Content marketing is a powerful way to attract and engage your audience, but it can also be a complex and time-consuming process. How can you make sure your content marketing team works efficiently and delivers high-quality results? Here are some tips to help you optimize your digital strategy and streamline your content creation and distribution.
Before you start any content project, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you will measure your success. Align your content goals with your overall business objectives and your audience's needs and preferences. Communicate your expectations to your team and make sure everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. Use SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) criteria to define your content scope, budget, timeline, and quality standards.
A simple but effective way of aligning the team on your content, is to identify and categorise all of your content into three distinct buckets: 1. What product/service do we offer? This content will speak to your top of funnel audience. 2. How are unique/different from our competitors? This content will speak to your middle of funnel. 3. Why do we exist? This content will speak to your bottom of funnel. All three will serve your existing customers, who at various stages may need to be reminded of these messages.
Content marketing involves a lot of moving parts, from planning and researching to writing and editing to publishing and promoting. To make your team work efficiently, you need to use the right tools and platforms that can help you automate, streamline, and optimize your content workflow. For example, you can use a content calendar to plan and schedule your content topics, formats, and channels. You can use a project management tool to assign tasks, track progress, and collaborate with your team. You can use a content management system (CMS) to create, edit, and publish your content. And you can use a content distribution platform to amplify your reach and engagement.
A content style guide is a document that outlines the rules and guidelines for your content creation and distribution. It helps you maintain consistency, clarity, and credibility across your content assets and channels. A content style guide should include information such as your brand voice and tone, your target audience and personas, your content formats and types, your grammar and spelling conventions, your visual and design elements, and your content optimization and promotion strategies. A content style guide can help you save time, avoid errors, and enhance your brand identity.
It's more like a multi-dimensional matrix. One dimension is the type of content. The team need to understand and get themselves accommodated with skills to create educational, product intro, special offers and some funny content. The other dimension is the personas the content is created for. An efficient team knows the flavor and interests of the personas they are creating content for. A third dimension can be the regional and cultural concerns. The ideal team comes from the same culture, language and mind set of the audience. That is why sitting in one region and creating content for the other region often does not work. Imagine a major regional festival is going on and your team living in a different region have no clue about it.
A content review process is a set of steps that ensures your content meets your quality standards and goals before you publish it. It helps you avoid mistakes, improve your content performance, and get feedback from your team and stakeholders. A content review process should include stages such as proofreading, editing, fact-checking, formatting, testing, and approval. You can use tools such as online editors, plagiarism checkers, readability tests, and analytics to help you review your content. You can also use a content audit to evaluate your existing content and identify areas for improvement.
Content marketing is not a solo activity. It requires collaboration and communication among your team members and other departments or partners. To make your team work efficiently, you need to foster a culture of trust, transparency, and feedback. Encourage your team to share their ideas, opinions, and challenges. Use tools such as chat apps, video calls, and online forums to communicate and coordinate with your team. Provide regular updates, recognition, and support to your team. And solicit feedback from your audience, clients, and peers to improve your content quality and relevance.
Don't focus exclusively on the process and output. Often times, the magic comes from unexpected places. If you're team is passionate about an idea, roll with it and see what happens. It may not pan out, but the experience, learnings and connection that comes out of it may be better than you expected. You can always build on that idea or let it spark something better. I've found that a team who likes to work together and feels heard gives you much more than the alternative.
Content marketing is not a one-time project. It is an ongoing process that requires constant learning and adaptation. To make your team work efficiently, you need to monitor and measure your content performance and impact. Use tools such as analytics, surveys, and social media listening to collect and analyze data on your content metrics and outcomes. Use the insights to evaluate your content effectiveness and identify your strengths and weaknesses. And use the learnings to optimize your content strategy and tactics and test new ideas and approaches.