Whether they’re in the engineering sector, automotive industry, or technology space, specialist businesses have the opportunity to tell stories that are rich with detail and insight. While a strong level of detail can be incredibly valuable in telling an engaging story, specialist communications can be highly technical in nature.

All the constituent elements that make a story, from messaging and commentary to data and technical analysis, need to be couched in a way that is appropriate to the audience relevant for your business and the services you provide.

Written content has a central role in this respect, acting as an effective medium to deliver messaging that most effectively resonates with your target media publications and end-audience. However, supporting visual materials – from high-quality imagery, to infographics and video content – can play an influential part in elevating the appeal of a story to both journalists and their readership, as well as their understanding of the subject matter.

When it comes to planning and creating these media assets, there are a number of key considerations that should be taken into account, in order to maximise their effectiveness:

1.) Remain conscious of the types of publications and end-audience that you’re looking to engage. The supporting media assets that journalists will find valuable is steered to a great extent by the industry that they operate within. For B2B-focused media, infographics are an efficient means of distilling a large amount of data, or a particularly complicated process or workflow, into a digestible and visually engaging format – which can be used as an asset for them to publish with their article, or simply to enhance journalists’ understanding of the topic. Consumer-focused journalists, meanwhile, will often be looking for high-quality, well composed imagery to lead their story with; indeed, if the imagery is strong, picture desks at national newspapers can create a story centred around a single image asset.

2.) Always consider the channels that you’re looking to communicate through – and ensure your media assets are in a format optimised for those channels. From the file type and quality, to the dimensions and duration for video content, the media assets that you supply will need to match the expectations of both journalists and their audience-base. As an example, when you are providing video assets, journalists may expect you to offer video sharing insight, commentary and data. However, they may also require a compilation of different shots without subtitles, commentary or graphics – known as B-roll – from which they can extract their preferred footage for insertion in their own video. When it comes to creating assets optimised for social media platforms, the dimensions and aspect ratio of images and videos need to be considered, while the duration of video plays a pivotal role in how long viewers remain engaged for, depending on the channel you’re targeting.

To discuss how we can support your media asset strategy, contact our industry-leading automotive and e-mobility PR specialists and former editors at hello@influenceemobility.com

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