As a young professional I worked in a broadcast television newsroom for many years. This was an eye-opening experience for me that I wouldn’t trade for anything. The skills I learned I still use today because they are timeless in strategy and execution. What I learned in a newsroom is what we marketers should do to create a brand newsroom machine. Here are some tips for marketers who may not have broadcast journalism experience, but need to know how these 12 tips fit perfectly into creating a content marketing, brand newsroom machine.
Customer Expectation
Today’s customer expectation is for the brand to deliver incredible content designed specifically for them. Advertisements are not as effective as they once where years ago. Customers are more intelligent shoppers and the brands must acknowledge that and stay ahead of them.
Before you start the content creation process make sure you know your customer very well. Your content will then be able to answer their questions, educate them, help them understand more about your brand and maybe even solve their problems by leading them to your product.
Here are 12 questions you must ask yourself before you start the content creation process.
- What type of content am I creating?
- Why am I creating it? Determine a key message
- How is my audience going to be positively impacted when they see my content?
- What response do I want to get from the viewer once they see the content?
- What criteria will determine if the content is not usable?
- Who is responsible for quality control and final approval?
- Was the content you are about to produce already produced recently? Don’t forget to look at the editorial calendar to see if you have already produced similar content. You don’t want to repeat content to close to each other.
- Will your content be one article, a special feature or a series of stories?
- What are the sources of your content and are they validated?
- Is your content relevant to your target audience? If it isn’t, then it’s not worth producing
- Produce content in their tone of voice – the way you would speak to them as if they were in front of you
- Position your content as if it is the authority
Regardless of the medium you are publishing to or creating for, these questions are a great place to start. The answers to these will guide your thinking process to ensure your content is highly relevant for your customer.
Yourbrandexposed.com is designed to look at digital with an eye into the future using a creative, innovative marketing perspective. We’re a consultative and tactical resource for companies looking to leverage the power of digital, social and content marketing strategies.
Scott MacFarland
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