Updated on September 22, 2021
You have your content marketing strategy written down. You know your tactics. It is working. Content marketing is working for you. What are you doing now? Sit back, relax, and see if your strategic content is attracting potential customers after a glorious lead? Yes, yes… but not too much. It's time to be more strategic about how you're working. As in, really do the job. Let me explain.
For years, CMI has hit content marketers hard with the message that they right Have a documented content marketing strategy for greater success. Research shows that 60% of the most successful B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. Only 21% of the least successful marketers have one.
A documented content marketing strategy, as CMI reports, makes marketers more likely to consider their content marketing efforts, tactics, and channels as effective and helps them justification higher content marketing budgets for CMOs.
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Import Document Workflow
The same importance as a documentary content marketing strategy is a documented workflow . The written content marketing workflow provides structure to your processes and increases your execution.
The written #ContentMarketing workflow provides structure to your processes and increases execution efficiency, says @RaeDuplain via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
Using workflow documentation, you'll empower your team with:
- Clearly show proper processes for content production
- Gain insight into how dependencies affect processes
- More efficient to deliver content on time
- Increase clarity when and how to move work forward
- More structure and speed of approval and less rework
In turn, all this material will save you time – wonderful, sweet, precious time. You can focus that newfound time on creating and developing more engaging content.
Begin
OK, get paper and pen (or pencil if you don't have one as promised). Or grab a whiteboard and some markers. Then gather content group your work and consider the following five stages in your workflow. Together, map the content development process – how it is or will work. Make it intuitive .
Review the chart to identify any fat you can cut the way you're doing. Star those areas and make notes about what you want to change. Then, choose someone on your team to document your refined process. Whether writing steps in a Word document, drawing by hand, or drawing diagrams as flowcharts with free software like Lucidchart it's important that you create something your team can see and refer to whenever they need it.
Create a #content development workflow that can be viewed and referenced by your team whenever they need it, @RaeDuplain said via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
Ready?
Stage 1: Strategic requirements and ideas
Your team receives a lot of requests for content and always delivers new idea. But where are you capturing all these requests and ideas? You need a process to know how to do it and a place to collect them. That's the only way you won't lose track.
You @RaeDuplain via @CMIContent said there should be a process for capturing #content requests and ideas and a central place to collect them. Click to Tweet
To document this aspect of your workflow:
- Determine who needs to be involved in content requests and ideas. Consider where requests and ideas come from. Include key members of your team, as well as relevant stakeholders, and subject experts in other parts.
- Create a central location or repository of requests and submissions. Requires that all requests and content ideas be sent in a standardized way to one place. You can create an email alias that goes to your team leader (e.g. contentideas@yourcompany.com), an online form that automatically populates a shared spreadsheet, or a cloud-based solution. The repository should also be where you prioritize and choose what content to produce.
- Details who needs to approve or review ideas. Be sure to include people who need to approve topics before work begins, such as the sales team, internal subject matter experts, or executives.
- Determine the sequence of work. Outline what must happen in the ideation phase and in sequence – brainstorming ideas select ideas, submit ideas, fill in brief content, etc
Stage 2: Prioritize
The next step is figuring out how to prioritize and schedule content projects (big or small). If done right, this workflow stage will ensure that the content you produce aligned with your company's strategic goals and initiatives. To document this phase of your workflow:
- Choose a preferred tool. It is best to have one person in charge of your requirements/idea repository and management of prioritization. This could be a content marketing manager, editorial manager, or someone with similar responsibility.
- Map how and when to communicate priorities to your team/stakeholders. Lists content projects by priority and provides visibility to all team members and stakeholders.
- Add work to your editorial calendar. In your workflow document, draw a place for how, when, and by whom content will be added. editorial calendar .
Stage 3: Creation
When it's time to dive into content creation, your team need to know what the execution looks like. This stage can contain a lot of moving parts. To record this phase:
- Identify milestones in your content pipeline. Milestones are the major part or achievement in the implementation process such as writing, approval, and design.
- Break milestones into smaller tasks. For the writing execution phase, map out things like sketches, drafts, and approvals. Details when content should be included in the design and who approves the final design. Make sure to include revisions and all approval rounds.
- List the participants at each step. Many projects require more than one resource. Map in general (job role) or specifically (team name) who will be involved in each step of the process you just documented.
Stage 4: Publishing and promoting
Now is the time to map out how you will publish and share your content to the world (I mean your target audience). To record this phase:
- Identify who is responsible for distributing content. You may have several teams or vendors that handle different distribution channels. Invite those groups to join to identify key employee(s) who will receive approved content for distribution.
Stage 5: Organize and archive content
Depending on your team's own workflow, this phase may come before the publishing and promotion phase. That's OK. No matter what stage it is, having a documented workflow and processes for organizing and storing content is a huge help as it helps you stay organized – easy to follow. Keep track of where the document is and at what stage in the process. To document this stage, answer these questions:
- Where will you store the final files? You will use a digital asset management system ? Shared memory? Cloud-based hosting? Whichever you choose, make sure you have a single central location. Scattered documents can easily become a big mess.
- How would you name your file? How does anyone know which file is actually the last one? Create a naming convention as part of this process so everything is standardized.
- How will you organize your files? Which files will be moved to which folders in what locations? Who is responsible for organizing and storing the final files in your storage system?
Share with all participants
With you working process mapped, refined, and documented, share it with everyone and anyone who can join so they can see your processes and know how to work better with your team.
Documenting and sharing your content marketing process will save significant time in the long run – the hours you and your team would otherwise waste by searching for files, leaving content to sit in uncertainty. about the next location, move files back and forth because there is a misunderstanding about who owns what, and redo the content because of something important shareholder not included in approval at the right time.
Another benefit of this process documentation is that it will make it easier for you to see how to become more efficient with a few tweaks or changes as time goes on and things change in your organization – do make content marketing a better experience for everyone.
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Note: All tools in the article are the author's. If you have a tool to recommend, feel free to add it in the comments.
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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