Should You Separate Your Content Marketing and Journalism Clips?
A few years ago, I saw a writer who put their content marketing clips on completely separate pages of their website. The menu had an option for Content Marketing and another for Journalism. I didn’t think much about it until I began noticing the same approach on other writers’ websites. Last week, a reader asked me via email why I didn’t have mine separated out and why I instead have content marketing and journalism clips listed together. I mentioned this yesterday in my post about organizing clips by niche, but I think it’s a complicated enough issue (and likely controversial enough) to devote a whole post to it.
For years, I have had my IBM clips sitting next to my Entrepreneur.com clips, and Hospitality Technology (a trade publication) listed next to a Samsung post. Not a single client has ever commented on it. I get a very high number of job offers through my website, usually 8 to 10 cold contacts a month from my website and LinkedIn combined, including a number of well-known brands.
If you are primarily focusing on content marketing or even doing a 50/50 ish split, then I think that it makes the most sense to organize clips by niche and not separate content marketing from journalism clips. However, if you are primarily writing journalism stories while you just dabble in content marketing and you do not plan to increase your content work, then I do think that it makes sense to separate your content marketing clips from your journalism clips. This is because the majority of the people looking at your site are looking for journalism clips.
Note that I am talking about content not copywriting, which is marketing brochures, ad copy, website landing pages. Because this type of writing is very different and a specialized skill set, I do think that for many writers, this should be separate. It goes back to thinking about the people visiting your website and understanding what information they need to hire you then making it as easy as possible to find it.
6 Reasons Why I Don’t Separate My Clips
I am aware that this opinion on this topic is different than many other writers and totally expect that many writers will feel differently than me on this topic. However, based on my experience myself and talking extensively with clients, I think that for the majority of writers it makes sense to keep both types of clips on the same page. I spent a lot of time thinking about this and here are the six reasons I keep mine together.
Here my personal reasons for keeping content and journalism clips together:
- Dividing your clips makes it confusing for clients to find the information they need. They aren’t sure where to look. And a content marketing client may very easily pass you over for a job thinking you don’t have enough experience simply because they don’t go to your journalism portfolio.
- The difference between content and journalism honestly doesn’t matter to most clients. My experience is that the difference matters to freelance writers much more than it matters to any client or anyone else in the business. The lines are so blurred these days that no one really knows what is which and only a few editors (e.g., WSJ and NYT) really care. Content marketing clients really don’t care. Do you put alumni magazines in the content section (which is where they technically belong) or the journalism section (where everyone expects to find them)? I have had many writers who separate by clip tell me that they aren’t sure where to put certain clips that look like journalism, but are content. To me this means, that the difference really doesn’t matter.
- Content marketing clients are happy to look at journalism clips that showcase your expertise and writing style. I have heard some writers say that content marketing clients only want to see content marketing clips. While they want to know you have content marketing experience, they mainly care that you have experience in the topic and most are fine if you have written content in another niche. Almost all clients I have talked to consider journalism clips as expertise in the field. Yes, of course it’s a double bonus if you have content clips in their niche, but the subject matter expertise is the key.
- High profile journalism clips can carry more weight than unknown brands to help you land gigs. If you have top national journalism clips, then these journalism clips will hold a much higher weight than small to medium content clients in their mind. If you are writing B2B content, then content clients look very highly at trade publication clients because it shows your ability to understand the audience and write from a business perspective.
- Two separate lists of clips dilutes your experience. A list of healthcare clips that includes a healthcare trade publication, a consumer publication with a few health stories, an over-the-counter drug company’s blog on health and three top hospitals looks pretty impressive. However, if you go to one page and see just three hospitals and the health brand it looks like you are a lot less accomplished health writer. Even if the client then checks out the content page and see’s the brands, the overall impression just isn’t the same.
- Content marketing clients are more likely to seek you out. While I’m sure it happens, I have never been approached by a client out of the blue to write journalism content for their consumer, trade or online pub. But I have been approached at least a 100 times by content marketing clients and agencies about potential work. The journalism model of pitching means that writers typically seek out publications. But content clients are more likely to come looking for you. So it makes sense to me to have your website set up in a manner that is most attractive to content clients.
