Message Lab

Tour of the lab

Building an audience takes great storytelling, engaging design, technical know-how, and a commitment to ongoing improvement.

Here’s how we do it.

Strategy

Our strategists identify relevant topics and formats, and make recommendations that keep a content program on course to achieve its objectives.

Editorial

Our writers and editors come from top publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune. They find and tell compelling stories.

Creative

Our designers create editorial experiences that look great, keep readers’ attention, and encourage deeper engagement.

Content intelligence

We use data and insights drawn from reader behavior to improve performance over time and demonstrate how content contributes to business outcomes.

What we do

We conceive our engagements as programs, where journalism, design, and strategy work together to get results. Here are some of the services that support these efforts.

Editorial & Newsroom Ops

We bring our experience running world-class newsrooms to our clients through pieces that meet rigorous journalistic standards and operational know-how to bring them to market.

Editorial calendars

We identify the right mix of stories and publishing cadence, and oversee the creative and approval process for your content program.

Story ideas & pitches

Our writers and editors brainstorm story ideas and develop detailed pitches with an eye toward creating a coherent body of work. We work with your team to identify the best sources for each piece.

Excellence across formats

Whether it’s magazine-style features, data stories, reported trend pieces, Q&As, docu-style videos, op-eds or something else, our journalists find and interview sources, conduct research, and write and edit the work.

Profiles & case studies

People want to know how people like them solve problems they can relate to. Our profiles showcase these stories while companion case studies make it clear how your company helped.

Interactive reports

We re-imagine traditional whitepapers as journalistic research reports, and we bring them to life with web-first, immersive design that includes video, animation, and other flourishes to boost engagement.

Publishing site management

We run every aspect of a publishing site from content creation, article staging, story layout, and user-journey mapping to analytics and tagging.

Email newsletters

Subscribers are your best audience. We help you re-engage them with content-rich newsletters.

Design & Visualization

Design without purpose is decoration. We ascertain your audience’s relationship with your work and create absorbing experiences that achieve your needs while respecting their time.

Interactive editorial design

A well-told story can reach new heights when paired with captivating design. We work closely with our clients to craft layouts, artwork, and interactions that enhance a reader’s understanding of a subject while promoting engagement.

Branding & identity

Editorial brands can stay closely aligned to a parent brand or embrace independence and fly free. We find the right answer for you, and deliver the assets needed to bring it to life.

Data visualization

Amazing data is worthless if it’s incomprehensible. We translate complex data sets into interactive visuals. Whether woven into a story or a feature unto themselves, we make your data shine.

User experience design

A better user experience encourages engagement, keeps a reader on-site longer, increases action, and forges a positive brand relationship.

Print magazines

Print isn’t dead, it’s premium. The recent renaissance of small-run publications have made receiving something physical a special event for readers and a huge opportunity for brands.

Art & video production

A brand stands out when it speaks with its own visual voice through custom illustration, photography, and video. We work with artists from all fields to create the assets that bring your work to the next level.

Publishing site design

We use our knowledge of how people interact with content and years of editorial creative experience to craft blogs and content hubs that look great and get results.

Strategy & Growth

Great stories don’t matter if they don’t get results. We use content strategy, growth marketing, and content intelligence to connect the dots between content creation and business impact.

Content strategy

Through Story-Market Fit, Topic Mapping, and other proprietary approaches, we connect research and data with journalistic interviews to help clients find the most impactful ideas.

Analytics & measurement

Our proprietary approach to content intelligence encompasses analytics, tag management, and dashboarding, and is custom-built to surface content-performance insights.

Content assessments

Most marketers don’t know what kind of results their content produces. Our assessments examine your stories and publishing infrastructure to identify opportunities for optimization and improvement so you can get more value from your investment.

SEO

Organic search often has the highest engagement and the most long-term value. It’s a critical component of all content programs. We specialize in SEO for thought leadership and journalistic brand publishing.

Channel strategy & experimentation

A distribution plan for your content is critical to getting new users. Channels amplify the visibility of stories over time and meet audiences where they are. We design cross-channel strategies to get the most out of your content.

What do you care about?

Got a project idea? Or curious how to make your content more effective? Send us a message and we’ll get right back to you.

Got a project idea? Or curious how to make your content more effective? Send us a message and we’ll get right back to you.