Inside Out: Why Fear Is The Key to Confident Content That Converts

Fear is only temporary. Regret lasts forever.
~ Author Unknown

Emotions…

Who is not a stranger to emotions as much as content marketers? Sadness of rejection, fear of failure, anger of plagiarism, joy of positive feedback, disgust of poorly written texts – they all are in our heads when it comes to content marketing strategy.

Emotions become a content marketer’s secret weapon of generating writings that stand out from the crowd. With sadness being a queen here, other “creatures” become the key to compelling content that converts.

Obsessed with sadness, a content creator feels insecure.

In other words, he or she experiences fear.

But it is okay to be afraid. More than that, our insecurity helps us write confident content.

In what way?

First things first.

The Most Common Fears of Every Writer

Every writer faces fears. I believe content marketers are writers too, as most of them brainstorm ideas, research, create, and generate writings for blogs and websites themselves.

Everything connected to words, sentences, paragraphs, and texts is writing, and sometimes content creation is even more time and energy consuming than writing poems or novels, for example.

Take a look at these 20 most common fears of every writer:

Not all work for content marketers, but each helps in creating content that converts. Based on that list, the fears of content marketers are:

• fear of rejection
• fear of failure
• fear your writing is not good enough

Being a content creator, I would add the following fears:

• fear no one will want to read and share your texts
• fear your articles are poorly written
• fear of sitting in front of a blank page and… feel nothing
• fear you are not much of a writer
• fear that all your articles are just… poor rewriting

All these fears can help you write better.

How?

Fear Tells What You Need

Most of us try to avoid fear, but it can help to understand what we need as content marketers.

For example, my fear of criticism hides the desire to see my finished works perfectly articulated, and my fear that no one will want to share my texts represents the desire to receive praise from my family and friends.

The fear of rejection helps content marketers create texts that rock, paying more attention to their relevance, readability, and usefulness. Self-doubt makes them want to run, and the fear of failure helps to generate content that is well-researched, plagiarism-free, full of authoritative references, and worth bookmarking.

Fear Encourages to Take Risks

Content marketing is a risk. Every time you publish texts on the web you risk to fail or be compared to others, not in your favor. But it doesn’t mean you stop writing, does it?

You take this risk and go on. Yes, sometimes the audience doesn’t accept your content, finding it boring or stupid, and it makes you even more fearful… But it helps you learn the audience better at the same time to deliver them better content in the future.

Fear Enhances Action

We are built to feel fear, and it’s a part of the fight-or-flight response: fear saves us by triggering our bodies into action; and when something scares us, we have two ways to deal with that: face it or run from it.

That’s how it works actually:

How does it work when you are a content marketer?

Only two options you have when trying to reach the audience with your content marketing strategy: fail or success. But you understand that if you don’t generate any content because of fears or doubts – the only option is left for you, and it’s… a fail.

[bctt tweet=”“Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.” ~ W. Clement Stone”]

Your fear of failure enhances action: you start researching, writing, and generating interesting, useful, and shareable content. Actions are rewarding, so do what you fear: sooner or later your marketing strategy will flourish.

Fear Awakens Creativity

As well as all people, content marketers sometimes feel a gap between where they are and where they want to be. The bigger this gap, the bigger the fear and the greater the tension. To change the situation, to get rid of this tension, or to relieve the fear, many change the vision of where they want to be… Even worse, they stop asking the questions, what leads them to that gap.

This tactic is wrong.

The right tactic would be to face this fear and embrace this tension, as they are an important part of the creative process: fear awakens creativity, motivating minds to search a solution for relieving that gap. It often appears that fears make us come up with creatively different and unusual ideas.

Fear Builds Confidence

So, thanks to your fears, you take risks and do something that scares you. Having survived that risk successfully, you become stronger. Moreover, fear makes you a better leader.

As a result, you grow confidence and motivate yourself to keep going and create content that will convert and bring you positive results by all means. Each step into your fear builds spirits, making you a better and more professional content marketer, as it motivates you to improve your skills, learn new things to stand out from the crowd, and come up with better content plans and strategies.

Fear Builds Patience

Content marketers are not alien to writer blocks, lack of ideas for worthwhile content and its promotion, etc. It’s another type of fear, which is a fear of the unknown.

You analyze the content of your competitors, and a kind of these thoughts comes to your mind:

“Okay… They’ve already said everything on the topic. I have nothing interesting to add… I am not sure I’ll be able to expand it with the same success… Well, it’s no point to write about it again…”

Hey! Whaaaat?

It’s your fear of failure again! Why do you think you can’t do that? Be patient, do research, find details, try a new approach. Even if you fail this time, so what? Such failures make us more experienced content marketers, knowledgeable about every detail of our work.

After all,

[bctt tweet=”“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt”]

And here it goes…

Fear Helps to Succeed

Embracing their fears, content marketers are able to turn the impossible into possible. I know, some of you are skeptical about that, as we all know the cases when fear paralyzed people preventing them from doing something and achieving their goals. Frankly speaking, I am one of such people though my fear was not about my professional but personal life…

But as Constantine D’Amato, a boxing manager and trainer, once said,

[bctt tweet=”“The hero and the coward both feel the same fear, only the hero converts it into the fire.”~Con D’Amato”]

So, make fear your best friend on the way to success.

To make fear work for you, follow these steps:

1. Face it.
2. Name your fear.
3. Think about what you want that is behind this fear.
4. Write about your fears. List the steps to take for overcoming each of them.
5. Fall in love with your fear.

It’s easy to do. First, you realize that something freaks you out; second, you don’t run away from it but face the fear instead; third, your brain starts looking for solutions, weighing options, and choosing the best course of action; finally, you understand it was fear who helped you think outside the box.

The last thing to remember:

All marketers know that fear can help them sell. Many of them influence the audience, playing on heartstrings.

You don’t need fearlessness. Instead, look your fear in the eye and let it know you are ready to work with it.

The bigger your fear, the better chances you are on the right track trying to create something wonderful.

What is the biggest fear of yours? How does it help you become better specialists? 

Looking to conquer your fear and get back to growth. We can take it right off your plat to get more traffic to your website with weekly blog articles, a full year content plan, and monthly reporting? Set up a quick call, so we can get started today.