Every brand is now pumping out news type content at a rate of knots, making them all publishers and newsrooms. The problem is a lot of clients and agencies don't have any publishing experience.
This trend is great for copywriters like me but terrible for the integrity of the industry, brands and journalism as a whole.
Journalists don't understand digital sales journeys, commercial environments or writing for conversion, yet they're flooding the market as publishing goes into decline. Content marketing means that brands are pushing poor-quality, meaningless articles live and copywriters are struggling to turn boring, product-led information into a compelling story.
The main thing to remember when setting up an in-house digital newsroom or content factory is the process. Once the process is in place, you can focus on good quality output. Here's what a digital process looks like:
1. Content strategy that outlines acceptance criteria, principles and audience
2. Steering committees to discuss ideas, agree approach and build brief
3. Pulling together the brief
4. Working with UX, UI and copywriters to conceptualise the creative
5. Create wireframe
6. First draft copy
7. Create designs
8. Senior review
9. Stakeholder review (including legal)
10. Collate comments, take in changes or challenge comments
11. Second draft (build in the CMS by Content Editor)
12. Send preproduction link for the stakeholder review
13. Collate comments
14. Final, sign off version
15. Testing
16. Go live
Variants of this process may happen, depending on channel, speed and medium, but roughly, that's how publishing works.
The build may be animating, filming or developing. And the disciplines or people involved at the beginning may change, but regardless of all of these factors, the copywriter is a crucial and constant part of the publishing process.
Did you look at the banner to see if there are any books you've read? I did too, I got five (plus one I was ashamed to finish... And no, it's not Henry Miller).
