Talent Elevates Content Marketing Strategy

It’s easy to dismiss the concept of a “blogger” as a catch-all term referring to an untrained writer who cobbles together poorly worded, grammatically embarrassing articles for a pittance of a freelance payment—from the rent-free comfort of their parents’ basement, of course.

While that’s fun to imagine—and it might even be true in some respects—times have changed, and blogging is now an integral instrument in the content marketing strategy toolbox. That’s right: The blog environment on your company’s website should no longer be the veritable wasteland that you keep saying you’ll get to, eventually. Instead, you should be constantly creating content that not only fills space, but also answers your customers’ vital questions as they move through the buyer’s journey. 

And those writers that some people disparagingly refer to as bloggers? They’re your company’s most powerful assets in the fight against an inactive blog, customer malaise, and product fatigue. 

Why Is Quality Content So Crucial To Your Marketing Strategy?

A great writer can step in, take your company’s blog, and elevate it from merely being active to having a purpose. When a customer finds themselves fully engaged in the aforementioned buyer’s journey, they’ll likely have many questions that need answers. In fact, an informative blog not only answers questions, but also inspires your customers to go on a deeper exploration of your company’s products and services. 

The more exploring they do, the more interested they get—and the better the chances of generating a sale. A truly great blog targets your customers’ pain points, enabling you to speak directly to your customers and influence your relationship with them. This puts you in the position to be far more successful than, say, if you were to wait for your products to do the talking for you.

You’ve got to find a way to cut through all that noise and stand out in a world where seemingly everyone is creating content.

There’s an inherent problem with blogging in the year 2020, however. It’s the noise—the sheer volume of content constantly vying for your customers’ attention. With multiple social media platforms, thousands of hours of streaming entertainment, and an unrelenting barrage of instant gratification, people are more distracted than ever, while simultaneously boasting more discerning tastes than ever.

You’ve got to find a way to cut through all that noise and stand out in a world where seemingly everyone is creating content. One surefire way to do so is to publish content that not only answers questions and inspires exploration, but is also of the utmost quality. And in search of quality, you’ll need to find a marketing agency that employs content marketing strategists built specifically for today’s world.

What’s Today’s Version Of A Content Marketing Strategist?

Marketing agencies have wised up to the fact that trained writers can be exceptional content creators, with the time management skills and talent needed to produce articles that entertain, answer questions, and generate sales leads. But we’re not talking about any scribes, as those that pen fiction novels, for example, might not possess the exact skills needed to quickly turnaround a concise 1,500-word blog under the crushing pressure of a tight deadline. 

For an assignment like that and other content-creation tasks, you need a writer who is naturally inquisitive, deadline-oriented, and formally trained in all the fundamentals of writing—while also being an exceptional researcher and storyteller. 

You need a journalist.

Along with a deep knowledge of many different writing styles, trained journalists have spent years in school learning from seasoned veterans before working in the trenches of a high-pressure and fast-paced newsroom. They’re agile thinkers who know how to write quickly, accurately, and with a voice that elevates content from transparent “sales pitch” to compelling prose that screams personality and builds trust. As for meeting multiple strict deadlines, there’s perhaps no breed of writer more suited for the job. 

And journalists are out there, looking for work. According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis, newsroom employment in the United States plummeted by about 25 percent from 2008 to 2018. In the beginning of that 10-year span, close to 114,000 employees—including reporters and editors—worked in newsrooms. By 2018, that number dropped to about 86,000. That’s a staggering loss of 28,000 jobs in an industry that continues to shrink.

Rather than get into the weeds of the hows and whys of the newspaper industry’s protracted collapse, suffice to say there are many talented and trained journalists available who can add an all-new dimension to a company’s continually evolving story. And the tide is beginning to turn, as more and more agencies are dipping into the journalism talent pool to round out their staff of content marketing strategists. Indeed, the most impactful marketing agencies are those that hire journalists—presenting their clients with content strategists who can be trusted to ramp up the quality of their company’s blog in short order. 

Morey Creative Studios & The Search For Content Marketing Strategists

While agencies have seen a general shift toward recruiting journalists, Morey Creative Studios has been ahead of the curve since its inception. Many of our team members have cut their teeth in the newspaper industry as hard news and lifestyle reporters, even editors. We don’t just hire journalists, we were built by journalists. Contact us today.