The Essentials to Know About the Editorial Line

You've heard of "editorial line", but you don't exactly understand what it is? Or maybe you don't know why it's so important for your business communication or lack the necessary knowledge to create it? Not only will you get all the answers to your questions, but you'll also find practical tips that will allow you to get started without delay!

🚀 Express Reading: Everything You Need to Know About the Editorial Line

Do you want to know the essentials about the editorial line right away? Here are the key points!

Why is an editorial line important?

• Transmit a consistent and coherent company identity
• Credibilize your brand
• Direct content production
• Harmonize publications
• Synchronize team work

What are the steps to create an editorial line?

• Determine topics according to the field of expertise
• Specify the company's objectives
• Target the avatar of the typical customer
• Personalize the message transmitted
• Analyze the competition

👨‍🏫 What is the definition of an editorial line?

Being an integral part of your content strategy, the editorial line represents the identity and credibility of a brand. It's the guiding thread of your content creation. Once established, it allows you to transmit a consistent and constant message to your audience.

First used by journalists in various media and press, this practice has now become widespread in the field of business communication. Given the evolution of the digital world, it's no surprise that the way of approaching text creation on the Internet is inspired by what was done in a newspaper.

✨ Why define an editorial line?

Even before putting a website online, publishing the first article on a blog, or communicating on social networks, the editor-in-chief establishes a guideline (a charter) that will direct all content creation. The following points should thus be taken into account to perfect your editorial line and give a good direction to content writing.

• What tone to use?
• What information to pass?
• How to reach your target?
• What topics to cover?
• What supports to use?
• What frequency to establish?

The editorial line guides your content marketing and ensures consistency in your digital communication, in substance and form. Therefore, setting up an editorial line is essential to choose the right topics and adapt the angle under which you will approach these different themes. It allows you to set a guideline, direct content creation, and maintain consistency in your publications.

Once established, your company's positioning will be transcribed into a reference document that will guide all content creators. That's why an editorial line is not only essential for transmitting an effective message, but also for synchronizing and directing the editorial team.

📜 How to create an editorial line?

In the example of editorial strategy published recently, I explained how Boris and his team managed to achieve their goals in a few months. Here are the elements they considered to create an extremely effective editorial line. Take your time to do this preliminary work, because it's only by analyzing all these points that you can establish the editorial line that fully corresponds to you!

Determine the topics according to your field of expertise

You are the specialist in your sector, so prove it by communicating on the topics you know perfectly and that correspond to your company! Starting from a basic theme, find a large number of sub-themes that you can address in the form of clusters.

In addition to answering all the questions your customers and prospects might have, you improve your organic SEO. Indeed, this digital marketing technique allows you to demonstrate to Google your field of expertise, and therefore to succeed in your SEO.

Specify your objectives

First of all, think about the goals of your company in the short, medium, and long term. Reflect not only on the turnover, but also on the organization of the company and your personal goal. An excellent way to achieve this is to determine your objectives in a SMART way: Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound.

Moreover, each publication channel must have its own goal. What is the expected ROI on your sales pages, your blog, and on the different social media? By adapting your editorial line to each of these networks, you can optimize their profitability and perfectly reach your target.

Target the avatar of your typical customer

During your market study, you certainly established with precision the typical profile of your ideal audience. To achieve your goal and get qualified prospects from search engines, you also need to define your SEO persona.

The analysis of these criteria will notably allow you to precisely choose the most suitable social networks. This step is also crucial for successfully all your paid SEO (SEA) campaigns. It's only by perfectly targeting your buyer persona that you will be able to move on to the next step!

Personalize your message

Based on the profile of your reader and the personality of your company, you can determine the tone you should adopt in each of your publications. The topics to cover and the evolution of the message transmitted will thus result from all the analyses previously carried out.

That's why there are no fixed rules that apply to business communication! Formal or informal, proximity or professionalism, everything depends on the image you want to convey to best reach your target customer. You have a wide choice, even an infinity, so enjoy yourself!

Analyze your competition

In content marketing, it's always essential to analyze your competition. Indeed, you can first check if your editorial line perfectly matches your sector. Moreover, you can find ideas that you hadn't thought of during your preparation.

You can also understand their marketing strategy by checking the publication frequency on their blogs and the social networks favored by your competitors. Moreover, remember to check the SERP and the processing of SEO data to control the relevance and effectiveness of their actions.