Brand Journalism: Why you should invest the effort

Imagine standing on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It is minutes before the opening bell on what is predicted to be the busiest trading day of the year. When that bell sounds, you better be ready to beat dozens of other brokers to the punch and buy thousands of shares of the hottest company going.

Brand Journalism

Here we go…5…4…3…2…1…GO!

Shout! SHOUT LOUDER! LOUDER! 

The seller can’t hear you over the noise and the distraction of everyone’s arm waving is preventing you from catching his attention. It’s a free for all! Mayhem, I tell ya!

Now, picture you and all your competitors standing in front of thousands of prospective clients, shouting at them to gain their attention and land a piece of business. In today’s world, that’s what too many advertising campaigns look like.

However…

…What if you were to take the information you have about what your prospective clients need and began providing answers for them through well-written stories?

What could happen with your business if you quit shouting about yourself and allowed others to offer testimonies about how you solved their problems?

Remember, one of the biggest reasons people generally hate advertising, whether broadcast or print (which includes online advertising), is because they feel they are being played by the advertiser. I’ve discussed in previous posts (see links below) that brand journalism builds your brand by telling your organization’s story in a journalistic way. Along the way we’ve shown that you’ll gain credibility, influence, and recognition within your industry, community, or specialty.

Yes, brand journalism does takes more effort than cranking out marketing and advertising copy, but what’s your objective: to say you had an ad campaign or generate quality leads and deepen customer loyalty?

So, what’s it going to be: Keep shouting or start writing?

What is keeping your organization from investing in brand journalism?

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The above post is Part 2 of a series and is an excerpt from a forthcoming eBook on Brand Journalism by Ben Stroup and Chris Turner

Part 1: Brand Journalism: A proper definition

Part 2: Brand Journalism: The who, what and why

Part 3: Brand Journalism: A thousand words are worth a picture

Part 4: Brand Journalism: Three misconceptions

cturner

I write...a lot, and use social and traditional media strategies to help people and organizations communicate better.

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