Content Strategy

Learn what a content strategy is, why it’s important to have one, and how to develop an effective digital content strategy for your business.

Content Strategy

Learn what a content strategy is, why it’s important to have one, and how to develop an effective digital content strategy for your business.

In the previous module, we looked at the role of the content manager and various setups that a content manager may need to operate within the digital structure of an organization.

In this module, we provide a practical overview of content strategy as it relates to the role of a content manager. We recommend going through the links, resources, and references in this section for a more in-depth understanding of the key concepts presented here.

This module covers the topics outlined in the table of contents below:

Contents

Before You Begin

Make sure to review The Role Of The Content Manager and Business Basics before starting this lesson.

Additionally, we recommend subscribing to our free content management course email lessons if you haven’t already, as these provide a practical step-by-step way to implement the lessons in this course.

As a subscriber, you will also get notified when new posts containing practical information and valuable content management tips are added to our blog.

What Is A Content Strategy?

A content strategy helps you define your target audience, understand their needs and interests, and create content that addresses those needs and speaks to their interests.

It also helps you determine the most effective channels for distributing that content, such as your website, social media, email marketing, or even offline channels like events or print materials.

A simple way to think about content strategy is to ask the question “how do we achieve our business goals using content?”

A content strategy presupposes that the business already has in place a business strategy and a marketing strategy to achieve its goals.

This is important because a content strategy is a component of the business marketing strategy and specifies who, what, where, when, and how it plans to connect with its audience.

Chart showing relationship of business strategy, marketing strategy, and content strategy. — Businesses need a business strategy and a marketing strategy before creating a content strategy.

A content strategy can be defined as…

“Getting the right content to the right user at the right time through strategic planning of content creation, delivery, and governance.”

Source: ContentStrategyAlliance.com

Also…

A content strategy is your brand’s game plan to drive traffic, leads, engagement, sales, and other business outcomes through content.

Source: ContentStrategyAlliance.com

A content strategy is also much broader than coming up with a list of content formats and topics. It includes buyer personas, customer journey maps, editorial calendars, content audits, and content governance.

Watch our free video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what a content strategy is, let’s take a look at why businesses need one.

Why Do You Need A Content Strategy?

Businesses need a content strategy to:

Set And Reach Goals – A documented content strategy helps define marketing goals, set priorities plan the work, and ensure that all marketing efforts translate into tangible results.
Track Progress – A strong content strategy outlines the metrics to track, analyze, and determine if the content marketing efforts are producing results.
Identify New Opportunities – A good content strategy outlines all the avenues that can be used to follow news and trends and find story ideas and prevent the effort put into discovering new opportunities from being uncoordinated and reflecting poorly on a brand’s publications and tone.
Cut Costs – Content strategies help define how much money to spend per project, how to spend it, and how to find ways to cut costs if required to avoid excessive spending on individual projects.
Optimize Its Marketing Team – A documented content strategy sets out performance metrics for team members, and defines a work schedule for content creation, guidelines on the management of social media accounts, maintenance of marketing automation system, and other content-related processes. Without this, the marketing team won’t know how much content to produce, where to post it, how to repurpose it, and how to work as productively and effectively as possible.
Produce Content That Converts – Content that consistently converts comes from a content strategy that understands who its target audience is, what type, style, and format of content its audience wants to consume, its ideal content tone, and how to leverage different distribution and promotional channels.

Source: Kontent.ai

In simpler terms, a content strategy can help your business realize its vision.

Chart: Business cycle — A content strategy gives a measurable and quantifiable way to help your business realize its vision using content.

If your business has a clear vision with clearly defined objectives and a sound business and marketing strategy, a content strategy provides a measurable and quantifiable way to determine how using content can help you achieve those objectives.

Your content strategy drives your content plan, defines the focus of your content production efforts and content promotion activities, and specifies what systems your business needs to put in place to manage all of your content-related processes effectively, including the content itself.

Content Strategy Goals And Objectives

Common content strategy goals and objectives include:

Audience understanding: The goal is to understand the target audience and create content that meets their needs, interests, and preferences. This can be achieved by conducting market research, creating buyer personas, and analyzing website traffic data.
Brand alignment: The goal is to align content with the company’s brand messaging and values, and to create a consistent brand voice and visual identity across all content. This can be achieved by creating a brand style guide, conducting a brand audit, and training content creators on your brand’s messaging and tone.
Content creation and distribution: The goal is to plan, create, and distribute high-quality, relevant, and engaging content to reach and engage the target audience. This can be achieved by creating an editorial calendar, creating and publishing blog posts, creating and publishing videos, and creating and publishing infographics.
Content optimization: The goal is to improve the visibility and performance of existing content through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. This can be achieved by researching and including relevant keywords, optimizing meta tags, and creating internal and external links.
Content measurement and analytics: The goal is to track and measure the performance of content in terms of engagement, conversion, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). This can be achieved by using Google Analytics to track website traffic, using social media analytics to track engagement, and using A/B testing to optimize conversion rates.
Content governance: The goal is to ensure that all content is accurate, up-to-date, and compliant with legal, ethical, and brand guidelines. This can be achieved by creating and enforcing a content style guide, regularly reviewing and updating content, and ensuring that all content is accessible and inclusive.
Continuous improvement: The goal is to continuously improve your content strategy by analyzing performance data, gathering feedback, and making adjustments as needed. This can be achieved by conducting regular content audits, gathering feedback from stakeholders, and testing and implementing new content formats and distribution channels.

Additionally, you should take into account these three truths of Content Strategy by Professor John Lavine of Northwestern University, which shape and limit our content:

There is an ever-rising tidal wave of information and it will continue to rise forever.
Everyone you want to reach has 1440 minutes in their day; not a minute more.
The world is becoming ever more complicated, but people will give you their time and attention if you give them more of what they want.

Benefits Of Having A Content Strategy

There are many benefits to having a clear content strategy, including:

Consistency: With a content strategy in place, you can ensure that your content is consistent in terms of quality, tone, and style. This helps to build trust with your audience and establish your brand as a reliable source of information.
Improved audience targeting: A content strategy helps to identify the target audience for your content and ensures that the content is tailored to their interests and needs.
Increased brand awareness: Consistently publishing high-quality content can help to increase awareness of your brand and establish it as a thought leader in your industry.
Greater customer engagement: By providing valuable and relevant content, you can engage and build relationships with your customers, leading to increased loyalty and customer retention.
Higher search engine rankings: A content strategy can help to optimize your website’s content for search engines, leading to higher search rankings and increased organic traffic.
Enhanced reputation management: A content strategy can help to proactively manage your brand’s reputation by ensuring that all content aligns with your brand values and message.
Increased sales and conversions: By providing valuable and relevant content, you can drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into customers.
Improved internal communication: A content strategy can help to align the goals and messaging of different teams within your organization, improving internal communication and collaboration.
Streamlined content creation: A content strategy helps to define the types of content that will be created, who will create it, and how it will be distributed, streamlining the content creation process.
Reduced costs: By having a content strategy in place, you can avoid wasting time and resources creating ineffective or redundant content and focus on creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.

Content Strategy Vs Marketing Strategy Vs Content Marketing

It’s important to distinguish between Content Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Content Marketing and the differences between a Content Strategy vs a Content Marketing Strategy.

Content Strategy vs Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy outlines the marketing steps you’ll take towards your ultimate goals, like growth and increasing revenue, a content strategy focuses on defining which content is created to support this marketing strategy, as well as how you’ll promote it.

Source: Kurve.co.uk

Content Strategy vs Content Marketing

Content strategy is the roadmap that guides your content marketing. Content marketing is the process of organizing, scheduling, creating, publishing, and promoting content pieces. Content marketing is the tactics that follow from the content strategy.

Source: Terakeet.com

An effective content strategy needs to specify:

What goals the business wants to achieve using content,
What type of content will be used to achieve these goals,
How to create and distribute this content, and
How to measure its performance.

Let’s go briefly through each of these steps:

1. Business Goals

Some of the main goals a business may want to achieve using content can include:

Increasing search rankings
Driving traffic
Reaching a specific target audience
Increasing brand awareness
Building engagement
Boosting conversions
etc.

In The State Of Content Marketing Global Report (2022), for example, a survey of 1,500 marketers cited the following as their key content goals for 2022:

45% want to increase brand awareness
37% want to attract more traffic to their website
36% are focused on generating leads through content marketing
27% of respondents want increased sales and revenue
23% strive for improved customer loyalty and engagement with their brand

Here are a few examples of strategic business goals and objectives using content and content marketing:

To create a content marketing strategy that increases website traffic by 50% within the next six months.
To develop a content calendar that consistently delivers high-quality, relevant content to our target audience.
To increase brand awareness and engagement through social media by creating and sharing engaging content on a regular basis.
To establish our company as a thought leader in our industry through the creation and distribution of educational and informative content.
To improve search engine rankings through the optimization of our website content and the creation of high-quality backlinks.
To develop a content marketing campaign that generates at least 100 qualified leads within the next quarter.
To create a content marketing strategy that increases customer retention and loyalty through the creation of personalized and valuable content.
To establish ourselves as the go-to source for industry news and trends by creating and sharing timely and relevant content.
To improve customer acquisition and conversion rates through the creation of targeted and persuasive content.
To create a content marketing strategy that supports the overall goals and objectives of our business.

2. Types Of Content

After defining goals and objectives, the next step is to decide what type of content the business will use to achieve these.

This can include using blog posts & articles, social media posts, how-to guides, videos, email newsletters, ebooks, whitepapers, and reports, podcasts, infographics, webinars, case studies, etc.

Graph: Content Formats That Produced The Best Results In 2021 — Content formats. Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

We cover this in more detail in the content planning and content production modules.

3. Content Creation & Distribution

After specifying the type of content the business needs to create to achieve its goals, the next step is to define how it will create and distribute this content.

Chart: Channels used to distribute and promote content. — Content distribution channels. Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

We cover this in more detail in the content planning, content production, and content promotion modules.

4. Measuring Content Performance

The last step of an effective content strategy is to be able to track and measure the performance of your published content.

This step lets your business know if the content has helped it achieve its goals.

Content Performance Measurement — Key metrics used to measure content performance success. Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

We look at ways to measure content performance in the content planning, content management and content promotion modules.

Key Elements Of An Effective Content Strategy

According to Kurve, the three pillars of a successful content strategy are brand focus, user experience, and content distribution.

Brand Focus ensures that the content is consistent with the brand strategy of the business and that it remains on-topic and relevant to both the business and its customers.

User Experience involves developing an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) so that you can create highly targeted content.

Content Distribution defines where and how you will publish content to make the most out of the media types you will publish and deliver your content in. We cover this in more depth in the Content Promotion module.

Who Is Responsible For Creating A Content Strategy?

In the Content Manager Mindset lesson, we discuss the three decision-making levels of a business and how these are responsible for creating, implementing, and managing different areas of the organization.

This includes the overall business strategy and its digital strategy.

Digital Strategy Structure — Different decision-making levels are responsible for creating, managing, and implementing different aspects of a Digital Strategy.

If we apply the three decision-making levels to the digital strategy of a business, for example:

The executive level creates its digital content strategy.
The management level implements and manages its digital content plan.
The technical/tactical level performs the work required to create the content specified in the content plan (e.g. writing articles, recording videos, etc.)

Ideally, executive-level roles of the business would create a content strategy for the organization as part of developing its overall business strategy and digital strategy.

The Content Manager would then take the content strategy and use it to create and implement a content plan.

This content plan would then be used to drive the content production process.

As we have seen in the Digital Business Setups lesson, however, many small and startup businesses do not have the resources to either create a digital business strategy or hire a content strategist to create one for the organization.

In this case, the content manager will need to be directly involved in the process of creating a content strategy before creating and implementing a content plan.

How Do You Create A Digital Content Strategy?

We cover this process in a separate lesson here: How To Create A Content Strategy

Content Strategy – Useful Stats

We mentioned earlier that there are key differences between a content strategy and a content marketing strategy. Many businesses confuse these two.

Keeping this in mind, it’s good to know and keep up with the latest content marketing statistics, as these can be helpful when creating or reviewing your content strategy.

Infographic: What makes a content strategy successful? Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.

Content Strategy – FAQs

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about content strategy:

What is content strategy?

Content strategy is a plan that outlines how content will be created, managed, and distributed to achieve specific business goals, such as increasing brand awareness or driving conversions.

It involves understanding the audience, creating relevant content, and ensuring consistency across channels as well as planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content.

It also ensures that there is usable and useful content, which is well structured and easily found, appropriate to the needs of the user, and that it enhances or improves the user experience of a website or brand interaction.

Why is it important to have a content strategy?

Having a content strategy provides direction, consistency, and efficiency in content creation and distribution efforts. It helps businesses effectively reach and engage their target audience, build brand authority, and drive desired actions, leading to better ROI on marketing investments.

How does content strategy align with business objectives?

A content strategy should directly support business objectives, such as increasing brand awareness, boosting sales, or improving customer engagement. Each piece of content should be crafted with these objectives in mind to ensure it contributes to achieving the overall goals of the organization.

What are the key elements of a content strategy?

Key elements include clearly defined goals, a deep understanding of the target audience, content auditing and mapping, developing a content calendar, content creation guidelines for creating high-quality content optimized for SEO, and metrics for performance evaluation through analytics. It should also encompass content management and updating processes. Each component should also ensures alignment with business objectives and audience needs.

How do you develop a content strategy?

Developing a content strategy involves researching audience preferences, defining clear objectives, conducting competitive analysis, selecting appropriate channels, creating a content calendar, assigning responsibilities, and continuously refining based on performance data. It’s essential to have a documented strategy to guide content creation and distribution efforts.

What tools are used in content strategy?

Common tools used in content strategy include content management systems (CMS), SEO tools, content analytics tools, and project management software. These tools help in planning, creating, managing, and measuring the effectiveness of content.

How is content performance measured?

Content performance effectiveness can be measured through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments), conversion rates, lead generation, sales attributed to content, user feedback, SEO rankings, etc. Analyzing data from web analytics tools like Google Analytics and social media analytics platforms provides insights into what content resonates with the audience and what needs improvement.

How does content strategy differ from content marketing?

Content strategy focuses on the planning, creation, and management of content to achieve business objectives, while content marketing specifically aims to attract and engage an audience through valuable, relevant content to drive profitable customer action. They are closely related but serve different purposes within a marketing strategy.

Content strategy is also a broad discipline that includes defining how and why content will be collected, managed, and archived, whereas content marketing focuses specifically on using content to attract and engage audiences, leading them towards a specific business goal.

How often should I update my content strategy?

You should review and update your content strategy regularly, at least annually, or more frequently depending on changes in business goals, audience needs, or market dynamics.

Summary

It’s important that businesses have a clear content strategy, as this will guide and drive all the content it creates to achieve their goals.

Without a content strategy, planning, creating, promoting, and managing content can lead to ineffective results and wasting valuable resources.

Action Steps

If you are the person responsible for managing content in your organization, it is vitally important to make sure that there is a content strategy in place. If not, look for ways to help create one.

Useful Resources

In addition to completing the lessons in this module, we recommend the following resources:

Free Video Course: How To Create An Effective Content Strategy for Your Business – A comprehensive 12-part video course on creating a content strategy for your business with links to comprehensive step-by-step tutorials.
Content Strategy For The Web – By Kristina Halvorson, a leading content strategy advocate and pioneer of the field.
HubSpot Blog – Go here for practical articles on content strategy and content marketing.
Digital Business Video Courses – Video courses on digital business and content marketing strategies.
The Small Business Digital Manager – A guide for small businesses on building a successful digital presence.
Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot content-related issues.

Visit our tools and resources section for additional courses, guides, and helpful tools and resources for content managers.

References

See the articles below for additional useful information related to this lesson:

Content Strategy

Also…

Business Strategy

Marketing Strategy

***

This concludes our overview lesson on content strategy.

Please complete all lessons in this module before proceeding to the next module (Content Planning).

Next Lesson

Go here for the next lesson in the Content Strategy training module: How To Create A Content Strategy or click on one of the other lessons in this module in the section below.

Content Strategy – Module Lessons

This module includes the following lessons:

Content Strategy

Learn what a content strategy is, why it's important to have one, and how to develop an effective digital content strategy for your business.

