Could journalists be the new marketing consultants of tomorrow? It’s already happening and the discipline even has a name. It’s called brand journalism.
For years I used my journalism skills to help clients with their sales and marketing (over and above simple copywriting), but I considered myself relatively unique. Not anymore.
I always thought it was a pretty obvious fit, but journalists needed to first get over their passion for socially engineering the world, and their disdain for anything relating to the word ‘sales’.
If you think about it, journalism and marketing are a natural fit.
Now that the public actively dislikes being “sold” in favour of ‘shopping’ (researching their buying decision online), marketers need to address those information needs in an engaging, but credible manner.
Who better than a journalist to uncover an informative, interesting and newsworthy angle for a product or service?
A journalist is also best qualified to ask the right questions of company staff, customers and stakeholders in his or her quest for that thrilling new angle that nobody else thought of.
Journalist are natural story tellers. They are compelled to find a good story and to tell that story. Turning those skills to telling engaging brand stories will finally spell the end for self serving advertising, and finally start addressing the needs of the customer.