Anytime that you do content marketing, you need to be concerned about editorial processes; the editorial factors can make a huge difference. In this article, we’ll be covering everything that goes into the editorial side of content marketing. You’ll learn everything about it from a marketing and advertising perspective, and most importantly, from the perspective of someone who is doing content marketing and wants to improve.
The first thing that you have to understand is that there are two different types of content – one of which is editorial content. The other type of content is advertising content. Editorial content usually refers to something that is an opinion. With content marketing, editorial blog content is a little different, although they do share some characteristics. Generally, the editorial content post is created to help someone learn something or get information; or out of genuine interest and the person posting the content was not paid by an advertiser to create it.
The Editorial Pitch
The first thing that has to happen when you are being requested to create editorial content is that you have to have an editorial pitch. Companies will send out editorial requests, hoping that they can entice you and to providing them with what is called earned media - or press that you didn't have to pay for. Generally, companies will send out some sort of informational packet. This could come in the form of a press release, it could be images of a particular product that they want you to get excited about, it could be a look book or an invite to an event that they are holding. The notice may also be about a contest that they're having. Sometimes, and editorial pitch can include products they get reviewed but this could fall into paid content or advertising content because the bloggers usually gets to keep the items being reviewed.
Understanding Advertising Content
In order to understand the difference between editorial content and advertising content, you have to be aware of the differences, and especially what makes up advertising. Advertising content may have any of the following characteristics.
- Being asked to write a post that links to a specific site or page
- Posting on a specific date
- Wording that the brand has requested or giving them proofing power over the article
- Distribution of content on social media channels as well as branding on the site itself
The Editorial Content Plan
One thing that you do want to have when it comes to editorial content is a plan for it. Some of the things that you want to do include prioritizing certain topics based upon what readers want, what is going to improve your marketing and get ranked highly in the search engines, as well as other content-specific things that you can tell from your analytics.
You do want to target niche content, but make your topics broad enough so that they apply to a fairly large number of people and then you can further divide those topics within an individual post. In addition, make sure that you're creating a timeline for your topics because some will do better during certain times of the year.
Tracking Editorial Content
You can track editorial content by looking at the number of clicks on the landing page as well as the individual post pages, the opening rates on email related to the editorial content, your actual sales numbers, number of downloads and how many people attend events around your editorial content. Of course, there is a great deal more to track if you are using any sort of analytics program.
