Journalists are naturally curious, which means we love to ask questions. But learning which questions to ask and when, is equally important.
At journalism school, we’re taught to start with the basics: who, what, when, where, why, how. This helps to sort the gold from the guff, and quickly strips any story back to basic principles.
In a business context, one of these questions is more important than the rest, and it’s the one we at The Content Engine always ask first: “why?”
Clients often come to us wanting to create a video, produce a podcast, run a social media ad campaign, or put out a press release. Our response is always the same: “why?”
This is because the value we offer our clients comes from helping to strip away the noise. We work hard to truly understand what our clients are trying to achieve, then help them make it happen.
With the easy access to technology that we all have, almost anyone can help you create a video, produce a podcast, run social media ads, or put out a press release.
But not everyone will ask you: “why?”
By drilling down into this, we can begin to distil the actual business objective that you want to achieve.
It might be something like “we want more people to know about us”, or “we want to generate more leads”, or “we want to expand our profile before being acquired”, or “we want to grow our business”.
These responses then become the starting point for the conversation and the springboard into building a communications strategy, a clear plan that will help you to achieve your objectives, while holding us accountable to the outcomes.
Your comms strategy could include anything from a tightly targeted Instagram campaign, to a series of thought leadership videos and articles for LinkedIn, to a new set of business collateral, to a podcast series, to old-school PR.
But all of those decisions come well after the “why” has been established.
Ultimately, content creation is a critical part of the storytelling process, but when you work with us, it’s often one of the last decisions we make.
