Note from Jennifer: I had the opportunity recently to be on Ed Gandia’s fantastic B2B Launcher podcast. If you don’t listen to Ed, I highly recommend that you start because he provides fantastic and  practical advice for increasing your income. You can listen the episode where Ed and I talked HERE. 

I’ve had a number of conversations in the past few weeks with veteran journalists who are frustrated. These writers have years in the field. Their clips are full of prestigious publications. But they can’t figure out how to break into content marketing. Or the writer feels that they have missed the boat on content marketing. A few mentioned that they just don’t think they have the skills needed to move into content marketing. And others mentioned that they think they are too late to jump onto the content marketing bandwagon.

This is the thing – you already have all the skills you need to know to find content marketing writing clients and you are definitely not too late. Content marketing isn’t something huge and different. It’s just a slight shift from what you have been doing successfully for years. To help answer these questions, I’m going to write a three-part series on Content Marketing for Journalists. The next post will help journalists identify their niche, and the final post will be a step-by-step guide for journalists on getting content marketing work.

But to start with, I wanted to talk about 7 things that journalists should know when considering writing content marketing.

1. Content marketing is not dramatically different from what you have been doing for years. In fact, you have most likely actually written content marketing and not even known it. If you have written for an airline magazine, association publication (including AARP), alumni publication, or blog or publication run by a business, such as American Express OPEN Forum or Costco Connections, then you have already written “content.” And even if you haven’t, content marketing is very similar to what you have been doing for years, telling a story and providing information to help people solve a problem – with content marketing, your client is a business (or agency) instead of a pub, but great content marketing looks very similar if not identical to journalism.
2. Content marketing writing is not the same as marketing writing. I’ve had many journalists ask if they need to take a class on marketing writing. The answer is a resounding ‘no.’ Content marketing writing is not marketing writing. The main point of marketing or copywriting is to directly sell a product. On the other hand, the main purpose of content marketing writing is to provide information. Which leads me to the only real difference in the actual writing…
3. You have to write in the brand voice. In journalism you can use your own voice. In fact, most publications want you to use your own style and voice. In content marketing, you have to use the brand tone, which can be a big challenge. Check out Paige Taylor’s post on capturing the right tone on her blog My Life as a Freelancer. I honestly think this is the hardest part of content marketing. When a writer says that they got a lot of edits, it is almost always for a tone issue. Check out my post on getting the correct tone.
4. Writing both content marketing and journalism at the same time is not a problem for the majority of editors. Yes, there a few guidelines that I recommend, but it is totally possible and actually highly recommended. It’s funny that the only people I still hear debating this issue are journalists. However, I have heard repeatedly that SOME editors at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times will not hire you if you have written content. It is almost impossible to earn a living just writing journalism these days, and most editors know it. The main rule is that if you write for a company as a client then you can’t use that company as a source in the future.
5. You can’t directly compare journalism rates and content marketing rates. Yes, there are low rates in content marketing, just like in journalism. But I think that a lot of journalists miss jobs that pay well because they are using $1 per word as a benchmark. In content marketing you are typically paid a project rate so you need to be concerned with the hourly rate that you will earn. I’m going to write a whole post on this since this is a big issue, but I will give you a few spoilers. The client typically gives you the assignment so you don’t have to come up with an idea, and if you have to do an interview (which many times you do not) the client often gives you the source. I’ve even had clients give me interview transcripts or an approved outline. If you are working with an agency, they usually handle the majority of the client interaction, which saves time as well. So oftentimes there is less work for a content marketing project, which means that you will spend less time on the project, which ends up being a higher hourly rate, assuming you have negotiated a project rate, which is what I highly recommend.
6. You must identify a niche and sell yourself as an expert in this niche. This is one of the biggest mistakes that I see journalists make, and I am going to devote a whole post to it. You may think you don’t have a niche, but you do. I am positive that if you go through your clips, you will find many subjects that you have written on many times over the years. Then you will need to write an LOI that sells yourself as an expert in this area.
7. You can successfully add content marketing writing to your services. I promise you that if you have been a successful journalist, you can be a successful content marketing writer. It’s not a huge, new, big scary thing. You aren’t too late to the party and everyone doesn’t know some secret that you don’t know on how to make this work. You already have all the skills you need; you just have to make a slight shift in your mindset as well as in how you market yourself. You can do this. I promise.

If you are trying to transition to content marketing from journalism, what are your questions? If you’ve already made the jump, what is your best piece of advice?