View Lesson

Digital Business Basics

This lesson looks at some of the basic steps your business should complete before it can grow using content.

View Lesson

How To Create A Content Strategy

Learn how to create an effective content strategy for your organization.

View Lesson

Target Audience

Identify your target audience's demographics, interests, and pain points to create a more targeted content strategy.

View Lesson

Buyer Journey

Learn how your customer's buyer journey impacts your content strategy.

View Lesson

Customer Surveys

Use feedback from customer surveys to create a more targeted content strategy and improve your content creation.

View Lesson

Content Audit

Learn why businesses need a content audit and how to perform a content audit for your organization.

View Lesson

Web Content Accessibility

Learn about the importance of making your web content more accessible and inclusive for all of your website's users.

View Lesson

***

Image: Coffee and Notepad

Content Planning

Learn how to create a content plan and manage your content planning process effectively to meet your organization’s strategic outcomes.

Content Planning

Learn how to create a content plan and manage your content planning process effectively to meet your organization’s strategic outcomes.

An effective content strategy requires an actionable content plan that allows your business or organization to create and regularly publish content that targets the right audience and meets strategic goals.

In this lesson, we’ll cover:

What is a content plan?
Why do you need a content plan?
Benefits of developing a content plan for your organization
The content planning process
How to create a content plan

***

Contents

Before You Begin

Make sure to review and complete the lessons in the Content Strategy module before you begin.

As a subscriber, you will also get notified when new posts (containing practical information and valuable content management tips) are added to our blog.

What Is A Content Plan?

A content plan is a document that specifies:

What content your business will create to target potential customers at all stages of their buyer journey, and
How this content will be created.

A content plan also outlines:

Who is responsible for creating the content
What the purpose of the content is
How the content impacts your content strategy.

Content planning is the structure by which your company determines which content initiatives to execute and when. It’s all about processes and workflows

Source: Divvyhq

A content plan is integral to your marketing activity and should be consulted regularly as the business builds its content marketing funnel.

It’s important to note that content strategy and content planning are two different things.

A content strategy is the overarching plan for creating, publishing, and managing content that aligns with the goals and objectives of your organization. It defines the goals for the content, the audience it will target, and the overall tone and style of the content.

A content plan, on the other hand, is the tactical plan for executing your content strategy. It outlines the specific pieces of content that will be created, the channels through which they will be distributed, and the schedule for publishing and promoting the content. It also includes tasks and responsibilities for creating, editing, and publishing the content.

In short, a content strategy is the “why” and “what” of content creation, while a content plan is the “how” and “when”.

Your content strategy directs all of your marketing channels where your content lives. It’s where you outline all the different marketing goals you have and how you plan to achieve these goals.

When your strategy’s ready to go, you’ll turn to content planning to determine how you’ll execute that plan. Your content plan will outline all of the assets and data you need to achieve the goals you set in your strategy.

Source: SemRush

Why Do You Need A Content Plan?

To understand why having a content plan is essential, consider what can happen to businesses that create and publish content without a content strategy and a content plan.

Let’s suppose that a small business has a blog where it can publish articles to increase its visibility on search engines and attract new customers.

The business owner has ideas for topics to write articles about and begins to write and publish content on the blog. She soon finds that she is too busy attending to other areas of the business, however, and delegates this task to one of her staff members.

The staff member, however, doesn’t have the “full picture” of the business like the owner has, and so is unaware of all the areas that could benefit from using content to educate, inform, train, and attract new customers. He is also busy and after a short time, he too starts running out of ideas for new article topics to write about.

The business owner then decides to outsource its content creation. Lacking the budget to hire a full-service marketing agency that can develop a content strategy for the business and take over and manage their blog, they hire a person with SEO skills to come up with new content for the blog.

The SEO expert, however, also doesn’t have the “full picture” of the business, so he does some content research about the industry, niche, and its competitors, and supplies the business with a list of article topics based on keywords it could potentially rank for.

The SEO expert doesn’t write the actual content, so the business outsources its article writing to freelance writers. After a while, they also begin to accept submissions from guest bloggers.

Although the business is getting content published on its blog, the content doesn’t seem to be effective at driving traffic or attracting new customers. So, the business owner assigns another staff member to perform a content audit.

The content audit reveals that many articles are simply too general to rank competitively in the search engines and are not addressing the specific needs and pain points of their target audience. It also reveals that multiple articles are targeting the same keywords and ‘cannibalizing’ each other. Many of the articles submitted by guest bloggers also link to sites that are not relevant to the business.

Instead of using content strategically to grow the business, the business now has a bunch of content that doesn’t contribute to helping the business achieve its goals and a blog that needs cleaning up.

Just think how much more productive and effective this whole effort would have been had the business first invested in researching and creating a content strategy and incorporated its goals and research into a plan to drive content production before writing even a single piece of content.

Content Strategy Map — A content strategy map. Source: @CarlaGates247. Click on the image to enlarge it.

A content plan, then, is essential for ensuring that your business puts the right systems and workflow processes in place to create the right content, delivered to the right audience at the right time, using the right distribution channels, to achieve its strategic goals.

Content Plan Goals — The goal of your Content Plan is to deliver the goals of your Content Strategy.

Benefits Of Developing A Content Plan

Think about the benefits of having a content plan this way…

One well-planned piece of content (e.g. a blog post, video, etc.) that is perfectly aligned with the strategic goals and objectives of the business, that hits the spot with the right target audience, and that gets picked up by search engines and/or linked to from other websites, can continue driving new traffic, leads, sales, and subscribers long after it’s been published.

Additionally, a content plan:

Addresses each step of the content creation process and how to research, create, publish, and track the content.
Helps to create content that will target the right audience, increase engagement and retention, and drive more traffic and sales to the business.
Makes it easier for teams to create, collaborate on, and share information about the content.
Helps to avoid unnecessary costs or delays in important strategic areas, like preparing a budget or requesting additional resources.

Content Planning Goals And Objectives

Common content planning goals and objectives include:

Audience understanding: The goal is to understand the target audience and create content that meets their needs, interests, and preferences. This can be achieved by conducting market research, creating buyer personas, and analyzing website traffic data.
Content creation: The goal is to create high-quality, engaging, and relevant content that meets your target audience’s needs. This can be achieved by writing blog posts, creating videos, and designing graphics and infographics.
Content optimization: The goal is to improve the quality and performance of content by ensuring it is well-written, visually appealing, and optimized for search engines and social media. This can be achieved by optimizing headlines, meta descriptions, and images, using keywords and hashtags, and making sure the content is mobile-friendly.
Content distribution: The goal is to distribute and promote content through various channels, such as social media, email, and other digital platforms. This can be achieved by publishing content on the website, sharing it on social media, and sending newsletters.
Content measurement and analytics: The goal is to track and measure your content’s performance in terms of engagement, conversion, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). This can be achieved by using analytics tools to track website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates.
Content repurposing: The goal is to repurpose existing content in new and different formats for different channels and audiences. This can be achieved by republishing a blog post as a video, creating an e-book from a series of blog posts, or turning a podcast episode into a transcript.
Content updating: The goal is to keep your content up-to-date and relevant by updating or removing outdated information. This can be achieved by updating a blog post with new information, removing a broken link, or revising an old video.
Content governance: The goal is to ensure that all content is accurate, up-to-date, and compliant with legal, ethical, and brand guidelines. This can be achieved by creating and enforcing a content style guide, regularly reviewing and updating content, and ensuring that all content is accessible and inclusive.
Budget and resources allocation: The goal is to plan and allocate the budget and resources needed to achieve your content goals. This can be achieved by identifying the cost of creating, distributing, and measuring the content, and allocating resources to create, review, and publish the content.
Content calendar: The goal is to plan and organize your content creation and publishing schedule. This can be achieved by creating an editorial calendar, scheduling the publishing of blog posts, and creating a plan for the distribution of your content.

The Content Planning Process

Your content planning process should flow from your content strategy.

Before creating your content plan, your business should have already defined its content strategy with clear goals, performed an audience analysis and competitive analysis, assessed its resources, determined a content budget, and specified ways to track and analyze results.

If you need help in this area, see our lesson on how to create a content strategy.

Once this is done, you can create a content plan (see next section below) that will help your business align its content with its customer’s buyer journey and identify the topics, needs, and questions to address in the content.

The content planning process also involves doing a content audit to determine if the existing content can be used as-is or if it needs to be updated and to identify any content gaps or new opportunities that can be created or developed.

The content planning process also needs to incorporate elements like:

A content production plan to determine the format of each content piece it will produce and identify who the subject experts, authors, and contributors will be for each item.
A content measurement plan with performance measures to determine the objective of each item of content created and how its performance will be tracked and measured, as this will help to assess whether the content is delivering its strategic goals.
A content distribution plan to identify which online and offline channels will be used to get the content in front of your intended target audience.

Different approaches to creating a content plan can also include additional elements like onboarding and training and communication processes.

Elements of Content Planning - DivvyHQ — Your content plan can also incorporate additional elements like onboarding and training team members and communication tools and processes for better collaboration. Source: DivvyHQ.com

Example Of A Content Plan

Below is an example of what a simple content plan for a software company might look like:

Audience: Small business owners looking for an easy-to-use accounting software
Goal: Increase website traffic, generate leads
Competitors: Quickbooks, Xero
Topics:
- How to streamline your invoicing process
- Tips for managing your business finances
- How to get the most out of your accounting software
Plan:
- Blog post: once a week
- YouTube video: once a month
- Infographic: Once a quarter
Distribution:
- Social media: LinkedIn, Facebook
- Email marketing: Weekly newsletter
- Paid Advertising: Google Ads, Facebook ads

Now that we have covered what a content plan is and why businesses need one, let’s look at how to create one.

How To Create A Content Plan

Here are the steps for creating an effective content plan for your business or organization:

1. Ask Content Planning Questions

Once you have a content strategy in place, begin the content planning process by asking questions like:

Who is the content for?
Where will the content be published?
What problem(s)/challenge(s) does the content help to solve?
Why/how is your business different?
How will you deliver your message?
How will you create the content?

See this excellent content planning article for more details on how to answer the above questions: Content Planning: How to Create a Content Plan That Brings Results.

2. What To Include In Your Content Plan

Your Content Plan will most likely consist of a document that includes all the research, analysis, and marketing collateral laid out in the content strategy, with information such as:

SEO keyword research
Engagement tracking
Blogging
Social media content
White papers and case studies
Content planning templates (see below)
Content production team schedule
Your content calendar.

Content Planning Templates

There are different content planning templates you can use and various workflow tools provide content planning templates that can be imported into the tool and then customized to suit your needs.

Content Planning Template - Monday.com — Use a content planning template to present and communicate your content plan to team members. Source: Monday.com

Some templates, for example, suit Kanban-style content workflows…

Content Planning Template - Teamwork.com — Content Planning Template for Kanban-style workflow processes – Source: Teamwork.com

Other templates are suitable for spreadsheet-like content workflows…

Content Plan Sample Template - Smartsheet.com — Prefer working with spreadsheets? Then use a more spreadsheet-like content plan template. Source: Smartsheet.com

For links to various content planning templates, see the Resources section at the end of this lesson.

3. Create Your Content Plan

As mentioned earlier, there are different approaches you can take to create your content plan.

To keep things simple, we’ll go through the basic steps of creating a content plan that involves the following steps:

Define your goals
Set the content frequency
Choose your content types
Choose your content topics
Choose your content distribution channels
Allocate your resources
Set up your team communications
Choose your content management tools
Set up a content publishing schedule and create a content calendar
Assign tasks and deadlines to members
Create a content measurement plan
Schedule a periodic review of your content plan

Let’s go briefly through each of these steps:

1. Define Your Goals

Think about why you are developing a content plan and why you want to produce content. Knowing your goals will make determining what’s best for your strategy easier and clearer.

Defining goals for your content plan is easier if you have already defined your target audience (including your buyer persona) and performed a content audit to assess and understand your best- and worst-content types.

For a downloadable template that can help you with this step, go here: How To Determine Your SMART Marketing Goals

2. Set Your Content Frequency

“How often should you be publishing new content?”

If you run a news website, you’ll likely need to publish multiple articles a day to keep up with the latest developments. On the other hand, if you’re running a personal blog or a small business, you might only have the capacity to publish once or twice a week or a few times a month.

Also, when it comes to content, more isn’t always better. It’s important to find a balance between producing enough content to keep your audience engaged, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or low quality.

Consider your audience, your resources, and your goals when determining the frequency of your content. In general, it’s a good idea to find a frequency that can be sustained over the long term. Consistency is key when it comes to content marketing, so it’s better to publish on a regular schedule rather than trying to push out as much content as possible and then burn out.

3. Choose Your Content Types

There are a number of options you can choose to create content, including:

Blog posts
Videos
Social media
Emails
eBooks
Case studies
Infographics
Podcasts
Templates
etc.

The type of content you create will depend on how your audience prefers to consume information and which stage they are at in your marketing funnel.

For example, social media posts work well for increasing brand awareness and targeting TOFU (top-of-the-funnel) users, while publishing content using blog posts is more effective at targeting MOFU (middle-of-the-funnel) users and increasing organic search traffic, and email marketing is best used for converting a BOFU (bottom-of-the-funnel) audience who may be ready to buy products and services your business.

Content Plan — Make sure to specify in your content plan what type of content you plan to create, and for what purpose. Source: SemRush.com

For more information on the different content types that you can use in your content marketing strategy, see this lesson: Content Marketing

4. Choose Your Content Topics

“What content should you be writing or talking about?”

Again, this will depend on your goals and audience.

If you’re running a business, you’ll want to focus on topics that are relevant to your products or services. For example, if you sell outdoor gear, you might want to write about hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities.

It’s also a good idea to consider what your audience is interested in. You can use social media polls, surveys, and other tools to get a sense of what your followers want to see more of.

It’s important to consider what your audience is interested in and what will be relevant to them. This can involve researching industry trends, keeping an eye on your competitors, and seeking feedback from your audience. You should also consider what topics align with your business or organization’s goals and values.

5. Choose Your Content Distribution Channels

“How should you be getting your content out into the world?

Content distribution channels are the channels through which content is shared and promoted. There are many channels you can choose to publish and share your content on, depending on your audience and resources.

For example:

Your website and blog
Social media networks
Email newsletter
Videos
Pay-per-click ads
Guest blogging on other websites
Press releases
Testimonials
Forums
Reviews

Distribution channels can be divided into three main types: owned, earned, and paid.

Content Distribution Channels - HubSpot — Content distribution channels can be owned, paid, or earned. Source: HubSpot

Using one or more of these channels can increase the effectiveness of your published content and help you reach your goals.

It’s important to find the right mix of distribution channels for your business or personal brand. For example, if you’re targeting a younger audience, you might want to focus on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. If you’re targeting a more professional audience, LinkedIn might be a better fit.

For more information on using different content channels to distribute and promote your content, see this lesson: Content Distribution

6. Allocate Your Resources

An effective content plan requires allocating both financial and personnel resources.

A budget should be allocated for creating and distributing your content. This may involve hiring writers, designers, and marketers to produce and promote the content.

In addition, your business may need to invest in tools such as a content management system, social media management platforms, and analytics software to effectively manage and measure the success of the content.

Also, personnel resources should be allocated to ensure that all aspects of the content plan are effectively executed.

This may include assigning a dedicated content manager or team to oversee the creation and distribution of the content. Your content team should be composed of individuals with diverse skills such as writing, design, marketing, and analytics, and may even extend to subject experts, experienced authors, and guest contributors.

Your content strategy should provide you with an assessment of business resources and a budget for creating and promoting content using either a dedicated in-house team and/or outsourced resources.

How your business chooses to allocate its resources will have a significant impact on the implementation and execution of your content plan.

For example, if you plan to create articles for your blog, who will write them? Will blog writing be assigned to an employee who is already performing in a different role as an additional responsibility (because your business lacks resources to set up a content team), a dedicated blog writer, an outsourced freelance article writer, or a guest blogger?

Content Team - Organization Chart — What kind of budget does your business have to put a content team together? Click image to enlarge

7. Set Up Your Team Communications

Having a consistent and cohesive content plan is essential for any business or organization looking to effectively communicate with its audience.