So the bottom line is that when organizing your clips, I recommend stepping back from your clips and asking yourself what the client’s that are most likely to give you work will care most about when looking for your clips. And then designing your portfolio page to make it as easy as possible to give them the information they need to give you a new project.
All of that to say, I also feel strongly that one of the best parts of freelancing is that we can all run our business the way that works for each of us. This includes big decisions like what clients to take, how many hours to work and how much to charge as well as seemingly small decisions like how to organize your clips. The most important thing should be that you run your business in a way that feels authentic to you. If you feel strongly that you want to have your clips separate because you want to keep these two parts of your business totally separate, then I think that is absolutely what you should do. Regardless of what me or anyone else says.
Do you separate your clips by content marketing and journalism? Why or why not?
Hi Jennifer — Thank you for addressing this topic. You don’t mention how journalism clients might feel about seeing content on the same page with magazine clips, say. I agree that only a few journalism employers would refuse to hire someone who writes content, but I’m never sure how those other journalistic editors would feel about seeing that mix, if they’re going to wonder if I can be “journalistic” enough for the job they have in mind.
Another hesitation I have about some of my content clips is that they don’t have my byline, or the byline is By the ABC Association Staff. They don’t seem to have the same weight as bylined clips. What do you think? Thanks!
Hi Delia,
I think it really depends on the specific journalism editors you are working for and I highly recommend asking a few editors that you work with that you are friends with their opinion. Since different industries and types of publications may view this issue differently. As I mentioned, it also depends on how much your business is content vs journalism and which sector you are looking to grow.
However, I think that it really does boil down to my point that I think that most people don’t care about the difference if it is a journalistic style story (except for the fussy editors at a few top tier publications, notably NYT and WSJ). Some clients have me write posts and content the edges closer to marketing than I would like and away from what I consider great content. I don’t usually put these stories on my page.
But I think that most journalism clients are going to be OK with a journalistic style story such as Costco Connections, an airline magazine or something similar to a heavily reported story I did for a Fifth Third Bank magazine that required 15 interviews and was close to 3,000 words on peanut allergies. It was for the WSJ content studio and the editor was a former WSJ newspaper editor and he said he would have run that story in the WSJ.
I do personally think that a journalistic story written for a top brand like IBM most likely would carry more weight than a story written for a lower publication. But then again, it really just depends on your niche and editors.
The real tipping point for me is that journalism editors typically don’t search for you. So you can send them links in your pitch to stories that are good clips. They may check out your website but at that point it’s yours to lose because they have presumably already liked your idea from your pitch and liked the clips you linked to.
However, content people often proactively look for a writer. So in my opinion it makes more sense to set up your website for that audience since you don’t have control over what they see first like you do when sending clips.
Your point about unbylined clips is valid, but I think you just try to put the highest value clips on your site. I try to avoid unbylined clips on my website, but will use them if I need to. And I have used them a number of times and honestly not a single person has commented on it being unbylined. I think it matters less than we as writers think it does.
Those are all great points. Thanks, Jennifer.
You make many valid points, Jennifer! I totally agree with putting your most high-value clips, even without a byline on your portfolio.
Speaking of a byline, would you post a clip on your portfolio with someone else’s name in the byline? I have two strong clips I wrote for an agency, who said we can put the work we do for them in our online portfolios, Any thoughts on this? I would think the client would have a cow if another writer linked to an article with his name on it.
Another thing I noticed: while I’ve browsed the ads for content marketing writers (yes, I’m guilty, of that), I’ve seen several clients require that writers have journalism experience. Where else can a writer gain excellent research and interviewing skills, but with a reporting background!
I personally do not put clips on my website that are ghostwritten. It just feels wrong, so I don’t do it and recommend that other writers do not do it as well.
However, there are a few clips that are very strong that I got permission from the client to use as clips that I will send only via email in a very specific situations. I don’ t need to do this anymore, but I did it a few times when I start starting out or branching into new niches. However, this is only with permission.
You make a great point about content clients wanting writers with journalism skills as another reason to keep them all together. I will add this (and credit you, of course) to my list.
Very helpful perspective, Jennifer. As a journalist who’s doing an increasing amount of content work, I’ve been wrestling with this question, especially as I redesign my website. Thank you!
Glad you found it helpful!!