This CONTENT WRITING PROJECT REPORT GUIDANCE Junior Content Producer level 3 will help JCP apprentices with creating work project report, the guidance is there to help you put ideas together for report presentation, how you do your report is up to you (video, podcast, presentation, document, blog post on online portfolio). You can ever decide to create a report on an ongoing campaign that requires different types of content or different reports for single copy projects.
What your report should cover:
- Knowledge of different styles of writing that can be used
- The regulatory and legal requirements when using media assets (if you are using visuals such animated content, visual content, film)
- Understanding of how to write copy that persuades. Demonstrate what your copy will be attempting to do (educate, inform, persuade, entertain)
- Write and edit copy for use in print and online
- Use standard industry packages to edit and post produce content (meaning copy is this case)
- Understand the importance of branding (align the copy style to the brand’s voice)
ROJECT REPORT
THE BRIEF
THE BRIEF
Depending on the situation, you might receive a brief:
- If the brief is spoken just take some notes (evidence your notes)
- If the brief is written, just share the brief, if you cannot share it due to company’s policies on professional secrecy/disclosure, just explain
- If you have not received a brief but just a project idea, just create one and share with your team mates
The brief should include:
- A project title or client Name (depending on brief template format)
- A section on Project Type: News article, blog, Social Medias Ad, Short Advert Script, Animation Script etc…. Be precise, tell us where the content will appear
- Content Lenght: How many words 1000, 500
- A short company information section with details on the brand’s voice (friendly, humorus, adventurous), products and services. You might need to add logo, visuals, and information such as startup, new business
- Brand and editorial style guides: the client (internal/external) should be able to give information. sample brand style guide https://issuu.com/lindsayclarke/docs/wolf_circus_style_guide, sample editorial style guide https://styleguide.mailchimp.com/, a mix of both https://issuu.com/joaodiogo/docs/frv-brand-guidelines-_final_. If your organisation doesn’t have brand and style guidline, mabe take an new responisibility and create one, and if your client doesn’t have one you might need to explain how this is an important part of branding.
- A section on target audience with personas and information on how they usually respond to content or copy, their engagement with content already there. Also segments will be good, if no information given you will have to do the research
- A description of copy required: long form, short form, topical, evergreen
- A section on what needs to be communicated to the target audience (freedom, gain, belonging, trust, adventure, security etc…)
- A section on what the company needs to achieve from this brief with details: retention, conversion, brand awarness. And how this will all fit into the content or marketing strategy
- A visual section on layout, examples and ideas from other sources. Remember copy is always better with good layout
- A section on budget allocation for this project
- A section on deadlines
PROJECT WORKFLOW
Before you can demonstrate that you are able to produce different types of copy, you will need to show that you can plan. You will need a detailed explanation of what you have done through each stage of the project
Project initial Research
- Initial research: if you have not produced similar content, explain the type of content writing or copywriting research you have done for this type project.
- Research the different patterns used in content writing, Website patterns and layout of content are different from flyer layouts, with websites and emails the main point is at the top ( inverted pyramid). There are diffirent patterns based on the project: Inverterd Pyramid, F, Z (more information https://health.usf.edu/is/blog/2018/06/15/Understanding-Online-Reading-Patterns-The-Content-Writers-Guide, https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/websites/web-design/the-inverted-pyramid-principle-how-it-works/)
- When researching same type of content, you will need to look at different parts of copy: Body Copy, Call to Action Copy, Display Copy (headlines) and evaluate the good the bad and the ugly, make notes of any words you would (or not) want to use in your content and why. Remember to look at layout and evaluate the look and feel.
- What company information you have Researched?
- Audience: Research is necessary. If you were not supplied with information you might have to get information from various sources, and create customer profiles/personas. A few good tools to create free personas https://www.hubspot.com/make-my-persona, https://personagenerator.com/
- Research Keywords related to this type of content (both body and SEO techniques). If looking at the piece of content that needs to go online, remember to demonstrate what types of Google keywords you have research. Few good tools for keyword research https://answerthepublic.com/, https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=GB.
