It’s no secret that if used correctly, writing and publishing a book can be a very powerful marketing tool to boost your credibility; not only for your company but also for you as an author and entrepreneur. In this article, I’m going to share with you 5 different ways you can use a book to boost your credibility and how the more you use a book in this way, the more the effect on your credibility starts to compound.
1. Expert status
The first way you can use a book to boost your credibility is as the symbol of your status as an expert in your particular field.
It is a perception that is ingrained in us from a very young age, that if you want a credible source of information you turn to books. All the way through school, college, university, professional accreditation courses, you conduct your research using books because we assume that the authors of those books are the experts. There is a reason why the phrase “they wrote the book on it” exists when referring to someone with a high level of expertise.
So simply through the act of writing and publishing a book, you are boosting your credibility by positioning yourself as an expert authority on your subject.
2. Speaking engagements
The second way you can use a book to boost your credibility is as a tool to get public speaking engagements.
As a result of your expert status, people naturally want to know what you know and another way for you to share the knowledge you convey in your book is to talk about it. This can take the form of keynote talks at conferences and events, guest lectures at schools, colleges and universities, workshops hosted either by other industry experts or put on by you, even readings at book signings and other public appearances.
This starts to compound your expert status from point one, and your name starts to get known in wider and wider circles; boosting your credibility further.
3. Visibility
The third way you can use a book to boost your credibility is through the very nature of marketing itself; getting your name in front of more and more people.
Every piece of marketing you do to promote your book adds to your visibility online and increases the likelihood of someone hearing about you. So, the more you leverage the tactics from points one and two, the more it contributes to your overall visibility. People start to hear/read your name in more and more places which leads them to believe that you must know what you’re talking about or why else would so many people be talking about you. This, in turn, piques their curiosity about what all the fuss is about and often they will actively seek out more information about you.
Of course, this can sometimes be a double-edged sword in that people often talk more about the bad than the good. But as long as you are proactive in maintaining a positive public image it’s unlikely that you will be the subject of too much negative press.
4. PR
Which leads me to the fourth way that a book can help boost your credibility and that is as a tool in securing PR opportunities.
Members of the press are always on the lookout for credible sources to add weight to their stories in newspapers, magazines and blogs. Radio, TV and podcast hosts are always on the hunt for new content and guests to keep their audiences entertained and informed. The increased visibility that you get as a result of leveraging the first three points puts you top of the list to fill these PR opportunities.
People will either start to approach you for interviews, to give talks/lectures at their events, collaborations, and sponsorships, or when you approach others for such opportunities your name will have more weight behind it because of the credibility that you have already amassed from your book marketing activities.
You also have the added bonus of having a vault of content from your book to draw on to feed to these journalists, podcasters and bloggers, which makes things easier for both you and them – win/win.
5. Higher profile client acquisition
The results of all of the other four points then combine to enable the fifth and final way a book can boost your credibility and that is as a vehicle for attracting a higher calibre of client who wants to work with you.
Your credibility is often tied to the credibility of those who you have worked with previously. We see it time and time again in the reaction from people when they see a well-known blue-chip corporation on someone’s CV; it tends to stand head and shoulders above the others in the pile.
The boost to your credibility that you have gained from the previous four points all act in concert to put your name in front of those higher-profile clients you dream of working with. It also works to alleviate any doubt they may have had in working with you as you have clearly proven that you know your stuff (or else you wouldn’t have built the reputation that you have). This then starts a chain reaction… by adding a high-profile client to your (or your company’s) CV, that in turn attracts more high-profile clients, and so on.
The Snowball Effect
As you can see, each of the 5 ways you can use a book to boost your credibility adds to the next. This continues the more tactics you use to promote and use your book as a marketing tool; building more and more momentum as you go.
The great thing is that this process can be cyclical, meaning that the more you repeat it (either for new books you publish or even as an additional marketing campaign to reinvigorate an already published book) the more it starts to snowball. Your credibility as an expert author and speaker in your field of work grows with each application of the process.
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