However, with multiple teams and stakeholders involved, it can be a challenge to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Content planning involves extensive communication with stakeholders across different areas of the organization and coordinating and collaborating with your content production team, so it’s important to make sure that you can communicate easily and exchange information promptly and transparently with everyone involved in the process.

First, it’s important to establish clear lines of communication and establish a central point of contact for content-related issues. This could be a content manager or a designated member of the marketing team.

Next, consider setting up regular meetings or check-ins with all relevant teams and stakeholders to discuss the content plan. This can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and can provide an opportunity to address any concerns or issues.

It’s also a good idea to establish clear guidelines and processes for creating and approving content. This can include things like a content calendar, editorial guidelines, and a review and approval process.

Finally, it’s important to choose the right tools to make sure that everyone has access to the latest version of the content plan and can communicate effectively. For example, a document management system.

Most likely your business will have already set up team communication channels (e.g. Slack and email for exchanging information, and Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Skype, for live video conference calls and online presentations – especially if your team includes members working remotely), so use these tools and your content production team meetings to keep everyone informed and up-to-date on the progress and any changes or new developments made to your content plan.

8. Choose Your Content Management Tools

If you’re responsible for creating and managing content for your business or organization, it’s important to have the right tools in place to make the process as efficient and effective as possible.

Consider using tools like project management software or a content management system to help coordinate content creation and ensure that everyone has access to the latest version of the content plan.

Project management software helps individuals and teams plan, organize, and manage tasks and resources for projects.

These tools typically include features such as task assignments, calendars, timelines, and communication tools to keep team members on track and informed. They also often include tools for tracking time, expenses, and progress, as well as the ability to generate reports and analytics.

Some popular examples of project management software include Monday.com, Asana, and Trello. See more project management tools.

A content management system (CMS) is a software application that enables users to create, manage, and publish digital content, typically for websites.

The content could be in form of text, images, audio, and video files. A CMS typically includes a user-friendly interface that allows non-technical users to easily create, edit, and publish content without the need for extensive technical knowledge.

It also provides tools for organizing and categorizing content, and for controlling access and permissions for different users. Some popular examples of CMS include WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

Some key considerations when choosing the right content management tools include:

Budget: There is a wide range of content management tools available, ranging from free options to more expensive enterprise-level solutions. Determine what you can afford and look for tools that offer the features you need at a price that fits your budget.
Your team and their needs: Does your team need a tool that is user-friendly and easy to learn, or are they more tech-savvy and comfortable with more advanced features? Make sure to choose a tool that meets the needs of your team and will be easy for them to use.
Your content workflow: Which features do you need to support your content workflow? For example, do you need a tool that allows for collaboration, organization, distribution, and version control, or do you just need something simple to store and organize your content? Make a list of your must-have features and look for a tool that meets those needs.

Don’t be afraid to try out different tools and see what works best for you. It may take some trial and error to find the right fit, but it’s worth the effort to find a tool that makes your content management process as efficient and effective as possible.

9. Set Up A Content Publishing Schedule

A content publishing schedule is an important part of any content marketing strategy. It helps you plan and organize your content in advance, so you can consistently publish high-quality content for your audience.

Whether you are publishing blog posts, social media updates, or videos, having a set schedule for when you release new content can help you stay organized and attract and retain an audience.

An editorial calendar or content calendar lets you organize and schedule all the content your business or organization needs to produce and publish.

See our in-depth lesson on creating an editorial or content calendar here: Editorial Calendar

Establishing a content publishing schedule is only effective if you stick to it. Make sure to set a sustainable content frequency and allocate enough time and resources to create and publish your content on a consistent basis.

10. Assign Tasks And Deadlines To Members

Effective task assignment is an important part of managing a team. It helps ensure that work is completed efficiently and on schedule.

As a team leader or manager, it’s important to know how to assign tasks and deadlines to your team members in a way that is clear, organized, and fair.

Here are some steps you can follow to effectively assign tasks and deadlines to your team:

Clearly define the task

Make sure to provide clear and detailed descriptions of the task and ensure that everyone on the team understands the expected outcomes. Include any necessary resources or instructions.

Consider each team member’s skills and workload:

Think about which team member is best suited to complete the task and assign the task to the right person.

Consider their current workload and capacity. It’s important to balance the workload among team members to prevent burnout.

Set a realistic deadline

Deadlines help ensure that tasks are completed in a timely manner. Consider how long tasks will take to complete and set deadlines accordingly.

Take into account the complexity of the task and the availability of the team member. It’s important to be realistic about what can be achieved within a certain time frame, as setting unrealistic deadlines can lead to frustration and missed expectations.

If it takes 5 to 7 days to create, review, and approve a comprehensive, well-researched and authoritative article, don’t expect it to be published in two days. It just puts unnecessary pressure on everyone.

Communicate the task and deadline

Make sure to clearly communicate the task and deadlines to the team members in your content brief.

Use team meetings, email, or an online project management tool to follow up and ensure that they understand the task and have everything they need to complete it.

Monitor progress and provide support

Check-in with your team members periodically to make sure the task is on track to be completed by the deadline.

Keep track of their progress and offer assistance and support as needed. This might involve providing additional resources or answering questions.

By following these steps, you can effectively assign tasks and deadlines to your team, helping everyone work together efficiently to ensure that the work is completed efficiently and on schedule.

Create guidelines for assigning tasks

Create guidelines for assigning tasks to members that include the points mentioned above and add these guidelines to your team’s workflow documentation.

11. Create a Content Measurement And Content ROI Plan

A content strategy requires a way to measure the performance of all content created to help the business achieve its overall objectives. This is necessary to justify both the investment (i.e. budget) and the methods used to create and distribute content.

The content plan is where you formulate a plan to measure your content performance in terms of meeting strategic goals and content marketing ROI.

Measuring content performance typically involves analyzing metrics such as engagement (e.g. likes, shares, comments), traffic (e.g. page views, unique visitors), lead generation (e.g. email signups, demo requests), conversions, bounce rate, etc.

To measure content ROI, you need to track the revenue generated from your content marketing activities and compare it to the costs associated with creating and promoting the content.

For example, if your company spends $5,000 on creating and promoting a blog post and that post generated $10,000 in revenue from leads generated, the content ROI would be 100%.

Another example is A/B testing for website landing pages. You can measure the conversion rate of the different versions of the landing page, and see which one performed better in terms of lead generation or sales.

It is also important to track and measure your content’s performance over time. You can do this using analytics tools such as Google Analytics and social media analytics to track engagement and traffic, and by monitoring lead generation metrics such as email signups, demo requests, and sales.

Learn more about content metrics and content tracking.

Meeting Strategic Goals

A content measurement plan provides an objective way that everyone in the organization can use to:

Measure the success and effectiveness of its content strategies based on setting KPIs and identifying metrics,
Make more informed decisions about the content channels and methods being used, and
Identify areas that need addressing or gaps that need filling.

For more details on how to create and implement a plan to meet strategic content goals, see this article: How To Create A Content Measurement Plan

Return On Investment

A plan for measuring the return on investment of your content involves:

1. Calculating how much was spent producing the content.
2: Figuring out the cost to distribute the content.
3: Working out how much the content generated in revenue.
4: Calculating the content marketing ROI.

How To Calculate Content Marketing ROI — Content Marketing ROI formula. Source: OptinMonster

For more details on how to create this 4-step formula, see this excellent article: How To Measure Your Content Marketing ROI

12. Schedule A Periodic Review Of Your Content Plan

The last step is to schedule a periodic review of your content plan (e.g. quarterly, half-yearly, annually) to make sure that everything set out in the plan is progressing along, that all strategic goals are being met, and to figure out how to improve things if goals are not being met.

Make sure to include content reviews as part of your periodic content plan review.

Content Planning Challenges

While content planning helps your business to identify the goals, topics, and formats of the content that will be created and is a crucial step in the content creation process, it can also present some challenges.

Here are some of the challenges of content planning:

Setting clear goals: Setting clear and measurable goals for the content can be challenging, as it requires a good understanding of the target audience, the industry, and the business objectives.
Identifying relevant topics: Identifying relevant topics that will engage the target audience and align with the goals of the content can be challenging, as it requires a good understanding of the audience’s interests, pain points, and industry trends.
Content format: Deciding on the format of the content that will be created can be challenging, as it requires understanding the audience’s preferences and the goals of the content.
Scheduling: Scheduling the content creation and publishing process can be challenging, as it requires balancing the need for timely and relevant content with the resources and capabilities of the team.
Collaboration: Collaborating with different teams and stakeholders can be challenging, as it requires effective communication and coordination to ensure that the content aligns with the overall goals and objectives of the organization.
Budgeting: Allocating the necessary budget for the content creation process can be challenging, as it requires balancing the costs with the expected return on investment.
Measuring success: Measuring the success of the content can be challenging, as it requires tracking metrics such as engagement, traffic, and conversion rates, and then using that data to improve future content planning.

As you can see, content planning requires a good understanding of your target audience, your industry, and your business objectives, as well as effective communication and coordination between all members of your content team.

Content Planning Checklist

Define goals and objectives: Clearly define the goals and objectives for the content, such as increasing brand awareness or driving website traffic.
Audience research: Conduct research to understand the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience. This will help inform the topics and tone of your content.
Competitive research: Analyze the content of your competitors to understand what topics and formats are resonating with your target audience and how you can differentiate your content.
Topic generation: Generate a list of potential topics for your content, based on your audience research and competitive analysis.
Content calendar: Create a content calendar that outlines the topics, formats, and publishing schedule for your content. This will help you stay organized and ensure a consistent flow of content.
Format and medium: Determine the format and medium that best suits your content and audience, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, or infographics.
Keyword research: Research keywords related to your content topics to optimize for search engines and increase visibility.
Content creation: Create the content using the information gathered in the previous steps.
Review and approval: Review and get approval from relevant stakeholders before publishing
Promote and distribute: Develop a plan to promote and distribute your content through various channels such as social media, email, and paid advertising.
Measure and analyze: Use analytics tools to measure the success of your content and gather insights for future planning.

Content Planning – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content planning:

What is content planning?

Content planning involves the strategic development of content ideas, scheduling of content creation, and distribution across various channels to meet specific business objectives.

How does content planning differ from content strategy?

Content planning focuses on the operational aspects such as ideation, scheduling, and distribution. Content strategy defines the overall goals, audience targeting, and metrics for success.

Why is content planning important?

It ensures that content creation aligns with marketing goals, maximizes resource efficiency, and enhances the ability to engage and convert specific audiences.

What are the steps involved in content planning?

Identify goals, understand your audience, brainstorm content ideas, create a content calendar, produce and distribute content, and analyze results.

What are the benefits of using a content management system in content planning?

A CMS helps manage digital content, allows for easy updates, multiple user access, and provides tools for SEO and analytics tracking.

How do you choose the right content management system (CMS) for content planning?

Assess your needs based on the type of content, user-friendliness, scalability, integration capabilities, and cost.

How can content planning impact audience engagement?

Effective content planning ensures that the content is relevant, timely, and engaging to the audience, which boosts interaction and retention.

What role does content planning play in SEO?

It helps in targeting relevant keywords, organizing content for easy navigation, and updating content regularly to improve search engine rankings.

How often should you revise your content plan?

Regularly review and adjust your content plan based on performance metrics, audience feedback, and evolving business goals, typically quarterly or biannually.

What are some common challenges in content planning?

Challenges include maintaining consistency, measuring effectiveness, keeping content fresh and relevant, and aligning with dynamic market conditions.

Summary

A content plan ensures that every piece of content you create is aligned with your content strategy and flows through the right stages in the right order, to the right people in order to meet strategic objectives.

Using a content plan template and a content calendar allows your business to execute its content plan while getting stakeholder feedback at the right times, and ensuring that everyone on the team can collaborate and see how each piece of content is progressing along.

Content planning also has challenges. Understanding your target audience, your industry, and your business objectives, and maintaining effective communication and coordination between the members of your content team can help your business overcome these challenges.

Action Steps

Follow the steps in this lesson and use the simple checklist below to create a content plan for your business:

Define your audience: Identify the demographics and psychographics of the people you want to target with your content. Understanding your audience will help you create content that resonates with them.
Set your goals: Determine what you want to achieve with your content. Goals can include increasing website traffic, generating leads, boosting brand awareness, or improving engagement on social media.
Research your competitors: Look at what other businesses in your industry are doing with their content. This can give you an idea of what has worked well in the past, and what strategies you might want to avoid.
Identify your topics: Choose the topics you will create content around. This might include product- or service-related information, industry news, or thought leadership pieces.
Plan your content: Decide on the content type (e.g. blog post, video, podcast, infographics) and schedule when you will publish it.
Create a distribution plan: Outline the channels you will use to distribute your content. For example, you might use social media, email marketing, or paid advertising.
Measure and evaluate: Create a content measurement plan. Define key metrics and implement content tracking methods to track the success of your content and regularly evaluate your results. Use this information to optimize your content and distribution strategy over time.

Resources

Content Planning Templates – Use these downloadable templates to plan your content strategically.
Content Plan Template (Teamwork)
Content Plan Template (Smartsheet)
Template: How To Determine Your SMART Marketing Goals (HubSpot) – Includes a worksheet for defining, calculating, and evaluating your SMART goals.
Content Marketing Workbook: A Beginner’s Guide to Applying Content Marketing To Your Business (HubSpot)-Download this guide to learn about the power of storytelling in content marketing, a framework and process for generating content ideas, how to plan a long-term content strategy, how to effectively promote content, how to extend the value of your content through repurposing, and how to create a topic cluster and pillar page.
Persona Template Generator (HubSpot) – Use this tool to learn what a buyer persona is or to create a buyer persona for your company.
A Field Guide to The Four Types Of Content Marketing Metrics – a downloadable eBook from the Content Marketing Institute, available on Slideshare.
Plan Content – A useful content planning guide and checklist for digital professionals working in the government sector (published by the Australian Government).
Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot content-related issues.

References

The articles below contain additional information that you may find useful to complete this lesson:

Next Lesson

The list below contains all the lessons included in this module:

Content Planning

Learn how to create a content plan and manage your content planning process effectively to meet your organization's strategic outcomes.

View Lesson

Content Roadmap

Learn how to create a content roadmap to help streamline your content marketing strategy.

View Lesson

Content Ideas

Here is a long list of content ideas and content topics to help you with your next content project.

View Lesson

Mind Mapping

Use mind mapping to streamline your content planning and content creation process.

View Lesson

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content remains relevant and valuable over time. Learn about various types of evergreen content you can create for your organization.

View Lesson

Managing Your Content Ideas

Learn how to set up a simple and effective system for generating, storing, organizing, and managing your content ideas.

View Lesson

Content Research

Learn how to perform effective content research before investing time and effort into creating content for your business.

View Lesson

Editorial Calendar

Learn how to create, use, and manage an editorial calendar, and how it can help with your content planning, scheduling, and production.

View Lesson

Content Linking Planning Tips For Large Content Projects

Linking Content On Multiple Web Pages

How do you interlink content across many web pages when the content on those pages hasn't even been written yet? Here's how...

View Lesson

Content Planning Automation

Streamline your content planning process and maximize your team's productivity with content planning automation.

View Lesson

Content Organizing Tools

Content-organizing and note-taking apps to help you stay on top of your tasks and boost your productivity.

View Lesson

Go to the next module: Content Production
Return to the Course Outline

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Image: Man writing.

Content Workflow

Learn how to define a content workflow for your organization, from content ideation and creation to scheduling and publishing.

Content Workflow

Learn how to define a content workflow for your organization, from content ideation and creation to scheduling and publishing.

Keeping content projects on track and on time requires organizing and managing processes with specific tasks, done in a specific order, by team members assigned to specific roles.

If you are building a content pipeline and your content team is working on various projects, things can quickly become unwieldy and difficult to manage. People will start to get confused about where things are at, and projects will end up getting stuck and delayed.

This is where having a defined content workflow can help.

In this lesson, we’ll cover:

What is a content workflow?
The importance of defining your content workflow.
Key elements of an effective content workflow.

Before You Begin

Make sure to review the Content Production Overview lesson before starting this lesson.

What Is A Content Workflow?

The Content Marketing Institute defines a content workflow as follows:

“A content workflow is a set of tasks that a team needs to complete for a given client or content type — a web page, a blog post, a white paper, an email, or any other kind of content that the group needs to deliver.”