- Remember to discuss formating research (bold, layout etc…)
- Visuals it is more likely that you might have to supply visuals to accompany the text, doing visual research will be good. If you have been supplied with imagery maybe evaluate if they are good engough and compare with competition
- Competition it is more likely that the business you are writing for has competion, please research the competition.
- Platform: whatever platform this needs to go onto try and do some research. It is most likely that you might not know processes, for examples if you don’t know much about how to create a blog post using WordPress, you will need to research how to use the CMS. And if you are creating an article for print, there are processes that you should know about (i.e printing company’s requirements for the file to be printed, or printing press process).
Project initial concepts
- Brainstorming (free visual brainstorming tool https://app.milanote.com/)
- A mood board would be necessary to add one, preferably with personas (free mood board tool https://app.milanote.com/)
- Drafts keep a copy of all initial drafts and sketches. And discuss your basic ideas for Display Copy, Body Copy, Call to Action Copy
- Pitch: if you have to do one before production, talk about it
- Set your project deadlines, and team (who does what)
Project Production
Explain the step by step process, with use of software. This can include communication with different stakeholders throughout.
Post Production
- Explain your Quality Assurance process (who checked and evaluated the work)
- Explain the launch process
Project Evaluation
- Have you done A/B testing?
- How have you worked in collaboration with designers, clients, colleagues (stakeholders inhouse, freelancer, agency)
- How have you managed your time?
- What have you learned from this?
- How have you helped the brand?
- Are you happy with the project? How does it feel to know that the whole wild (critics, and influencers) world could be reading your articles?
- What about the stats what’s your take on them?
PROJECT WORKFLOW
GOOD PROJECT REPORT TIPS:
- Bullet points: EPA will want to judge your ability to demonstrate what you do step by step. You wont be able to show that you have a full grasp of the project
- Well the whole point of copywriting is to engage, so make sure that you project report is engaging, EPA should not ask so much questions once they meet you if they have an engaging piece of report in front of them
- Visuals: evidence your writing with print screens
- Table of Content, as you are a good copywriter add a table of content (if using an online portfolio, WordPress has table of content plugins, not sure about other CMS systems)
- Data: for your project evaluation add data
- Keywords/Terminology: the whole point of this report is to evidence that you can do a job, demonstrate that you can use terminology accurately. So make use of copywriting terminology (http://harrisonamy.com/glossary-copywriting-terms/)
- Things to remember: how you will do the project, why you are doing it, how you are doing it, and how you have done it. This is the simple process.
LEARNING RESOURCES
- https://www.linkedin.com/learning/storytelling-for-advertising-campaigns/welcome?u=71965602 (Storytelling for Advertising Campaigns)
- https://www.linkedin.com/learning/learning-to-write-marketing-copy/free-writing-to-get-ideas-down?u=71965602 (Learning to Write Marketing Copy)
- https://www.linkedin.com/learning/writing-ad-copy/welcome?u=71965602 (Writing Ad Copy)
- Video Writing: Using Humor to Communicate and Persuade (https://www.linkedin.com/learning/video-writing-using-humor-to-communicate-and-persuade?u=71965602)
- Video Script Writing (https://www.linkedin.com/learning/video-script-writing?u=71965602)
Hubspot
- Content Marketing https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/content-marketing?library=true
- Email Marketing https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/email-marketing?library=true
- Content Strategy https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/content-strategy?hubs_signup-url=www.hubspot.com%2Fresources%2Fcourses&hubs_signup-cta=directories__link
- Blogging https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/blogging-training?library=true
- Business Writing https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/business-writing?library=true
GOOD RESEARCH
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/copywriting-examples
- https://www.honeycopy.com/copywritingblog/2018/4/11/17-examples-of-killer-copywriting
- https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2019/09/03/copywriting-examples