David R. Evanson, LLC
Content • Media • Advice
Serving: Asset managers • Investment banks • Financial media • Broker/dealers • RIAs
Why Engage a Content Strategist?
There are several reasons you might engage a professional business or financial writer, or in modern parlance, a content strategist.
- You need a steady stream of content.
- The material at hand is technically challenging.
- You or your colleagues are not skilled at writing, or even if these skills are abundant, the time to do so is not.
These are good reasons. But there are other less obvious ones.
Earlier in my career, clients would hire me and tell me what to write for them. Now, I tell them what to write.
This shift has something to do with my ‘seasoning’, but the larger reason is the shift in how companies promote themselves and communicate with with their constituencies.
What I refer to the content “arms race” presents new challenges for businesses that choose to enter the fray. Winning requires as much skill in consistently generating good ideas for content as it does in skillfully writing it.
Why Your Content Strategist Should Be Your Publicist
A lot of writers are publicists, because inevitably when they complete a writing assignment, the next question is “How do we get this in front of a wider audience?”
The key here is to remember if your content is news for your audience, it might be news for a reporter’s audience. Even if they don’t act like it, editors, reporters and news organizations are looking for new ideas everyday.
And a good writer, who understands the news landscape, intimately and thoroughly, can easily market your content so that it’s attractive to a news organization. It’s that easy. And it should be. When a slate of editorial ideas for content are carefully developed, when the ideas are carefully vetted and artfully written, getting publicity is just one step away.
The Exposure You Should Expect
I once turned to advertising on LinkedIn for media relation services. My ad read: Results Guaranteed Or It Will Cost You Nothing. LinkedIn was having none of this and those words had to be removed. They might have been thinking, “Who can guarantee results in a way that won’t come back on us?”
I could’ve.
That’s why I still guarantee results.
Largely because I know there is some reporter, somewhere who is going to find news in what I develop for you because the spadework has been done before it ever gets into their hands. It might be a regional trade publication which exactly matches your target audience or it might be The Wall Street Journal, or a national broadcast outlet, or streaming news outlet.
One day my guarantee may well catch up with me. That’s ok. In a world where there are no guarantees, ever, I’m proud to offer one to my clients.
How A Professional Writer Will Help You Win
Drawing ideas and provocative subject matter that is a natural by product of your operations.
Parsing the data your business naturally generates to develop ideas about your products, services, industry or the economy at large, is the most appropriate and least labor intensive platform from which to generate content. Better yet, it short circuits the time consuming process of making content out of whole cloth.
Pulling on the reigns.
Many organizations I work with are too ambitious in the size and scope of what they want to publish on any given post or initiative. This leaves them in the unenviable position of having to generate more ideas and execute on them. A professional writer can help you organize your ideas in such a way that you have an editorial agenda for six months to a year. That’s half the battle. From there, it’s just coming up with the right words.
Holding interest.
A skilled, professional writer can hold the interest of your reader no matter how arcane the subject. You’re still reading, right? A professional will consider each word in a sentence, each sentence in a paragraph, each paragraph in a completed work, and the right title to draw the reader in.
Visual production.
A skilled financial writer knows that a visual component to your content is one of the most important elements in its success. And a skilled writer with a quantitative bent knows how to convert words into graphics to sell the idea to your constituents.
Understanding what is news.
A skilled, professional business writer will be immersed in the news. This is important because they will be able to connect your business to what’s happening with the news. In a world awash with things to read, content disconnected from larger trends is at a disadvantage.
