How A Non-Advertising Content material Strategy Produced Award-Successful Outcomes

Matt Hartley isn’t a marketer.

And but, he’s a 2022 B2C Content material Marketer of the 12 months finalist.

Although seemingly incongruous, it’s not. Corporations don’t all strategy content material (or advertising) with the identical organizational construction.

Matt leads editorial technique for TD Financial institution Group as a senior supervisor within the company and public affairs division. Beneath his management, TD Tales took dwelling prime honors for Finest Content material Advertising Program in Monetary Companies and earned finalist mentions for Finest Content material Advertising Launch and Monetary Companies Publication within the 2022 Content material Advertising Awards.

These outcomes show that division, title, and reporting construction don’t matter if the content material works.

“We inform tales aligned with (the corporate’s) communication targets. We’re not essentially seeking to promote one thing. It’s about model constructing, thought management, monetary literacy,” Matt explains.

Right here’s how a non-marketer finalist for Content material Marketer of the 12 months constructed an award-winning program.

If the #Content material works, particulars like reporting construction, title, and division don’t matter, says @AnnGynn through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

Launching the newsroom

In 2018, Matt joined TD as a content material strategist. He was employed partly due to his background in reporting and creating new content material merchandise. Matt had labored as a expertise reporter at The Globe and Mail and the Nationwide Put up. He additionally created the Monetary Put up Tech Desk, a house for Canadian and worldwide tech information, and was the founding editor of the Put up’s arcade video-game information web site.

TD management had acknowledged the shifting media panorama. They noticed fewer earned media alternatives and turned to Matt to assist scale a TD-owned channel known as TD Newsroom.

Whereas TD Newsroom aligned with the exterior communications targets, it ended up with an inside viewers – lower than 10% of holiday makers got here to the location from outdoors the financial institution.

Turning the content material program inside out

TD Newsroom’s significance grew when the pandemic hit in 2020, making some types of conventional buyer outreach unattainable. Now not simply one other instrument within the communication toolbox, TD Newsroom turned pivotal.

“Creating our personal content material and having the ability to distribute it turned crucially vital to us,” Matt says.

The TD Newsroom workforce centered on creating branded service journalism (content material meant to assist prospects), and visitors to the location elevated considerably. Matters equivalent to banking duties you’ll be able to perform on-line, budgeting for earnings impacted by COVID, and planning an emergency fund took middle stage.

That was the start of the TD Newsroom evolution.

“We have been rethinking how we did content material and the place the client was of their journey,” Matt says. The workforce additionally doubled down on data-driven content material and refined its content material technique.

In 2021, TD Tales debuted. “It locations the client on the middle of the story. It tells tales that resonate with prospects and colleagues,” Matt says.

The positioning’s tagline – “Enriching lives one story at a time” – displays this mission.

TD Tales organizes content material round 5 pillars (as proven within the web site navigation within the screenshot above):

• Your Cash options monetary ideas and recommendation.
• Innovation highlights new applied sciences to create extra personalised banking experiences.
• Neighborhood options tales about TD’s involvement within the communities the place it operates and the place its staff stay.
• Colleagues tells the tales of staff.
• Insights options thought management from the financial institution’s executives.

TD Tales locations the client on the middle of the story, says @thehartleyTO of @TDnews_Canada, through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

Making every little thing depend

“We’re a small however mighty workforce inside company affairs. It’s a flat workforce – everybody brings concepts to the desk. It actually wouldn’t work if it wasn’t as cohesive as it’s,” Matt says.

The digital content material workforce additionally capabilities slightly like an company. In company affairs, they work with relationship managers for classes equivalent to private banking, insurance coverage, US banking, and many others., in addition to product, partnership, and philanthropic managers.

“We work with them to create the tales. We might pitch to them, asking for a topic skilled to assist us inform a narrative, and many others.,” Matt explains. “We couldn’t exist in a vacuum.”

He oversees a digital content material workforce that features a data-driven technique position that has been vital within the TD Tales evolution. That added focus has helped the workforce in its content material improvement.

For instance, the financial institution’s editorial calendar revolves round repeating deadlines and patterns. Deadlines for retirement plan contributions and earnings tax returns happen throughout the identical interval yearly. And every spring, extra folks start home looking.

With TD’s digital content material workforce amping up the content material measurement technique, Matt and workforce can analyze how effectively these yearly content material items carry out. Additionally they can higher perceive what persons are looking for, to allow them to refine and enhance the subsequent content material iterations.

“We are able to take these moments and make these moments recent,” Matt explains. “We are able to make sure the buyer will get the very best and most correct info potential.”

The metrics mirror the workforce’s dedication to excellence. In 2021, visitors to TD Tales grew greater than 125% year-over-year. Virtually all of the visitors (98%) comes from exterior sources, together with 25% from natural Google searches.

Realizing the actual aim

“On the finish of the day, the content material isn’t the tip aim. The aim is to assist educate the client and assist them really feel extra knowledgeable and financially assured. If you preserve that in thoughts, the precise construction of a narrative or each sentence is a way to an finish,” Matt says.

Educating the client is the aim – story and sentence construction are the means to that finish, says @thehartleyTO of @TDnews_Canada through @CMIContent. Click on To Tweet

That’s a part of the key science of model journalism. As Matt explains: “Take the targets of the enterprise and marry them with tales that the shoppers discover partaking and helpful.”

And that’s an award-winning system no matter division identify, title, or organizational construction.

Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute