Why Executive Ghostwriting Will Work for You
When it comes to capturing the spirit of your organization and the leaders that spearhead its mission, executive ghostwriting—the act of writing copy for publication under someone senior’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 C-suite helps drive awareness of their voice and ideas.
Here are seven reasons why executive ghostwriting will work for your organization:
Being Wise with Time
Writing takes time. Your senior leadership are busy running the company, and likely don’t have time to sit down and write opinion pieces or long-form articles.
The fact is that it’s all too easy to underestimate how time intensive writing is, leading to delays in output. 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 shaping and finishing the work.
2. Crafting your Voice
Not only are senior leadership pressed for time, but they may be more adept at verbal explanations than written articles. In this case, it’s good to have someone else on hand to distill the ideas and experience of executives in a readable form for various audiences.
While you’re not looking to replicate Jane 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, who expect to revise a text multiple times before setting it loose in the wild.
3. Trusting 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. They may also have a better sense of how corporate messaging plays for a wider audience.
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.
Ever wondered exactly what is a byline?
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. Not Overlooking your Internal Comms
Not everything you ghost write needs to be for an external audience. Executive ghostwriting 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 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.
This is especially important for large organizations, where some rank-and-file employees may not meet executives in person. In such cases, written remarks are the best and perhaps only chance to make a good impression and foster group spirit. In an age of social media, internal messages often leak, and poor messaging can have large consequences.
5. Developing a Ghostwriting 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, take audio recordings of 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. Sometimes the best quotes and editorial takes come from offhand remarks. Blink and you’ll miss it!
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. Asserting 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.
It’s also essential to make sure there is a clear approval process in place. Ideally, this will include the writer running the material by your company at least twice, at both the rough draft stage and when the final copy is complete. For particularly important output, it may make sense to have several involved at each stage of review.
At a contractual level, be clear on who owns the copyright for any work that is produced—your company or the ghostwriter.
7. Reaping what you Sow
Which brings us back to where we started: time. Executive ghostwriting 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 with a professional ghostwriter on a regular basis for it to prosper long term.
Over time, this will lead to greater consistency of style and voice, and help your executive messaging harmonize with the company’s core message as they evolve in tandem.
“Not only are senior leadership pressed for time, but they may be more adept at verbal explanations than written articles. In this case, it’s good to have someone else on hand to distill the ideas and experience of executives in a readable form for various audiences. ”
