In fact, marrying creative writing to content marketing can greatly enhance campaigns. Creative writing professors and content marketing experts can agree: Showing is more effective than telling. To effectively inject creative writing skills into your content marketing, you must understand when it makes sense to meld the two, as well as when marketing goals must win out over creative ideas. Creative writing is often focused on narrative, and this fits perfectly with content marketing. This includes: Providing readers with a clear beginning, middle and end. It will be impossible to attract readers with an eye-catching title if your content doesn’t show up on search engine results pages, however. In general, this means you should aim for a sixth- to eighth-grade reading level. Put content first While the tips above may help you transition your creative writing to a content marketing focus, remember that the ultimate goal of marketing materials is to drive a consumer action. While creative writing techniques can enhance marketing content, they should never get in the way of marketing objectives. It may be painful to let go of a creative idea, but all content should align with overarching marketing efforts.
The term “creative writing” conjures up images of college classrooms, writer workshops and painfully earnest poetry. What it typically doesn’t remind people of is marketing.
However, the lessons learned by those pursuing creative writing as either a career or creative outlet can be invaluable where content marketing is concerned. What company doesn’t want to transform boring content into marketing materials people will actually want to read?
There’s no law that says content marketing should be devoid of creative expression. In fact, marrying creative writing to content marketing can greatly enhance campaigns. The trick is recognizing the differences between the two.
Creative vs. content
Creative writing is essentially a catchall term for any writing that is more focused on art and expression than other types of works, such as newspaper articles or academic research papers. Everything from Stephen King novels to William Shakespeare sonnets would fall under this umbrella.
Content marketing also represents a broad category. Put simply, content marketing is the creation of content to capture consumer attention with a commercial goal in mind. From blog articles to animated videos, content can take many forms.
However, even when contrasting the two, it’s clear they inherently share one major theme: Showing, not telling.
Creative writers produce prose that follows characters or concepts to reveal ideas, thoughts and feelings without necessarily spelling them out. Content marketers create content that demonstrates expertise, capability and opportunity instead of telling people about it through paid advertisements.
Creative writing professors and content marketing experts can agree: Showing is more effective than telling. In fact, survey data from Fractl and Moz showed content marketing produces a higher return on investment than native advertising on social media.
To effectively inject creative writing skills into your content marketing, you must understand when it makes sense to meld the two, as well as when marketing goals must win out over creative ideas.
Focus on storytelling
Human beings love stories. Ask any child demanding a tale before bed or the general movie-going public, which spends billions on trips to the multiplex each year.
Creative writing is often focused on narrative, and this fits perfectly with content marketing.
Presenting information in a narrative format that parses out important details and takes readers on a…
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