Source: Content Marketing Institute

The article also mentions Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy For The Web, as saying that a content workflow determines “how content is requested, sourced, created, reviewed, approved, and delivered,” and goes on to explain:

Why a business needs to define a content workflow
How to define a content workflow, and
How to:
- Identify the roles (who is involved in production)
- Identify the tasks (what each role does)
- Determine when tasks should get done by to maintain consistent production flow, and
- Assign accountability for overseeing and tracking projects through to completion.

This lesson will cover these areas, but we also recommend reading the article: Marketing Workflow: How To Keep Content Production On Track

The Importance Of Defining Your Content Flow

As we touched on in the Content Production Overview lesson, creating a content workflow involves defining things like the steps involved, who does what to make each step happen, how/when the process should move from one step to the next, what formats, guidelines, and procedures should be followed to ensure consistent standards, how/when to deliver each step, etc.

Even a simple content workflow can have many moving parts. For example, consider the steps involved in writing an article for a blog.

At first glance, it may look something like this:

Create an outline.
Write a draft.
Review the draft.
Edit the draft.
Get changes approved.
Publish the article.

Simple content production workflow. — A simple content workflow.

However, if you map out the sequence of all the steps involved in the actual article writing process, you may find that your article creation workflow ends up looking something more like this:

Content workflow for creating an article. — Your content workflow for creating articles could look like this.

From the above, it should be clear that:

Certain aspects of the process need to be assigned to and performed by different roles.
Some steps cannot proceed until other steps have first been completed.
Certain processes involve steps that “loop” (i.e. repeat) before the workflow can move to the next phase.
Different content requires different content workflows – a workflow used to create content like blog articles won’t necessarily work for other types of content (e.g. videos).

It’s important, then, to define content workflows in the content production process, as it helps the content team to:

Keep everything organized, saving time, reducing costs, and increasing production efficiency,
Break down different processes into manageable tasks,
Identify each stage of development and what needs to happen for the item to move forward and get approved,
Know who should take over responsibility for each step and when,
Identify and deal with bottlenecks in the production process.
Identify different workflows for different types of content.

Content Workflow Goals And Objectives

Common content workflow goals and objectives include:

Efficiency: The goal is to streamline the content creation process and reduce the time and effort required to produce, review, and publish content. This can be achieved by creating a content calendar, using project management tools, and automating repetitive tasks.
Collaboration: The goal is to promote collaboration and communication among team members to ensure that content is created and reviewed in a timely and effective manner. This can be achieved by using shared tools for content creation, review, and publishing, setting up regular meetings and check-ins, and providing clear guidelines and instructions.
Quality control: The goal is to ensure that all content meets the established standards for quality, accuracy, and compliance with legal, ethical, and brand guidelines. This can be achieved by creating and enforcing a content style guide, regularly reviewing and updating content, and ensuring that all content is accessible and inclusive.
Scalability: The goal is to ensure that the content workflow can easily adapt and scale to accommodate changes in content volume, team size, and complexity. This can be achieved by using cloud-based tools, creating a flexible and modular content creation process, and implementing a version control system.
Security: The goal is to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the content and the workflows by implementing security protocols. This can be achieved by using encryption and access controls, creating backups, and monitoring for unauthorized access.
Flexibility: The goal is to ensure that the content workflow can be easily adapted to changing business needs and goals. This can be achieved by incorporating a feedback and testing process, making it easy for stakeholders to provide input and feedback, and implementing agile methodologies.
Automation: The goal is to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks to improve the speed and efficiency of the content workflow. This can be achieved by using a content management system (CMS) to automate the publishing process, using workflow automation tools, and integrating with other tools and software.
Integration: The goal is to integrate the content workflow with other systems and tools to improve efficiency, collaboration, and automation. This can be achieved by integrating with a CRM system, integrating with social media platforms, and integrating with analytics and reporting tools.

Key Elements Of An Effective Content Workflow

As mentioned, you may need to define different content workflows depending on the content strategy of the business and the purpose of the content it intends to create.

For example, consider the following types of content:

Blog articles to boost search engine visibility and drive traffic to the business,
Videos to inform and introduce products to potential customers,
Social media posts to increase brand awareness.

Each type of content listed above requires different processes to create and serves a different purpose. Each of these processes needs to be clearly defined to ensure efficient content production and consistent standards of quality.

While each of these content types requires different workflow processes, they also have certain elements in common.

Let’s look at these.

Content Production Phases

While different content production processes result in the creation of different content types, they all tend to move through similar phases.

Your content workflow has to move content production through the various phases below:

1. Concept Development / Strategic Ideation

In this phase, team members brainstorm content ideas. Ideally, this will flow from the content strategy and include input from all stakeholders (e.g. the content team, designers, writers, editors, channel managers, creative agencies, etc.) to provide a fuller perspective of all the essential aspects of the project.

This phase should also involve a discussion of factors that can affect the project, like concept, style, budget, resources, timeframes, etc.

2. Pre-Production

This is the preparation phase where you source, gather and line up everything you will need before starting the actual process of creating the content. Depending on which project the team is working on, pre-production may include activities like researching, preparing outlines, sourcing graphics, scripting, etc.

For example, if you are shooting a video, pre-production will probably involve doing things like:

Create a video timeline
Write a creative brief
Estimate the video budget
Write the video script
Draw the video storyboard
Recruit video talent

Source: Vidyard.com

On the other hand, if you are planning to write an article for a blog, pre-production will involve different activities, such as:

Create an outline
Research information
Gather quotes, stats, etc.
Source media (images, banners, videos, etc.)
Interview subject experts
etc.

3. Production

This is where the content gets assembled. Production can take place internally (e.g. by the content team) or externally (e.g. an agency or outsourced provider), or split between the two.

4. Post-Production

In this phase, content either gets fine-tuned and polished (e.g. adding video titles and intros/outros to videos) or prepared for different channels and purposes (e.g., adding video transcripts or translations, creating longer and shorter versions of videos, repurposing articles for social media, infographics, slide presentations, videos, etc.).

Post-production activities can also be split between internal and external teams.

5. Feedback Loop

Once the content is ready for initial review (e.g. an article draft or video rough), it will typically bounce around a loop (e.g. Draft 1 > Review 1 > Draft 2 > Review 2 > Draft 3 > Review 3) involving different people (e.g. editors, subject experts, managers) or different departments (e.g. HR, legal) who provide feedback and additional suggestions until the final content is approved.

6. Final Delivery / Publishing

This is where the content is approved for publishing or distribution via the agreed channels (e.g. blog, social media, email newsletters, etc.)

Content Purpose

There are different ways to define your content’s purpose. For example, the overall purpose of the content may be to help the business achieve a strategic goal, such as building brand awareness or generating leads and sales.

While knowing why you are creating a certain piece of content is important and should be incorporated into the workflow’s production notes and the content brief (see further below), asking a writer to write an article or a video producer to create a video designed to “build brand awareness” doesn’t provide sufficient direction to help them with the actual article writing or video scripting process.

So, additional information about the purpose of the content may be required.

For example, SEOptimer describes the three types of content produced for most websites, often to be used in conjunction with one another:

Cornerstone Content – This is longer, authoritative content that will remain mostly unchanged, covering single topics in a definitive way to build awareness of your brand and establish authority rather than to sell products. Cornerstone content is the content you want to rank highest in the search engines, so it needs to be well written, updated often, and targeted to rank for your most competitive keywords.
Gated Content – This is content (usually of very high value) designed to be exchanged for something of equally high value (e.g. opt-in subscriber or lead information), such as email newsletters, downloadable guides or templates, podcasts, etc.
Evolving Content – This is content produced regularly that changes over time and often needs frequent updates, such as blog posts, news, a video series, etc.

While the aim of content marketing is to use content to convince your audience to take an intended action (e.g. buy something), the aim of content production is to connect with individual members of that audience, and this also has to be reflected in the content’s purpose.

EngageContent describes three types of content that connect with individuals:

Entertaining content – Content that connects with people on an emotional level, such as subjective stories centered around people.
Educational content – Content that connects with people on an intellectual level, such as objective content that describes processes or analysis of data.
Informative content – Content that connects with people on an attentional level, e.g. news content that attracts the reader’s attention because it’s current, new, and relevant.

Understanding the above differences and incorporating these into your content workflow will help your team create and deliver content that is on-purpose.

Content Types

Your content workflow may be geared exclusively to the production of one type of content or to multiple content types, such as blog articles, videos, emails, social media posts, downloadable PDF guides, whitepapers, infographics, templates, etc., and/or produced for print and digital formats.

See the Content Types lesson to learn more about different types of content that can be included in your content workflow and content production.

Team Roles

When defining a content workflow, it’s important to understand and identify:

Who will be involved in the content production process,
Which stage of the project they will be required to participate in, and
What the responsibilities of each role will be.

A project may require assigning different roles to people who may also be working on other projects or areas of the business at the same time, so it’s important to define how all the different roles will work together seamlessly and efficiently in the workflow.

Swimlane diagrams, for, example, are a useful way to map roles in content workflows.

Example workflow - swimlane diagram — A ‘swimlane’ content workflow involving a number of roles. *Source: Content Marketing Institute.*

We provide an entire section dedicated to helping you understand different team roles in a content production team and a digital organization.

Tasks

After identifying the roles in the workflow, the next step involves the following:

Identifying the tasks required to complete a project (i.e. what needs to be done).
Defining each task in detail (to minimize time-wasting and confusion once the project gets underway).
Assigning tasks to the roles (i.e. who will do what).
Organizing tasks in a logical and sequential order (i.e. their flow).

Without clearly-defined tasks, things can fall through the cracks, especially if there are multiple people working on a project and/or or multiple teams responsible for ensuring the completion of projects. Vaguely-defined tasks can lead to confusion and lack of accountability (e.g. “I didn’t know I was supposed to do that…I thought such and such was looking after that area!”).

For this reason, it’s important that tasks be made clear enough so that anyone occupying the role assigned to the task will know exactly what needs to be done to complete their part and move it along to the next stage of the production process.

Here’s how to ensure this happens:

Break each task down into its smallest possible elements. For example, after a blog article has been approved for publishing and before hitting the “publish” button, there may be additional steps involved to the post itself (i.e. not the content), like adding a post excerpt, meta description, author’s note, related articles, categories, tags, etc.
Work out who is responsible for each element. For example, if you are creating an infographic, make sure to specify who will do the research and who will supply the graphic designer or illustrator with accurate data (and in which format, e.g. a list, table, slide mock up, etc.). Similarly, who will upload the final article to the blog and hit the publish button…the writer, the editor, or the production manager?
Assign each element of the task to a specific team member. This will help you work out whether certain roles have excessive workloads in the production process and whether these can be distributed, reassigned, or consolidated within existing roles and the available resources.
Ask for feedback when assigning tasks. It may be more efficient for someone else to take on a task. For example, when writing a technical article, a product manager may be more suitable for writing out all of the key points and then handing this to a writer for making the content flow in a more readable way to the audience. This can be worked out during the team production meeting.
Work out agreed ways to signal the completion of a task. Using good workflow management tools can help in this area.

As most tasks in workflows tend to be repeatable processes, it’s best to document these tasks and anything else that helps to complete them, like style guidelines, company information (e.g. mission, vision, and value statements, legal compliance policies, etc.), and store this documentation somewhere where your team can easily access it.

Timelines

Ideally, you would start from the deadline or final publication date for the content, then work backward to create a timeline, adding in specific dates or time frames for all the steps in the process. This way, each team member knows when their task is coming up and when it is due and can plan their workload accordingly.

For example, Let’s say that you are in the first week of July and during your production meeting, the team is informed about a new product due for release on August 1st that needs an accompanying article to be written and ready to publish by the end of July.

Let’s also say that from past experience, you know that it takes articles one working week to go through the feedback loop for reviews and approvals, 2-3 days to write the first draft, and 2-3 days to research and create an outline once the writer is given a content brief.

Working backward from the deadline, the initial schedule for making sure that the article will be ready in time for publishing would look something like this…

Example of a content production calendar with project milestones written in. — What your production calendar timeline would look like working backward from a deadline for submitting publish-ready content.

From the above schedule, you would then assign all the tasks required to complete the project to different roles and incorporate your content workflow into your content management tool to track its progress.

While this approach may work for getting content delivered in sync with a specific marketing promotion or event (e.g. a “Black Friday” sale) and is quite useful for content planning purposes, things often don’t work out to plan, so it’s important to include enough time into the content production process for additional edits, revisions, and unexpected events, such as:

A team member gets sick or goes on leave,
Competing priorities create delays, hold-ups, or bottlenecks in the production process,
The project schedule is brought forward (e.g. to match a product release or company announcement).

Tools

Using the right tools allows everyone involved in the project to have a clear idea of what, when, and where their contribution is required in the workflow, and to keep track of where things are at during production.

We cover this area in more detail in this lesson: Content Production Tools

Workflow Approach

Once everything has been defined — phases, timelines, roles, tasks, etc., the next step is to choose a workflow approach and arrange all production elements in a way that will work for the business or organization.

As explained in this article, there are three main workflow approaches:

Status-based: The workflow is organized around the status of a content piece.
Task-based: The workflow is organized around the tasks needed to complete the project.
Swim lane: The workflow is organized across different roles over time.

Swimlane Diagram — An example of tasks organized using the ‘swim lane’ workflow approach. Source: Smartsheet.com

Project/Content Brief

A content brief (or project brief, or creative brief) is a document that outlines the project’s context, purpose, and deliverables. It provides whoever is assigned to create the content with all the information and direction they need to make sure that their efforts will be on track and on purpose.

A content brief helps to:

Set out project expectations clearly and concisely.
Make the team focus on the most important areas of the project.
Save unnecessary editing and revisions.
Deliver content that fits the purpose and goals of the organization’s content strategy.

Depending on the project type, a content brief may include/address the following areas:

Project background (i.e. why is this content required?)
Target audience/buyer persona (if the organization targets multiple audiences)
Content type(s) and deliverables
Project timeline, deadline, and key milestones
Suggested titles, target keywords
Initial research (e.g. competing articles, reference sources, etc.)
Resources (e.g. supporting statistics, quotes, related articles for internal linking, etc.)
Access to subject matter experts (if required). This can be as simple as pointing out who to contact in the organization to obtain information (e.g. a product manager), or something more elaborate, such as lining up interviews with industry experts.

To help you understand what a content brief looks like, here is an example of a content brief for an article listing the best espresso coffee machines:

*** Start Content Brief ***

Title: “Top 10 Best Espresso Coffee Machines for At-Home Brewing”

Purpose: To provide readers with a list of the best espresso coffee machines for at-home brewing, based on factors such as performance, ease of use, and price.

Target audience: Home coffee enthusiasts who are interested in purchasing an espresso coffee machine for at-home brewing.

Objectives:

To help readers find the best espresso coffee machine for their needs and budget.
To provide detailed information about the features and performance of each espresso coffee machine.
To offer tips and recommendations for selecting the right espresso coffee machine.

Keywords: espresso, coffee machine, at-home brewing, performance, ease of use, price, features

Outline:

1. Introduction

Explain the purpose of the article and introduce the topic of espresso coffee machines.
Provide a brief overview of the different types of espresso coffee machines available, and explain why they are a popular choice for at-home brewing.

2. Top 10 Best Espresso Coffee Machines

Introduce the list of the top 10 best espresso coffee machines, and explain the criteria used to select them (performance, ease of use, price, etc.).
For each espresso coffee machine on the list, provide a brief overview of its features and performance, and explain why it made the top 10.

3. Tips and Recommendations

Offer tips and recommendations for selecting the right espresso coffee machine, based on factors such as budget, intended use, and personal preferences.
Provide guidance on how to properly use and maintain an espresso coffee machine to ensure optimal performance.

4. Conclusion

Summarize the main points of the article and encourage readers to consider purchasing one of the top 10 best espresso coffee machines for at-home brewing.

**** End Content Brief ***

Content briefs are not only useful for helping your content team nail projects when creating standardized content types internally but they can also be used in projects that involve working with new or inexperienced writers and content creators, outsourced (e.g. freelance) writers and marketing agencies, partners who are writing content about your company, or when creating projects on behalf of clients.

