. That’s a necessary skill for every content marketing campaign. When you start building a brand, you’ll be grateful for every single essay you pushed yourself to write.

This practice demands discipline. Start by making a plan of topics to cover. Write them in your Google Calendar and plan how you’ll complete each stage within the timeframe you have. Then, do your research and write a unique essay that shows your point of view. If you like getting feedback, you can always start a blog where you’ll feature your work. If not, you can just keep it private and review it from time to time, so you’ll monitor your progress.

Don’t forget: you’re doing this with a business purpose in mind. At one point or another, start translating the skills you gain to blog posts, emails, reports, proposals, press releases, and everything else you write.