Brand Journalism In Your Digital Marketing Strategy: Why Does It Matter?

In this digital world, where brands bombard everyone with marketing messages on the internet and television, some of us have developed the ability to ignore traditional advertising. This is why conventional PR approaches aren’t as effective as they used to be.

Brand journalism came in through the way and changed how businesses approach their potential customers. In such a short time, it has become a mandatory part of businesses’ digital marketing strategy.

What Is Brand Journalism?

Brand journalism is another type of journalism that companies use for their branding activities. Like any other journalism, it focuses on spreading awareness and building audiences with storytelling.

However, companies sometimes become confused where to begin with, the famous content marketing or brand journalism for their digital marketing strategy. Although it may sound similar in producing content creation, content marketing isn’t the same thing.

Content marketing aims to gain conversion and generate leads, whereas brand journalism centers on grabbing the audiences’ attention to introduce the brand itself.  

The History of Brand Journalism

Brand Journalism has solid roots since it was first implemented by The Furrow, a magazine for farmers, in 1895. No one knows about this strategy back then; however, providing useful content has given this magazine a whooping 2-million readers worldwide.

Since then, the road started to become clearer; brands like NASA, Michelin, and McDonalds are implementing brand journalism as a part of their digital marketing plan. 

In 2004, McDonalds had shifted its old advertising into human-based approaches by crafting more fact-based storytelling that speaks to its audiences. As a result, McDonalds garnered a bigger audience because their ads reached out to broader potential customers with their remarkable journalism.   

Over the past decades, Coca-cola also vowed to emit the press-release as its plan to spread awareness. It used to perform a standard release and made the old marketing strategy by making its website all about the company itself. Hence, through the new plan, Coca-cola transformed a corporate website into a user-centric digital magazine.

The Importance of Brand Journalism in the Digital Marketing Strategy

Brand Journalism centers on providing content that hooks the audiences’ attention. It never aims to gain leads in the first place as it wants the viewers to know the brand’s existence.

The reasons below are what makes brand journalism still matter in the digital marketing strategy.

#1. Readers love accurate storytelling

Audiences are now brilliant. They can differentiate which content is salesy or not. Once they find out that they are the object of sales content, they simply scroll down.

Instead of making the audiences the object of products you are selling, you can try placing them as the subject of your marketing content. By letting them as an actor of one storytelling, you allow them to feel represented.

In this way, readers will love your marketing information without avoiding it like a disease. Storytelling, like an explainer video, is powerful; it speaks to the audiences as if they are in the story and gives a better solution.   

#2. Readers want to know “Why” first, not “What”

When you search for something, it is always the reason that triggers you to do so. Like why do you need a wok pan instead of a simple cook pan? That is because you want authentic Chinese food at home rather than buy from a Chinese restaurant that’s an hour long drive from your house, for example.

This analogy goes the same for your business. The audience needs the reason “Why” first, not “What”. Why your brand is excellent in its industry or why people need to try out your products.

You can craft all of these reasons into good brand journalism that catches the audiences’ attention. Again, storytelling can help you with delivering the messages for your potential customers.

#3. Direct selling is no longer blissful

Direct selling used to be an effective tool to get customers, but it has been decades since companies avoided this strategy. It is no longer blissful. Since the salespeople have their target, hence a pushy act has been familiar, the hard-selling become something obsolescent.

Brand journalism is an art of soft-selling by making marketing informational stuff no longer tedious. You can see it this way; great content leads to curiosity, then it lands on awareness.

Using brand journalism can get rid of the feeling of being an object. Instead, it gives useful content for readers that is powerful enough to leave them stunned.  

Conclusion

Brand journalism is no longer a choice for businesses to choose from. It is essential before they start offering their products. It creates awareness and reaches out to targeted audiences effectively.

From the history of brand journalism alone, we can conclude that unique content is the key to successful branding. Thus, implementing brand journalism in your digital marketing strategy can boost your businesses’ performance in a short time.

Author

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).