In all of the above instances, writing content or creative briefs before starting on the work will help content creators stay focused on the project’s goals, audiences, topics, keywords, etc., and deliver content that will meet your defined standard, voice, style, and needs.

Useful Tips:

Don’t overload content creators by supplying them with more information than they need to complete the project.
Ideally, the brief would also incorporate some form of initial meeting or discussion with the content team and individuals involved in the project to address any questions or concerns they may have and to make sure that everyone clearly understands the project and what is expected of them.
It’s also useful to develop a content brief template that the team can easily understand and follow.

For additional information on creating content briefs, see the ‘Resources’ and ‘References’ sections at the end of this lesson.

Workflow Sub-Processes

Depending on the size of your business and the complexity of its projects, certain aspects of content production may take place in different areas of the business or outside the organization.

In this case, you may want to consider creating separate workflow sub-processes to ensure that content production remains manageable.

For example, in larger companies, content approval and content publishing often involve more people, different departments, or outsourcing to professionals outside the organization, so the business may want to consider treating these as sub-processes of the content production process and having separate workflows to manage these areas.

The content approval workflow would then focus on the ‘sign-off’ process and deal specifically with content approval or rejection, while the content publishing workflow would focus specifically on the publication process.

Document Storage

An efficient content production process needs a system that allows content to be stored, organized, and retrieved at each stage of production.

This will depend on what works best for your organization.

You can use workflow management software to do this or just simply set up a numbered series of folders on a shared drive or cloud storage location that allows each member of the team to go into the folder on a specified date and see at a glance whether there is work waiting for them to do and what their tasks and responsibilities are for that day.

Ideally, you will use a combination of both methods. For example, you can run content projects from a workflow management tool and allow team members to add and access media elements such as images, videos, and downloadable files from numbered folders saved on a shared drive.

Example of using numbered folders to organize a content project — You can organize your content project using content workflow software of numbered folders. Source: EngageContent.com.au

We cover this area in more detail here: Content Workflow Documentation

Content Production Schedule

The next step after defining your content workflow is to create a content production schedule.

This is the schedule that your content team will work to in order to meet content production targets and deliver content within specific deadlines.

The content production schedule will depend on how much content the business needs to create and the structure of your content team. This schedule can be refined as you go.

Once your content team gets into its stride, you will have a better idea of how long it takes to create content outlines, edit drafts, wait for people to review articles, coordinate items and events between different calendars (e.g. content production and content promotion calendars), what days are best to publish content, etc.

This is covered in more detail in this lesson: Content Production Team Schedule.

Content Workflow Checklist

Define the goals and objectives of your content workflow: Clearly define the goals and objectives of the content workflow, such as streamlining the content creation process and ensuring consistency in the quality of the content.
Identify all stakeholders: Identify all stakeholders involved in the content creation process, including content creators, editors, and approvers.
Define roles and responsibilities: Define the roles and responsibilities for each stakeholder in the content creation process.
Establish a content creation process: Establish a content creation process that outlines the steps for creating, reviewing, editing, and publishing content.
Use a content management system (CMS): Use a content management system (CMS) to manage and organize the content creation process.
Set deadlines and milestones: Set deadlines and milestones for each step of the content creation process.
Implement a content review process: Implement a content review process to ensure the quality and consistency of the content.
Use a version control system: Use a version control system to keep track of the different versions of the content and ensure that the final version is accurate.
Set up an approval process: Set up an approval process for the final version of the content before it is published.
Continuously monitor and improve: Continuously monitor and improve the content workflow based on the results and feedback.

Content Workflow – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content workflow:

What is content workflow?

Content workflow refers to the structured processes and steps involved in creating, managing, and distributing content. It ensures consistent execution and quality across content projects.

Why is content workflow important?

Content workflow is crucial because it helps teams maintain efficiency, consistency, and quality in content creation and distribution. It also facilitates better collaboration and accountability among team members.

What are the typical stages of a content workflow?

The stages usually include planning, creation, review, approval, publication, and analysis. These stages help in managing the content lifecycle effectively.

What tools are commonly used in content workflows?

Tools like CMS (Content Management Systems), image creation and editing tools, and word processors are frequently used for creating and managing content. Digital asset management systems are also essential for handling multimedia content.

How do I choose the right content workflow for my team?

Assess your team’s specific needs, the types of content you produce, your publication frequency, and your team’s size. It might also be beneficial to consider customizable templates or software that can adapt to your organization’s changing needs.

What are the benefits of a well-defined content workflow?

A well-defined workflow improves operational efficiency, reduces errors, ensures content quality, and helps meet deadlines. It can also lead to better content alignment with business goals.

Can content workflow impact content quality?

Yes, a well-managed workflow ensures that all content is properly vetted and refined through stages like editing and approval, which significantly enhances the quality of the final output.

Summary

Defining content workflows ensures that the content production process works efficiently by following a logical and repeatable order.

Content workflows also help your content team set clear milestones and recognize any dependencies required to help them meet project deadlines on time.

Action Steps

Identify and document all the different content workflows your organization requires to meet its strategic objectives.

Resources

Free content workflow checklist – this useful article includes a downloadable checklist that will help you identify tasks, timeframes, and assign responsibilities.
Content Marketing Strategy Tips and Templates – A great list of downloadable templates for different content projects.
Content Brief Templates (MarketMuse) – Use this online tool to create content briefs using AI-enabled technologies that analyze competing content on similar topics.
Content Brief Template (Zapier) – Use this template for an effective, SEO-focused content brief.

References

Next Step

Learn how to document content workflows: Workflow Documentation

***

Image: Whiteboard

Workflow Documentation

Learn how to document your content workflow for ease of use and quick access to everything your content team needs for content production.

Content Workflow Documentation

Learn how to document your content workflow for ease of use and quick access to everything your content team needs for content production.

Documenting your content workflow is not only important to ensure the efficiency of your content production process, but it is also an important aspect of your organization’s overall content documentation system.

In this lesson, we’ll cover:

The Importance Of Documenting Your Content Workflow
Workflow Management Tools
Additional Workflow Documentation
Storing Workflow Documentation
Accessing Workflow Documentation

***

Contents

The Importance Of Documenting Your Content Workflow

According to the Content Marketing Institute, documenting your content workflow:

Provides structure and visibility to content production processes
Increases execution efficiency to help deliver content on time
Helps your team to better understand how dependencies affect processes
Increases clarity into when and how to push work forward
Enables faster content approvals and less rework

Documenting workflows not only helps to define the roles, tasks, processes, and steps involved in the production of content, it also helps to organize content ideas, prioritize projects, track their execution, determine what happens to the content after its published, and record how and where all the information gets stored.

Workflow Management Tools

In the Content Workflow lesson, you were asked to identify what each role in the content production process does for any given workflow, break these down into tasks, assign each task to a role, and order these tasks in a logical and sequential order of completion.

After you have done this, where do you then record all this information so everyone in your team can access it to begin and track content production?

You can do this manually (e.g. using a spreadsheet or drawing it on a whiteboard), use workflow management software, or a combination of both. It all depends on how your business works and what works best.

As long as workflow processes are defined and written down somewhere (and don’t exist only in someone’s head), you have documentation that others can access and refer to. Later in this lesson, we’ll look at how to organize this documentation more efficiently for easy access and retrieval.

For now, let’s look at using various tools to document your workflow processes.

Spreadsheets

If you have been tasked with designing, building, and documenting a content workflow for your organization, spreadsheets are a great way to develop a prototype for your content production workflows.

Using spreadsheets can help you focus on streamlining the production stages and tasks in your workflow, identify dependencies and issues, and track your content production team’s progress.

Case Study

When I began working as a blog writer for a web development services provider, my team consisted of myself, two other blog writers, and our CEO who was also filling in for the role of Editor.

Each week, we would discuss ideas for new articles during our weekly team meeting. Each writer would then go and write the articles, and get them reviewed until these were approved and published, and we would then repeat the process the following week.

After a short while, our small team began to grow. Additional writers and illustrators were brought in, and I soon found myself having to schedule the production of new content for the blog in addition to reviewing and updating existing content.

We had guidelines for getting the work done but no clearly defined workflows for managing and tracking the people and processes involved, so I created a spreadsheet with various color-coded sections and workflow columns to schedule new projects and keep track of our content production.

Workflow Documentation - Blog Team Content Production Spreadsheet — Our team initially used a spreadsheet-based content production board to schedule and track the production of new articles for our blog.

As we began to rely more on this spreadsheet to plan and manage our team’s workload, I then fine-tuned, inserted, and rearranged some columns within the spreadsheet to improve workflow efficiency.

Workflow Documentation - Blog Team - Content Workflow Spreadsheet — Starting with a spreadsheet is a useful way to test, improve, and document your content workflow.

When working with spreadsheets, we also recommend adding comments to all the column headings so your content team knows exactly what they are required to do every step of the way.

Adding comments to Excel spreadsheet — Adding comments to spreadsheet column headers is a great way to document your workflow processes.

In addition to content writing, our blog articles also require custom artwork such as featured images (hero banners). This is done by our illustrators.

WPMU DEV Blog — Creating articles for this blog involves using illustrators to create featured images and documenting this in the workflow as a sub-process. Source: WPMU DEV.

Our illustrators and designers, however, create artwork for the entire company, not just the blog team. Also, each writer in the blog team is responsible for sourcing images, creating screenshots, and requesting artwork for their articles, so the blog team mostly uses the company’s illustrators to request featured images for articles.

Given this structure, we decided to incorporate the task of requesting and tracking the delivery of featured images into the workflow as a sub-process, using a separate spreadsheet.

Workflow Documentation - Post banner requests - workflow tracking spreadsheet. — Featured images for blog articles are requested separately using a banner request spreadsheet.

All our illustrators have to do is:

Check the spreadsheet for new banner requests (when a writer requests a new banner we notify our artwork team via our team messaging software)
Assign the creation of the banner to one of their team members (they decide who to assign the work to internally, we just place the request)
Provide a link to download the artwork when the banner is done.

Whichever writer requested the banner then uploads the featured image to their article and marks the task as completed (“done”) in the artwork team’s spreadsheet.

The writer then marks this task as done in the blog team’s main content tracking spreadsheet.

Workflow Documentation - Blog Team - Main content workflow spreadsheet. — Featured images for blog articles are also marked off in the team’s main content spreadsheet.

In addition to featured images, some of our blog articles include cartoons created by one of our team members who is a professional cartoonist.

Screenshot of an article from WPMU DEV blog with an embedded cartoon image. — Requesting cartoons for blog articles is a separate process. Source: WPMU DEV

As our illustrators are not involved in creating cartoons, this is another sub-process of the blog’s content workflow, so the team uses a different spreadsheet to submit cartoon requests and to track the completion and delivery of the artwork.

Workflow Documentation - Screenshot of a spreadsheet used to request and track delivery of cartoon artwork — Requests for cartoon artwork for blog articles are tracked on a separate spreadsheet.

The blog team also makes all published blog articles available to the SEO team to review, analyze, and look for ways to improve their performance.

As we don’t want to overload the SEO team with unnecessary and unrelated “content production” information, we treat this as another sub-process of our content workflow and track it on a separate spreadsheet after articles are published on the blog.

Workflow Documentation - Screenshot of WPMU DEV's Blog SEO Review spreadsheet. — Another spreadsheet is used to keep a log of all published blog articles for review by the company’s SEO team.

In addition to using spreadsheets, our team uses tools like Slack (our team messaging software) to add content writing task reminders for deadlines and schedules during times when team members and other company staff are away on leave, holidays, etc. (you can also use an editorial calendar.)

Screenshot of Slack thread with content writing schedules and reminders. — Use tools like Slack to communicate with team members and add content writing schedules and reminders.

A production and performance summary report is also compiled from the spreadsheets at the end of the year and posted to the team on Slack.

Screenshot: Blog team production summary report - Slack — We publish a simple blog team summary production summary report at the end of the year.

As you can see from the above, documenting the content workflow of something as simple as the production of a single content type (e.g. blog articles) can involve various processes.

If your workflow management needs outgrow spreadsheets, then consider using other software tools.

Workflow Management Software

While spreadsheets are a great way to document some workflow processes, you may want to use a workflow management software.

For instance, with the example we’re using in this lesson, spreadsheets are sufficient to document certain sub-processes like requesting images/artwork and for tracking SEO progress. Documenting the entire content production workflow, however, required using a more flexible tool.

Getting approval for blog articles, for example, often involves members from other teams (e.g. software development, hosting, support, and business development teams), and work priorities often change to align with other events taking place in the company, such as releasing new product features and new service launches (or launch delays).

So, we turned to workflow management software when spreadsheets were no longer adequate to help us manage content production.

There are many great workflow management tools available and the right tool for your organization depends on its needs and preferences. In this case, we decided to use Jira to document and manage our workflow processes, as most of our teams were already using it to manage their workflows.

A workflow management software is not just a great content production tool, it is also a powerful workflow documentation tool.

As mentioned earlier, starting with a spreadsheet is useful for developing prototype workflows. After learning the basics of how to use the software, all we had to do was to map out the content workflow processes in the tool.

Jira screen: Assignment workflow — A tool like Jira automatically documents the workflow as you configure processes on your kanban board.

Once this step was done, managing content workflow became much easier. The tool itself became one of the main components of our workflow documentation process.

Jira board screen. — The columns display the content production workflow.

Some of the benefits of using a workflow management tool to document processes include the following:

Any team member can contribute to improving workflow documentation by modifying the workflow management tool itself.

For example, team feedback and discussions contributed to improving the order of processes to improve production flow and efficiency. Adding, removing, or rearranging the columns on the tool’s kanban board automatically updates the workflow documentation.

Jira - Task transition menu — A workflow management tool like Jira lets you easily assign tasks to different stages of the production process.

Using agreed standards and conventions for creating projects in the tool also benefits the workflow documentation.

Screenshot of a section of a Jira board showing a task added to a workflow column. — Using agreed standards when adding tasks to the workflow tool helps the content team and is also part of the workflow documentation.

Additionally, you can improve the workflow documentation by building “templates” for new jobs into the workflow processes.

These templates can include essential elements of the project brief, such as:

Project description – This section provides notes and background to help whoever is assigned the job understand what is required.
Reference – Here, we add any links to internal conversations and discussions about the project. Writers can then get a better idea of things like context, suggestions made by other team members, things to highlight or avoid in the content, etc.
Keywords – Keyword research information goes here. The writer knows then which keywords to focus on when creating or updating the article.
Internal Links – Here we list the URLs of other blog posts related to the topic so the writer can link to these in the article where and when appropriate.
Competition – Here, we provide a list of competing articles on the topic or keywords that we are targeting. This helps the writer research the topic and gives them a better idea of what the article needs to cover to rank competitively with other existing articles.

Screenshot of a job in Jira with built-in workflow templates. — Add templates to your workflow management tool to improve workflow documentation.

Templates can improve workflow (and workflow documentation) significantly. When a writer is assigned a new blog article project, for example, they already have all the information they need to get started…

Screenshot of Jira job with sections of a job template filled in. — Templates can improve workflow documentation significantly.

This can also help the writer save time with other tasks, such as doing research or linking to existing topic-related articles on the blog…

Collaboration features such as team commenting are also part of the workflow documentation.

Screenshot of Jira comments section. — A workflow management tool allows team members to add comments to communicate and collaborate with other team members on projects.

A workflow management tool, in fact, documents everything associated with a project’s workflow. This includes brief notes, comments, attachments, production time, etc.

Screenshot of Jira job board. — Everything associated with the project’s workflow is recorded, documented, and archived.

Workflow documentation isn’t confined to using a great content production and workflow management tool, however.

Additional Workflow Documentation

In the content workflow lesson, we explain the importance of breaking down and defining each task in as much detail as is necessary to minimize confusion, avoid unnecessary steps, save time, and improve workflow efficiency.

This all requires additional documentation.

For example, let’s say that a new writer has to create an article about one of the company’s main products or services.

Where does the writer go to get information about the company and the products, request or download artwork, obtain access logins for certain tools or services required to complete the article, standards and guidelines for spelling and grammar, accuracy, voice and tone, or compliance with certain policies or legal requirements?

These aren’t documented in the workflow management tool. They require additional workflow documentation.

