A talented reporter embarking on a deep-dive exposé or in-depth feature profile knows that before sitting down to begin the writing process, much work lies ahead. There is copious amounts of research, outlines and timelines, plus lots and lots of interviews. The reporter needs to become intimately acquainted with the subject matter in order to begin building a portrait and framing a point of view.
An investigative content strategy takes a similar approach. We don’t just want to know what your marketing imperatives are. We want to go deeper. We want to learn what makes your business tick, from the nuances of your product or service to the priorities of your stakeholders. We embark on a fact-finding mission and an emotional journey to get the heart of your brand so that we can begin building that portrait and framing a point of view.
In journalism there is a basic rubric that reporters are taught to ask, called the Six W’s of Investigation: who, what, why, how, where and when. Quality content marketing should ask those same questions in order to produce a strategy that will resonate with your audience. And once that strategy is in place, we turn our investigative lens onto the stories that support that strategy.
Each phase is an opportunity to exercise our deep curiosity and uncover a deeper truth. Brand audiences deserve the same level of quality writing and reporting that is practiced by the best journalists.