Using automated marketing to create “Brand Journalism”

Published July 23, 2014 at 9:30 am

A brand’s story can be a compelling thing. As customers get to know your brand and connect with elements of its story, it works to forge a relationship between the company and the customer. As has been highlighted previously on this blog, the stronger the emotional connection you can evoke through your marketing, the more easily your consumers will be able to feel a connection with your brand.

This idea may seem simple enough, but today’s landscape of multiple communication channels makes marketing a bit more complicated to manage. A recent AdAge article discusses how “brand journalism” is becoming the essential way for a business to tell its story. The article explains that ads alone are no longer enough to convey a brand story because brands have different meanings for different people.

For example, it describes how McDonald’s used “multi-dimensional messages via multiple channels to multiple audiences” to reach out to many different kinds of audiences, instead of just sending the same message repeatedly to all consumers.

It goes on to explain how different channels come together to create brand journalism, including blog posts, advertising, social media, videos and more. While all of these factors can combine to create a compelling story, it is worth noting that an effective strategy for managing these channels and ensuring that messages are timely and consistent across the brand will play a significant role in the success of such efforts.

Automated marketing software is an important tool that helps marketers execute these types of campaigns. When marketing departments are spread out across multiple geographic regions, automated software helps maintain a consistent brand message while delivering custom marketing collateral that will appeal to consumers in specific regions.