Writing for editors – thought leadership content development tips and tricks

As content creation specialists, we regularly write thought leadership articles and opinion editorials on behalf of our clients, which we pitch to relevant magazines. Usually, these articles are developed exclusively for a particular channel or title, and the likelihood of publication agreed with the editor prior to us creating them.

Assuming this pitch process has been successful, we proceed to develop the content with two customers in mind; our client, in order to communicate key messages, and the editor, to ensure we are giving them content that is fresh, relevant to their readers, and most crucially, ready to publish.

Here are five of the top tips we follow:

Study the title you are writing for and adapt the style of your article to suit the publication’s tone of voice.
Research your topic and pull in interesting stats or anecdotes to support your angle, just as any good journalist would do as they craft a story.
Be insightful, inspiring and thought-provoking. Have a strong angle and develop the article around this, rather than weaving in client messages that are not relevant.
Make the editor’s life easy. Supply your article on time, or ideally, ahead of deadline; write to an agreed word count; and triple-check your grammar and spelling. Present your copy with standfirsts, sub-heads, and box-outs, so that the editor can send it straight to their designer.
Supply a choice of high-resolution photos to accompany your article. Often, the space your content is allocated in a magazine is determined by the quality of the images supplied. Maximise this opportunity!

By Louise Charlesworth – Head of Content, In2 Consulting