Below are some of the essential types of documentation your organization should have and be able to provide to its content team. It will help them save time planning, researching, and accessing commonly-used information (and minimize disrupting other team members from doing their work):

Marketing Information

Product Information

Landing Pages (Sales/Pricing)
User Manuals
FAQs
Roadmap

Style Guidelines

Standards and guidelines for spelling and grammar, accuracy, voice, and tone, etc.

See this excellent article if you need help putting together a Content Style Guide: Content Style Guide – A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating Your Own

Templates

Content Brief
Call-T0-Action (CTA)

Checklists

Pre-Publishing Checks (these can be printed, online, or built into your Content Management System).

WordPress Plugin - Pre-Publish Checklist — Pre-publishing checklists can be built into your Content Management System (CMS). Image: Pre-Publish Checklist Plugin.

For a complete list of useful documentation for your content writing team, refer to the Content Documentation lesson.

For tasks that require more details than the workflow tool can provide, we recommend building an online guide for your content team with regularly updated links to internal documentation, style guidelines, useful information, tips, tutorials, login details for online services, code snippets, shortcuts, time-saving hacks, etc.

The purpose of this guide is to point your team to all the information and resources they will need to complete their projects (e.g. where to find company information, audience profiles, word-count goals, style guidelines for voice, tone, and format, etc.).

This is a great way to help your team save time with content production and onboard new team members.

Screenshot - WPMU DEV Blog Team Guide — Build an online guide for your content team with links to all the documentation they need to produce content.

You can build this helpful guide starting with just the basic information like useful links to company documentation, get your team to contribute to it (e.g. whenever someone experiences an issue and finds a way to solve it), and appoint someone to manage the guide and be responsible for keeping the content in it up-to-date and accurate.

You can build this guide online in a subfolder of your main domain (e.g. yourdomain.com/content-guide) and make it private using a content management system like WordPress or build it on a platform like Google Sites.

Storing and Accessing Workflow Documentation

Your Workflow Management software can document some of your workflow processes, but where do you store additional documentation used in your content workflow, such as style guides, content brief templates, etc.?

We address this topic in the Content Documentation lesson.

Content Workflow Documentation Checklist

Define the purpose of your content workflow documentation: This step involves identifying the goals and objectives of creating the documentation, such as improving team collaboration, streamlining the content creation process, and ensuring consistency in the content produced.
Gather information: This step involves collecting information about the current content creation process, including the roles and responsibilities of team members, the tools and software used, and any existing documentation or guidelines.
Identify key stakeholders: This step involves identifying the individuals or teams who will be impacted by the content workflow documentation, such as content creators, editors, and marketers.
Create a template: This step involves creating a template for the content workflow documentation, including sections for an introduction, roles and responsibilities, the content creation process, tools and software, and any relevant guidelines or best practices.
Outline the content creation process: This step involves outlining your step-by-step process for creating content, from idea generation to publication.
Assign roles and responsibilities: This step involves assigning roles and responsibilities to team members, including who is responsible for creating, editing, and publishing content.
Identify tools and software: This step involves identifying the tools and software used in the content creation process, such as content management systems, project management tools, and design software.
Develop guidelines and best practices: This step involves developing guidelines and best practices for the content creation process, such as style and tone guidelines, and accessibility standards.
Document procedures: After defining all of the above steps, it’s important to document your procedures.
Review and test: This step involves reviewing and testing the content workflow documentation, seeking feedback from key stakeholders, and making any necessary revisions.
Finalize and distribute: This step involves finalizing the content workflow documentation and distributing it to the appropriate team members, ensuring that everyone has access to the latest version.

Content Workflow Documentation – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content workflow documentation:

What is content workflow documentation?

Content workflow documentation outlines the step-by-step process of how content is created, reviewed, approved, and published within an organization’s content management system (CMS).

Why is content workflow documentation important?

It ensures consistency, efficiency, and accountability in content creation processes, helping teams understand their roles and responsibilities.

What elements are included in content workflow documentation?

It typically includes workflow diagrams, role descriptions, content templates, approval criteria, and escalation procedures.

How do organizations create content workflow documentation?

Organizations analyze their content creation process, identify key stakeholders, define roles, map out workflow steps, and document these processes using tools like flowcharts or specialized software.

How does content workflow documentation improve collaboration?

It fosters clear communication between team members by outlining who is responsible for each task, reducing misunderstandings and streamlining collaboration.

What are the benefits of documenting content workflows?

Benefits include increased productivity, reduced errors, faster turnaround times, better content quality, and compliance with regulatory requirements.

How often should content workflow documentation be updated?

It should be reviewed regularly to reflect any changes in processes, personnel, or technology to ensure its relevance and effectiveness.

Summary

Documenting workflow processes helps your content production team know what they are doing (or what they are supposed to do) and shows them how to do it in the most efficient and effective way possible.

This frees everyone in your team to focus more of their time and energy on creating better content.

Action Steps

If you haven’t begun to document your content workflow processes yet, then it’s important to make a beginning.

You can start simply by writing down or typing out processes and procedures in bullet point form so they are recorded and stored somewhere, and bookmarking links to frequently accessed pages of your website or other sites, shared drive folders, useful tools, resources, etc.

Documentation is an ongoing process, so get started and continually add to it. Get everyone in your team or company to contribute to growing and improving this documentation and remember to schedule periodic reviews to make sure everything is kept up-to-date.

Resources

Content Production Tools – A list of useful tools for creating and managing your content production.

References

Next Step

Learn how to define your Content Workflow
Learn about different Content Types
Return to the Content Production overview
Return to the Course Outline

***

Image: Writing Pad

Screenshots published with permission from WPMU DEV and members of the WPMU DEV blog team.

Content Production

Learn how to develop an effective content production process that delivers consistently high-quality content on a regular basis.

Content Production

Learn how to develop an effective content production process that delivers consistently high-quality content on a regular basis.

Typewriter — Content…a website’s gotta have it!

Your business needs to produce high-quality content to attract leads and engage with your audience, delivered regularly, and often adapted to multiple channels.

This requires developing and maintaining an effective content production process.

In this lesson, we’ll cover:

What Is Content Production?
The Key Components Of A Content Production Process
Troubleshooting Common Content Production Problems

***

Contents

Before You Begin

Make sure to review and complete the lessons in the Content Strategy and Content Planning modules before you begin.

As a subscriber, you will also get notified when new posts containing practical information and valuable content management tips are added to our blog.

What Is Content Production?

Let’s look at some definitions from the web…

“Content production is the process of creating written and visual products for distribution as part of an overall content marketing strategy.”

Source: SEOptimer

And…

“Content production is the process of developing and creating visual or written assets, such as videos, eBooks, blog posts, whitepapers, or infographics.”

Source: Upland Software

As the above suggests, content production is a process.

Content production, however, is more than just a process. It’s also a system. And like every system, it requires inputs and outputs.

Your Content System: Content Strategy And Content Production

Having a content strategy is not the same as having a content production system:

“Content strategy = the plan that informs what you publish, how you publish and why you publish (ie business value)”

vs…

“Content production = the series of defined, documented, steps that take each piece of content from idea to publication and analyze its effectiveness in advancing your content strategy.”

Source: SEOptimer

Both your content strategy and content production process, however, are essential parts of a “self-looping” feedback system that can create and deliver content of great value to help your organization achieve its objectives.

In fact, a content strategy (and the content plan derived from its strategic objectives) are the inputs the content production process needs to output the various types of content your business needs to meet its strategic goals and objectives.

A good content production system, then, allows your business to:

Produce quality content for one or more content types that serve a definite purpose for your organization.
Maintain a steady flow of newly published content of a consistent standard.
Communicate roles and responsibilities clearly within the content production team and across other teams.
Identify, prevent, reduce, solve, and/or eliminate problems that arise in the content production process.
Adjust the types of content it produces if there are any changes made to the content strategy or content plan.
Scale its efforts.

It can’t be emphasized enough that content needs to be created (and distributed, and managed) as part of a well-thought-out system.

Your business may create an occasional brilliant piece of content ad-hoc, but without a strategy, planning, and systems, it will have no way to understand what makes the content resonate with your audience, what your true cost of production is, and how to duplicate this success across other topics or different content types.

The Key Components Of A Content Production Process

Now that we have established the importance of thinking of content production as being part of a system, let’s look at the main components of the content production process.

Content Production components. — Key components of the content production process.

Content Ideas

Coming up with ideas for your content can be a challenging part of the content creation process.

With the right sources and methods, however, you can generate a steady stream of ideas to keep your content fresh and engaging.

Some sources and methods you can use to generate ideas for your content include:

Your audience: Your audience is a great source of ideas for content. Consider what questions, problems, or interests your audience has, and create content that addresses those topics.
Industry experts and thought leaders: Follow industry experts and thought leaders in your field and look for ideas for content that align with their work and insights.
Trends and news: Stay up-to-date on current trends and news in your industry, and use them as inspiration for your content.
Social media: Social media is a great source of inspiration for content ideas. Look for conversations, hashtags, and trends on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Brainstorming: Get your team together and have a brainstorming session to generate ideas for content. This can be a fun and creative way to come up with new and innovative ideas.
Competitor analysis: Take a look at what your competitors are doing and see if there are any gaps in their content. This can help you identify opportunities for your own content.

By using these sources and methods, you can generate a wide range of ideas for your content and keep your audience engaged with fresh and relevant material.

We’ve created a comprehensive email course on how to keep coming up with endless new content ideas for website articles, blog posts, and newsletters…100% free!

Learn more here: Free Content Ideas Course

Your Content Workflow

If your business intends to create and publish content repeatedly, then it needs an effective content production process to keep moving concepts from ideas to published content.

For example, writing an article for your company’s blog may involve the following steps:

Create an outline.
Write a draft.
Review the draft.
Edit the draft.
Get changes approved.
Publish the article.

These steps form a simple content workflow.

Creating a content workflow involves defining:

The steps involved.
Who is responsible for doing each step.
What each step involves doing.
How and when should a process move to the next step.
What formats, guidelines, and procedures need to be followed to ensure that consistent standards are maintained.
How and when to deliver each step.
etc.

It also involves documenting:

How each step should be documented (and who will do this).
How and where the documentation should be stored.
Who can access and modify the documentation, processes, etc. (and how this should be done.)

While a workflow may define the process for creating one type of content (e.g. blog articles), it may not suit the production of other content types, such as videos, podcasts, slide presentations, ebooks, etc.

Some workflows may be simple, while others can be quite complex. Some projects may also require several different workflows to be assigned to different teams.

It’s important, therefore, to define workflows for all the different content processes that your business will engage in and all the different types of content it will create.

See the lessons below for details on how to create and document a content workflow for your business:

Content Team Roles

Let’s come back to this simple workflow…

The above process may be fine if you are the only person creating and publishing the content. In many businesses and organizations, however, a digital team comprised of multiple roles is often required to oversee and perform various content production tasks.

For example:

Content Strategists
Content Production Managers
Content Writers
Subject Experts
Designers & Illustrators
Content Editors
Marketers
Business Owners
Reviewers (e.g. HR, legal, accounting, technical, other department managers, etc.)
Web Developers

When multiple people are involved, the content workflow can look more like the swimlane diagram shown below.

Content workflow example - swimlane diagram — A content workflow with multiple roles involved in content production. Source: Content Marketing Institute.

A key component of the content production process, then, is being able to identify the specific roles required to perform and complete any given workflow, work out all the tasks involved, and assign each task to the respective role in its correct sequence.

Workflow Documentation

Documenting workflows not only helps to define the roles, tasks, processes, and steps involved in the production of content, but it also helps to organize content ideas, prioritize projects, track their execution, determine what happens to the content after its published, and record how and where all the information gets stored.

For more details on all of the above, see this lesson: Workflow Documentation

Content Production Tools

Many excellent tools can assist with content production, from managing the process itself to actually helping you to create the content.

For more details on various tools you can use, see this lesson: Content Production Tools

Content Production Review, Evaluation, And Measurement

To determine if your content production process is efficient and find ways to improve it, you must be able to measure, review, and evaluate it.

There are several ways to do this. For example, you can measure its qualitative and quantitative outputs:

Qualitative Outputs – Has the content met its brief? Were content guidelines for structure, style, formatting, etc. followed correctly?
Quantitative Outputs – Are content production targets being met? How much new content is being added and coming through the pipeline?

Content Production Efficiency = Qualitative Outputs and Quantitative Outputs — Having measurable outputs can help you evaluate content production efficiency.

You can also measure content production efficiency using time/cost-based metrics, such as:

1. Time to publish – how long it takes to move a piece from ideation to publication.
2. Time to distribute – how long it takes to get published content in the hands of the intended audience(s).
3. Withdrawal time – how quickly can published content with errors be withdrawn from public access or outdated content be reviewed.
4. Production cost – how much a piece costs to create.
5. Distribution cost – how much publishing a piece to each targeted channel costs.

Source: Vodori

A time/cost model for measuring content production efficiency. *Source: Vodori*

You can also use a combination of metrics to measure B2B content production efficiency, such as those used by Upland:

Measuring content production efficiency — B2B Content Metrics. Source: Upland

For more details on the above metrics, see this article: How To Measure Content Production Efficiency

Once you have a way to measure your content production efficiency, you can review and evaluate it by surveying key project stakeholders and getting their feedback regarding the processes involved.

Your Content Production Plan

Now that you understand the content production process better, it’s time to create your content production plan.

Your content production plan is a document that outlines the strategy and schedule for creating, publishing, and promoting content for your business.

It typically includes the goals and objectives for your content, your target audience, the types of content you will produce, the distribution channels you will use, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) you will use to measure the success of your content production efforts.

Your business needs a content production plan because it helps you to align your content efforts with your overall marketing and business goals and to ensure that you are creating content that is relevant, valuable, and engaging for your target audience.

It also allows your business to allocate its resources and budget more efficiently toward content creation and track your content’s performance over time.

Additionally, a content production plan can help your business to identify and fill gaps in your content offerings, and stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.

In short, a content production plan is a detailed plan that outlines the specific actions and resources that your business will use to create and publish its content.

It is a more detailed version of your content plan and will help your business stay organized and on schedule when creating content.

Content Production Plan Goals And Objectives

Common content production plan goals and objectives include:

Content planning: The goal is to plan and strategize the creation, distribution, and promotion of content. This can be achieved by creating an editorial calendar, identifying a target audience, and defining KPIs.
Content creation: The goal is to create high-quality, engaging, and relevant content that meets the needs of your target audience. This can be achieved by writing blog posts, creating videos, and designing graphics and infographics
Content optimization: The goal is to improve the quality and performance of your content by ensuring it is well-written, visually appealing, and optimized for search engines and social media. This can be achieved by optimizing headlines, meta descriptions, and images, using keywords and hashtags, and making sure the content is mobile-friendly.
Content distribution: The goal is to distribute and promote content through various channels, such as social media, email, and other digital platforms. This can be achieved by publishing content on your website, sharing it on social media, and sending newsletters.
Content measurement and analytics: The goal is to track and measure your content’s performance in terms of engagement, conversion, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). This can be achieved by using analytics tools to track website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates
Content repurposing: The goal is to repurpose your existing content in new and different formats for different channels and audiences. This can be achieved by republishing a blog post as a video, creating an e-book from a series of blog posts, and turning a podcast episode into a transcript
Content updating: The goal is to keep your content up-to-date and relevant by updating or removing outdated information. This can be achieved by updating a blog post with new information, removing a broken link, or revising an old video.

How To Create A Content Production Plan

Here are the steps you can follow to create a content production plan for your business:

Review your content plan: Review your content plan and make sure that you have a clear understanding of your audience, goals, topics, and distribution channels.
Assign roles and responsibilities: Determine who will be responsible for each aspect of the content creation process. This might include research, writing, editing, design, and distribution.
Create a content calendar: Use a calendar or scheduling tool to plan out when each piece of content will be created, reviewed, and published. This will help you stay on track and ensure that you have a steady stream of content to share with your audience.
Define your workflow: Create a detailed workflow outlining the specific steps that will be taken for each piece of content. This should include research, writing, editing, design, and distribution.
Outline your process for creating each type of content: Identify the tools, resources, and steps required to create different types of content, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.
Review and optimize: Regularly review your content production plan and make adjustments as needed. Use metrics to measure the success of your content and make changes that will help improve results over time.

Example Of A Content Production Plan

Here is an example of what a simple content production plan for a fashion e-commerce store might look like:

Audience: Women between the ages of 20-35
Goals: Increase brand awareness, generate leads, boost sales
Competitors: Asos, Zara, H&M
Topics:
- Latest fashion trends
- Outfit inspiration
- How to style different clothing items
Plan:
- Blog post: once a week
- Instagram video: 3 times a week
- Instagram Reel: Once a week
- Pinterest Board: Once a month
Distribution:
- Social media: Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest
- Email marketing: Weekly newsletter
- Paid Advertising: Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads
Roles and responsibilities:
- Research: Marketing team
- Writing: Marketing team
- Editing: Marketing team
- Design: Graphic designer
- Distribution: Social media manager
Workflow:
- Research: 2 days
- Writing: 3 days
- Editing: 2 days
- Design: 2 days
- Distribution: 1 day

With a content production plan in place, the e-commerce store will be able to create and distribute a steady stream of high-quality content that resonates with its target audience, aligning with the overall business goals.

Content Creation – Best Practices

Creating high-quality and engaging content is crucial for your content marketing strategy.

Not only will it help you attract and retain an audience, but it will also help build trust and credibility for your brand.

Here are some best practices to follow when creating high-quality and engaging content:

Plan your content: Creating a content calendar or editorial plan can help you stay organized and ensure that you have a steady stream of ideas for your content.
Use relevant and reliable sources: Make sure to use credible sources when researching and creating your content. This will help you produce content that is accurate and trustworthy.
Start with a strong headline: Your headline is the first thing your audience will see, so make sure it’s attention-grabbing and clearly conveys the main message of your content.
Use formatting and design elements to enhance readability: Use formatting techniques like headings, bullet points, and bold text to make your content easier to read and scan.
Use visuals: Adding visual elements to your content like images, videos, and infographics can help break up text and make your content more engaging and easier for your audience to understand. Just make sure to use high-quality images and optimize your videos for mobile.
Know your audience: Understanding who your target audience is and what they are interested in will help you create content that resonates with them.
Write for your audience: Your content should be tailored to your target audience. Consider their interests, problems, and needs, and create content that addresses those topics.
Keep it simple: Use clear, concise language and avoid unnecessary jargon or complex concepts. This will help your content be more accessible and easier for your audience to read and understand.
Optimize for SEO: Use keywords and other SEO best practices to ensure that your content is discoverable by search engines and your target audience.
Use data and research to support your points: Including data and research in your content adds credibility and can help you make a stronger case for your points.
Edit and proofread: Make sure to edit and proofread your content to ensure it’s error-free and easy to understand.

By following these best practices, you can create high-quality and engaging content that resonates with your audience and helps you achieve your content goals.

Content Production Challenges

While content production is a crucial and necessary part of your content strategy, it can also present some challenges, especially as you try to create unique and original content for your business and website.

Here are some of the main challenges you may experience with content production:

Defining your target audience: One of the main hurdles of creating content for a website is defining your target audience and understanding their needs, interests, and pain points. This is crucial for creating relevant and valuable content that will engage them.
Content strategy: Another hurdle is to develop a content strategy that defines the type of content you will create, the topics you will cover, and the goals you will achieve.
Research and information gathering: One of the main challenges of creating unique and original content is researching and gathering the necessary information. This can take a significant amount of time and effort, and it can be difficult to find reliable and accurate sources of information.
Originality: Another challenge is to come up with original ideas and perspectives, as it’s easy to fall into the trap of creating content that is similar to what’s already out there.
Writing quality and style: Maintaining a consistent writing style and quality throughout the content is crucial for engaging the audience and building trust, but it can be challenging to achieve without the necessary skills and tools. It requires a good understanding of grammar, punctuation, and the target audience.
Formatting and design: Creating unique and original content requires the use of effective formatting and design, which can be challenging to achieve without the necessary skills and tools.
SEO and keyword research: Creating unique and original content that is optimized for search engines can be challenging, as it requires a good understanding of SEO and keyword research.
Time management: Creating unique and original content can be time-consuming, and it’s important to manage time effectively to ensure that the content is delivered on schedule.
Keeping up with trends: Another challenge is to keep up with trends and changes in the industry, which requires staying up to date with the latest developments and news.
Meeting the needs of the audience: Creating unique and original content that meets the needs of the target audience can be challenging, as it requires a good understanding of their preferences, interests, and pain points.
Measuring success: Measuring the success of your content can be a hurdle, as it requires tracking metrics such as engagement, traffic, and conversion rates.

Content Production Checklist

Define the purpose and target audience for the content: Before starting to create any content, it’s essential to understand why it’s being created and who it’s being created for. This will help guide the overall tone and style of the content.
Research and gather information: Gather all the information and resources you need to create the content, this includes researching industry trends, competitor content, and audience behavior.
Create an outline: Organize the information you’ve gathered into a logical structure, this will be your guide when creating the final piece of content.
Write the content: Using the outline as a guide, begin writing the content. Be sure to keep the tone and style consistent with the purpose and target audience defined in step one.
Edit and proofread: Once the content is written, read it over several times to catch any errors or inconsistencies. Make sure the content is clear, concise, and easy to understand.
Add media: Add any relevant images, videos, or other media to enhance the content and make it more engaging for the audience.
Optimize for SEO: Optimize the content for search engines by including relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and alt tags.
Publish and distribute: Once the content is final, publish it on your website or other platforms and promote it through social media and other channels to reach your target audience.
Track and analyze performance: Use analytics tools to track the performance of the content and gather insights on how to improve future content.

Troubleshooting Common Content Production Problems

Sometimes, problems affecting content creation may not surface until you reach the content production phase.

For example, once your team actually starts to create the content, they may discover an issue with their website that may prevent or limit the content from fulfilling its intended purpose. This can happen if an organization needs to implement a particular content model to achieve its goals and objectives that they did not incorporate during the web design process, leaving the business to try and force “round pegs into square holes”.

Knowing how to quickly identify and troubleshoot any problems or issues in content production ensures the best return on investment for businesses using content as a strategy for growth.

Content production problems may be related to inefficiencies that lead to content marketing waste or to the process itself.

Use the chart below to identify and troubleshoot any problems or issues that need fixing in your content production process.

Content Production - Troubleshooting Process — Troubleshooting Content Production

No Content Pipeline

Creating a content pipeline for content production can be challenging, but there are several strategies that can help you overcome this difficulty, including:

Define clear content goals: Having clear goals for the content that is being produced can help to ensure that your content is aligned with the overall objectives of your business. Develop a content strategy that outlines your business’s goals, target audience, and the type of content that will be created. Use this strategy as a guide for all your content creation efforts.
Create an editorial calendar: An editorial calendar can help to ensure that content is being produced on a consistent basis and that it aligns with the overall content strategy of your business. Create an editorial calendar that outlines the topics and types of content that will be created, and assign specific individuals or teams to create and publish content on a regular basis.
Establish a content creation process: Having a clear process in place for creating and approving content can help to streamline your content creation process. Establish a content creation process that includes stages such as researching, creating, editing, and publishing. Assign specific roles and responsibilities to team members at each stage of the process.
Automate tasks: Automating repetitive tasks can help to free up time and resources for more important tasks, such as creating new content. Use tools such as marketing automation software, scheduling tools, and social media management tools to automate tasks such as scheduling posts, creating content, and publishing content.
Repurpose and recycle content: Repurposing and recycling existing content can help to reduce the time and resources needed to create new content. Identify existing content that can be repurposed or recycled, such as blog posts or videos, and use them in different formats, such as an infographic or a podcast.
Outsource content creation: Outsourcing content creation can help to fill any gaps in the content pipeline and ensure that there is a consistent flow of high-quality content. Hire freelance writers, designers, or other content creators to help with content production. Make sure to set clear guidelines and instructions for the content being outsourced.

By implementing these strategies, your business can create a content pipeline that is efficient, effective, and aligned with your overall content strategy. This also helps to ensure that your business is able to produce high-quality content on a consistent basis and meet your content marketing goals.

Content Output Is Low

Suppose your content plan requires publishing 8 new articles on the company blog each month, but your content team is only delivering 3 or 4.

Check if this low output in content production is caused by one of the following reasons:

Resources

Low content output can be caused by having insufficient resources.

Does your business:

Have a content team (in-house, outsourced, or a combination of both) with the skills and capabilities to create and deliver the content?
Provide team members with access to the right content production tools?
Have a defined content workflow and workflow documentation?
Have an effective editorial calendar?
Hold regular content team meetings?

Workload

If your business has sufficient resources but content production output is low, the cause of the problem may be unrealistic workload expectations on individual team members.

For example, let’s say that your business expects a content writer to create well-researched long articles or tutorials (e.g. 1,500 – 2,000+ words) with links to authoritative references, detailed screenshots, charts/tables, and an accompanying video.

While the writer may have the tools and skills to perform all the tasks, the requirements may simply be too complex for one role to take everything on and complete it all within the expected time frame.

Additionally, the writer may be expected to perform other writing tasks for the company or be a shared resource for different departments, so their time and focus are being split into other areas.

In this case, a review of individual workloads may be necessary where an adjustment is either made to the expectations of the role or additional resources are brought in.

If you need new content ideas for your website, blog, or newsletter, subscribe to our FREE Infinite Content Ideas course.

Content Is Late

If your content production metrics show that the content output is on target but the content is frequently being delivered late, then look for issues in areas like delivery rates and workflow bottlenecks.

For example:

Has someone been made accountable for meeting project deadlines? If so, start by asking them what they see as causing the issue.
If the issue is caused by multiple stakeholders having a say in the content approval phase and not being able to agree on the final version, assign the final call to one person.
Are there too many dependencies or too many reviewers in the content workflow? If so, these can significantly extend production times and create delays and holdups in your content pipeline. Look for ways to improve process efficiency and eliminate non-essential decision-makers from your workflow.

Content Is Below Standard

If the content output is fine and the content is being delivered on time but the quality of the finished content is substandard, then look for issues in the following areas:

Content Brief & Guidelines

Review your content brief to make sure that it has clearly and concisely set out your expectations and the areas of importance that should have been covered in the content (if you need help creating a brief, read this article).
Does your organization have clear and documented guidelines for content creation? If you need help in this area, see the lesson on Workflow Documentation.

Meet With The Content Creator

If the brief and/or content guidelines are not the issue, then schedule a meeting with the content creator to find out why the content was below standard.

Check if:

They have read and understood the brief.
They have read and are familiar with the content creation guidelines.
There were any personal issues involved that affected their work.

Content Production – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content production:

What is content production?

Content production refers to the process of researching, creating, editing, and publishing information in various formats, including text, images, and videos, intended for a specific audience.

Why is content production important for businesses?

Content production helps businesses engage with their audience, improve their brand presence, and drive sales through informed and appealing information dissemination.

What are the key stages of the content production process?

The key stages include:

Planning and strategy
Content creation
Editing and proofreading
Publishing
Promotion and distribution

What skills are essential for content producers?

Essential skills include strong writing and editing capabilities, SEO knowledge, creativity, research proficiency, and technical skills related to content management systems and digital publishing tools.

How can one improve the effectiveness of content production?

To enhance effectiveness, focus on understanding the target audience, utilizing SEO best practices, maintaining a consistent voice and style, and regularly evaluating analytics to refine strategies.

What tools are used in content production?

Common tools include content management systems (CMS), graphic design software, SEO tools, and analytics platforms.

How do content production strategies differ across media types?

Strategies vary significantly; for example, social media content requires brevity and visual appeal, while blog posts might focus more on detailed information and keyword integration.

What trends are currently shaping content production?

Current trends include the increasing importance of video content, personalization, interactive content, and the use of artificial intelligence in content creation.

What is the role of analytics in content production?

Analytics help producers understand what content performs best, who the audience is, and how they interact with the content, thereby guiding future content strategies.

Summary

Creating consistently high-quality content requires an effective content production system with defined and documented workflows and periodic reviews of the content strategy and content plan.

Creating unique and original content also requires a good understanding of your target audience, your topics, and your industry. It also requires having the necessary skills and tools to format and design the content effectively, maintaining a consistent effort to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and trends, and measuring and analyzing the performance of your content.

Action Steps

Review your content plan and create a content workflow with documented workflow processes for each content type that your business needs to create to meet its strategic goals.

Resources

Content Marketing Strategy Tips and Templates – A great list of downloadable templates for different content projects.
Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot and fix any content-related issues in your business.

See the following sections for useful tools and resources for content production:

References

Next Steps

The list below contains all the lessons included in this module:

Content Production

Learn how to develop an effective content production process that delivers consistently high-quality content on a regular basis.

View Lesson

Content Production Management

Develop a robust content production process to help your organization meet its content strategy and business goals.

View Lesson

Content Workflow

Learn how to define a content workflow for your organization, from content ideation and creation to scheduling and publishing.

View Lesson

Workflow Documentation

Learn how to document your content workflow for ease of use and quick access to everything your content team needs for content production.

View Lesson

Content Production Schedule

This section looks at structuring your team's content production schedule to meet content production targets.

View Lesson

Content Types

Learn about the different types of content you can create to help meet your organization's strategic goals.

View Lesson

Content Repurposing

Learn how to maximize your content production efforts and resources with content repurposing strategies.

View Lesson

Content Curation

A comprehensive overview of content curation and how to use content curation to manage your content production more effectively.

View Lesson

Content Production Tools

Useful tools and resources to help you speed up your content planning and content production.

View Lesson

Content Production Automation

Streamline your content production process and optimize your workflow with content production automation.

View Lesson

Go to the next module: Content Promotion
Return to the Course Outline

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Content Production Management

Develop a robust content production process to help your organization meet its content strategy and business goals.

Content Production Management

Learn how to develop a robust content production process to help your organization meet its content strategy and business goals.

Content production management involves overseeing the creation, distribution, and strategic implementation of content to engage and inform audiences effectively.

This guide will provide a step-by-step approach to mastering the role of a content production manager, covering essential aspects from planning to evaluation.

Contents

Before You Begin

Make sure to review the modules below before beginning this lesson:

Content Production Management Guide

Effective content production management requires a strategic approach, continuous learning, and adaptability. As a content production manager, you are responsible for overseeing content creation and production, ensuring alignment with the marketing goals of your business, managing a content team, and maintaining quality standards.

This requires various skills, including project management and editorial skills, strategic thinking, and having proficiency in content management systems.

This guide will help content production managers create and implement a robust and efficient content production process to drive engagement and achieve business goals. It also provides a practical blueprint for becoming an effective content manager.

Before we look at how to develop and implement an efficient content production process, make sure you are familiar with these areas and responsibilities of the content production manager role:

1) Planning and Developing a Content Strategy

As a content production manager, you will need a content strategy to help you achieve the marketing goals of your organization. We have an entire course module dedicated to helping you understand what a content strategy is and how to create a content strategy for your business or organization.

This involves areas like:

Setting Objectives: Defining clear goals and KPIs that align with business objectives.
Audience Analysis: Identifying and understanding target audiences to tailor content effectively.
Content Audit: Evaluating existing content to identify gaps and opportunities.
Editorial Calendar: Creating a content calendar to plan and schedule content production and content distribution.

2) Content Creation

As a content production manager, it’s very important to develop an understanding of areas like:

Content Ideation and Research: Generating content ideas through brainstorming and research trends.
Content Formats: Choosing the appropriate formats (blogs, videos, infographics) based on audience preferences.
Content Writing and Design: Developing engaging and high-quality content, incorporating SEO best practices.

3) Content Distribution

Another key aspect of the role of a content production manager, is being familiar with areas of content distribution like:

Channels and Platforms: Selecting the right channels (social media, email, website) for content dissemination.
Content Promotion: Implementing strategies for amplifying content reach, including paid promotions and collaborations and knowing how to use content promotion tools.

4) Managing the Content Team

Content production management involves managing and coordinating a content team. This involves understanding areas like:

Team Structure: Defining roles and responsibilities within the content team.
Collaboration Tools: Using tools for project management and team collaboration.
Training and Development: Providing ongoing training to enhance team skills and keeping up with industry trends.

5) Monitoring and Evaluation

Keeping production on track involves understanding areas like:

Performance Metrics: Tracking content performance using analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics).
Feedback and Iteration: Collecting feedback and continuously improving content based on data insights and audience reactions.
Reporting: Creating regular reports to communicate results and insights to stakeholders.

6) Governance and Compliance

Maintaining quality standards in content production involves understanding and the practical application of areas like:

Content Governance: Establishing guidelines for content creation and approval processes to maintain consistency.
Legal and Ethical Considerations: Ensuring content adheres to copyright laws, privacy regulations, and ethical standards.

Understanding Content Production

Content Production Process - Key Components Chart — Content Production Process – Key Components

At its core, content production encompasses the planning, creation, and delivery of content across diverse channels. This process isn’t confined to a single format or platform; it involves creating various content types tailored to engage audiences across different mediums.

Crafting a robust content production process is indispensable for any team aiming to create content that will resonate with their target audience and achieve desired and expected outcomes.

Without a structured framework, your team risks encountering bottlenecks, compromising quality, missing deadlines, and hindering the scalability of your content strategy.

To establish an efficient content production process, these key factors must be considered:

Define Goals: Clearly define your objectives to guide your content creation efforts and ensure alignment with broader business objectives. Using the SMART methodology—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—ensures your goals are well-defined and trackable.
Assign Roles: Assign responsibilities within your team to foster accountability and efficiency. Assigning roles and responsibilities within your team ensures accountability and enhances collaboration. Clear role definitions will encourage mutual respect and cooperation among team members and contribute to a harmonious and productive working environment.
Define Tasks: List all necessary steps to ensure a smooth workflow and avoid bottlenecks. Breaking down the content production process into specific tasks streamlines workflow and minimizes the risk of overlooking crucial steps. Each task will contribute to the overall creation, editing, and publishing of content.
Set Task Order: Sequence tasks logically to streamline the production process, ensure an efficient workflow, and minimize delays. Executing tasks concurrently where applicable will help to speed up your production process and enhance coordination among your team members.
Set Timeline and Due Dates: Set realistic timelines and due dates to keep your projects and your team on track, and ensure the timely delivery of content. Regular monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you assess the effectiveness of the content production process.
Content Inventory System: Maintaining a repository of content ideas and assets ensures a steady and consistent stream of topics and resources for content creation. Regular updates and reviews of content inventory will enhance productivity and creativity within your team.

Developing an effective content production process is more than just about churning out material; it’s about orchestrating a seamless flow that involves meticulous planning and collaborative effort, aligns with your business objectives, streamlines your workflow, produces high-quality content consistently, and engages with your target audience.

Let’s look, then, at how to develop a robust and effective content production management strategy:

Content Production Process

As we’ve just seen, content production encompasses the planning, creation, and delivery of content across various channels to your target audience. It’s a multifaceted journey from ideation to distribution, involving diverse content formats and channels.

Here are the key steps to creating a robust content production process:

Identify Content Goals

Setting clear content goals forms the cornerstone of a robust content management strategy. Use this guide to identify and establish content goals:

Align content goals with business objectives

It’s essential to ensure that your content goals are in line with broader business objectives. For instance, if your business aims to boost sales, content goals may focus on creating informative product guides to drive conversions.

Each piece of content should serve a specific business goal. Whether it’s boosting search rankings, enhancing brand awareness, driving lead generation, or achieving other strategic objectives, clear goals empower you to measure performance and refine future content efforts.

Consider the “Big Picture”

Take a holistic view of your business objectives to formulate content goals that will contribute meaningfully to your overall success. Establish clear objectives early in the process to avoid confusion and delays.

Assign goals during the topic planning stage

This can occur during project discovery or kick-off phases for website projects.

If overarching business goals, such as increasing lead generation, aren’t reflected in your content goals, reassess your topic planning to realign with strategic objectives.

Set SMART Goals

Follow the SMART methodology—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound—to set clear and actionable content goals.

For instance, if the aim is to increase sales, a specific content goal could be to create informative product guides targeting bottom-of-funnel customers to drive purchases.

Another SMART content goal could be to increase website visitors by 15% in Q2 compared to Q1.

Plan Content Topics in Bulk

To streamline the process, plan content topics in advance for the upcoming quarter or year and enter these into your content calendar.

For example, after listing blog post topics for the first quarter, assign a goal to each topic.

Review goals to ensure alignment with overall marketing objectives.

Planning content ahead allows for insights on broader business strategies and timely adjustments to optimize content marketing strategies.

Select Content Format

Align content objectives with suitable content formats; choose formats based on the immediacy of impact required, such as social media posts or advertising for instant visibility, long-form blog posts for organic search ranking, etc.

Monitor KPIs

Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, click-through rates, leads generated, conversion rates, and revenue to assess and adjust the effectiveness of your content strategy.

Clear content goals aligned with business objectives, SMART goal setting, and regular monitoring of KPIs are crucial for a successful content production strategy.

Define your goals early and monitor key performance metrics to optimize and align your content production strategy with business goals and effective growth.

Define Team Roles and Responsibilities

Having clarity in your team’s roles and responsibilities helps to avoid project delays and maintains healthy team dynamics.

How to Define Roles and Responsibilities

Task Assignment

Assign each task to the team member responsible for its completion. Without clear ownership, deadlines are jeopardized, and conflicts may arise.

For example, if one team member is proficient in graphic design, assign them tasks related to creating visuals for content pieces.

Another example would be to designate one team member as the content writer, another as the editor, and another as the SEO specialist.

Make sure to leverage individual capabilities and maximize team performance by assigning roles based on individual capabilities and expertise. For example, assign complex technical writing tasks to team members with relevant expertise.

Transparency and Agreement: Ensure transparency by discussing responsibilities openly with team members. Seek agreement on the scope of tasks to avoid misunderstandings. For example, hold a meeting where each team member reviews their assigned tasks and agrees to their responsibilities.
Subtask Breakdown: If a task requires input from multiple team members, consider breaking it down into subtasks. This ensures clarity on who is accountable for each aspect. For example, for a content piece requiring both writing and editing, assign the writing task to one team member and the editing task to another.

Written Documentation

Maintain a written list of responsibilities for easy reference. Written documentation helps prevent misunderstandings and facilitates smoother collaboration.

For example, the responsibilities in your content creation team could be divided as follows:

Content Writer: Responsible for generating written content.
Editor: In charge of reviewing and refining content for quality and clarity.
SEO Specialist: Tasked with optimizing content for search engines to improve visibility.

Create a shared document or spreadsheet listing each team member’s roles and tasks for ongoing projects.

Benefits of Clear Role Definitions

Accountability: Assigning specific roles fosters accountability, ensuring that each team member contributes effectively to content creation.
Quality Enhancement: By assigning tasks based on individual capabilities, the quality of the final output is enhanced, as each aspect is handled by someone with the appropriate skills.
Improved Cooperation: Clear role definitions promote mutual respect and cooperation among team members, leading to a more harmonious and effective working environment.

Defining roles and responsibilities ensures smoother collaboration, enhances accountability, and ultimately improves the effectiveness of your content workflow.

Choose the Right Content Management System (CMS)

Selecting an appropriate content management system (CMS) is crucial for efficiently managing your content assets.

A CMS functions as a central repository for storing, organizing, and managing all content assets. For instance, WordPress is a widely-used CMS that offers robust features for content management and modification.

Also, consider using task-tracking or project management tools like Trello or Asana to gain visibility into content assets and monitor progress. These platforms provide a bird’s-eye view of your content pipeline and help track the status of tasks associated with each piece of content.

Additionally, having an organized content inventory system enables you to monitor the status of content pieces and associated tasks. For example, when a task, such as writing a video script, is completed, the corresponding status in the CMS should be updated accordingly.

For more information, go here: Content Management Systems

Define Content Formats

Map out a structured production process tailored to different content types according to your goals, budget, and resources.

For example, your content production process may include the following content types and tasks:

Written Content: Start with a brief, followed by research, drafting, review, revision, and final publication.
Video Content: Begin with a brief and project setup, proceeding to research, drafting, review, optimization, and distribution.
Interactive Content: Draft a brief, conduct project setup, proceed with drafting, review, revision, final review, publication, and monitoring.
Live Content: Start with a brief and project setup, followed by drafting, review, dry runs, optimization (if applicable), final review, staging, distribution, and monitoring.

Build a Repository of Content Assets

Establishing a repository of content assets is essential for streamlining content creation efforts and ensuring a consistent flow of ideas.

Here’s a guide to help content production managers create and maintain such a repository:

Generating Content Ideas: Use various methods such as keyword research, trend monitoring, competitor analysis, and audience feedback to generate a diverse range of content ideas. This ensures a steady stream of topics to explore.
Centralized Storage: Use content organizing tools and store all generated content ideas in a centralized location accessible to all team members. This could be a shared document on Google Drive, a board on Notion or Trello, or a dedicated content management system. Centralization facilitates collaboration and prevents duplication of efforts.
Swipe File for Inspiration: Maintain a swipe file containing successful marketing materials from your industry. Include examples like impactful marketing campaigns, viral social media posts, and innovative content strategies. This serves as a source of inspiration for crafting engaging content. Also, see this lesson: Managing Your Content Ideas.
Regular Updates and Reviews: Regularly update and review both the content idea repository and the swipe file. This ensures that the repository remains relevant and up-to-date, fostering ongoing creativity and innovation.

Defining Tasks and Steps

Without a clear delineation of tasks involved in content production, projects risk delays and content not being published as scheduled, and frustration among stakeholders.

For instance, focusing solely on writing and editing without allocating time for design and revisions can lead to unexpected demands on other team members, causing delays.

To enhance your content creation workflow, develop a comprehensive content production process document encompassing all necessary stages.

Develop a comprehensive document outlining all stages of content creation, ensuring a logical sequence of steps, clearly outline each step of the content creation process, and arrange them in a sequential order to establish a structured content workflow.

For example, here’s an example of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Blog Post Creation:

Conduct Keyword Research: Identify relevant keywords to target audience needs and preferences and create a list of pertinent keywords for content optimization.
Write a Brief: Develop a document outlining the article’s structure, target audience, and specific content requirements as a guideline for writers.
Assign the Brief to a Writer/Write: Delegate the content brief to a writer who initiates the first draft based on the brief and research conducted.
Provide Feedback and Edit: Review the initial draft for clarity, accuracy, and adherence to the content brief, involving content editors and subject matter experts as necessary.
Review the Updated Submission: Assess the revised content based on feedback. This may entail rewriting sections, incorporating additional information, or rectifying errors.
Optimize for SEO: Implement on-page SEO practices such as keyword optimization and internal linking to enhance search engine visibility.
Upload and Publish to CMS: Finalize the content and upload it to the Content Management System (CMS) for publication.
Promote: Engage in activities like building backlinks and promoting content through email newsletters, social media, and other relevant channels.
Review Performance and Update as Necessary: Regularly evaluate the blog post’s performance, making necessary edits and updates every 90 days or as needed.

By meticulously detailing each step and sub-step, you will ensure a smooth workflow that consistently delivers high-quality content.

How to Define Tasks

Comprehensive Listing: List every action necessary for content to progress from the briefing stage to approval and publication. Be detailed, and list every each step, including sub-steps, For example, specify distinct revision types individually (e.g., copy revision, headline revision, and graphics revision) rather than listing a generic “revision” task and consolidating these tasks.
Detailed Approach: Avoid premature consolidation of stages. Instead, emphasize granularity to capture all nuances of the production process effectively. Include critical stages like fact-checking, proofreading, translation, and legal review to refine the process comprehensively.
Collaborative Validation: Solicit input from team members to validate the task list. This collaborative effort ensures inclusivity and guards against overlooking critical steps. Seek feedback from writers, designers, editors, and other stakeholders to ensure all necessary tasks are accounted for.
Additionally, consider establishing editorial and brand guidelines to maintain consistency in tone and style across all content and develop an editorial strategy to guide content distribution and presentation on different platforms.

Understanding the intricacies of your content production process is crucial to ensure timely delivery and avoid project derailment.

A well-defined content production process, outlining tasks and steps, ensures efficient collaboration and enables team members to work concurrently, enhancing productivity.

Content Production Scheduling

Efficient content production relies on well-defined timelines, ensuring tasks are completed promptly and content is published on schedule.

Importance of Task Sequencing

Sequencing tasks appropriately is vital for a smooth workflow. For instance, designing an infographic should follow research and copywriting to prevent delays and ensure efficiency.

However, some tasks can be executed concurrently. While a blog post is being written, your social media team can prepare promotional content simultaneously, expediting the production process and enhancing team coordination.

Defining the Content Production Process

Efficient content production relies on well-planned scheduling to ensure tasks are completed promptly and smoothly.

Here’s how content production managers can optimize task scheduling:

Establish Clear Timelines: Clearly defined timelines create a structured framework for task completion, keeping everyone aligned and ensuring timely content delivery.
Emphasize Task Sequencing: Establishing a logical order of tasks is crucial to prevent confusion and streamline content creation. Ensure tasks are sequenced to maximize efficiency and minimize lead times. For instance, conducting research and copywriting before designing an infographic prevents delays and enhances productivity. In graphic design tasks, sourcing images should precede editing them, to prevent unnecessary delays.
Identify Concurrent Task Opportunities: While some tasks require sequential completion, others can be executed concurrently to expedite the process. For instance, while blog content is being written, social media promotion can be prepared simultaneously, enhancing coordination and speeding up production.
Use Project Management Tools: Employ project management tools to monitor progress and track task completion. These tools offer insights into team efficiency, allowing for adjustments and improvements to optimize the content production process.
Ensure Resource Utilization: Effective scheduling ensures optimal resource allocation, preventing critical tasks from being overlooked and maximizing productivity.

Setting Timelines and Due Dates

Timelines and due dates are essential for a well-structured content production process. Collaborate with task owners to estimate task durations accurately, and consider potential consolidations to optimize efficiency.

Defining Content Timelines:

Estimate task durations realistically, rounding up for accuracy.
Map out tasks backward from the publish date to ensure timely completion.
Involve all stakeholders to refine timescales and allocate resources effectively.
Refine your content production scheduling to enhance efficiency, identify opportunities for task consolidation, and allocate adequate time for quality checks to ensure optimal content delivery.

Content Inventory System

In content production, it’s important to define content inventory responsibilities to prevent the misplacement of valuable content assets.

Each team member should understand their role in managing the content inventory effectively.

Implementing Content Inventory Responsibilities

To ensure seamless content management, integrate content inventory responsibilities into your existing workflow.

Here’s how you can approach it:

Assign Specific Responsibilities: Allocate content inventory tasks to relevant team members based on their roles in the content production process. For example, the individual tasked with writing the first draft should be responsible for creating a document containing the draft.
Maintain Consistency Across Tasks: Ensure consistency in file management practices across different tasks to streamline the content inventory process. When sourcing images, for example, the responsible team member should share them with the individual in charge of editing, who then stores the graphics appropriately.
Integrate Inventory Tasks into Workflows: Incorporate content inventory tasks into your content production workflows to avoid overlooking critical steps. For instance, alongside the task “Generate 5 headline versions,” include a subtask to create a headlines file in the designated folder.

By integrating content inventory responsibilities into your production process, you will ensure that all team members are aligned and equipped to manage content assets efficiently, reducing the risk of misplacement and ensuring accessibility when needed.

Assess Your Current Process

After developing and implementing a content production process and allowing it to run for a period of time (e.g. 3-6 months), evaluate the process to identify areas for improvement.

Look for the following:

Identify Delays: Pinpoint any bottlenecks or delays encountered during content creation.
Dependency Issues: Note instances where tasks were halted due to dependencies on other team members.
Content Inventory Review: Evaluate the state of your content inventory, noting any necessary fixes post-publication.
Task Ownership: Address situations where ownership over tasks was ambiguous.

Once you’ve identified weak spots, gather your team to strategize improvements.

Summary

As a content production manager, your responsibility is to oversee content creation and production, ensure alignment with the marketing goals of your business, manage a content team, and maintain quality standards.

To meet your responsibilities successfully, begin by developing a content production strategy using the following recommended approach:

Define Content Goals: Clearly articulate the purpose of your content, whether it’s lead generation, SEO enhancement, or thought leadership.
Understand Your Audience: Analyze the demographics, preferences, and intent of your target audience to tailor content effectively.
Determine Distribution Channels: Select appropriate channels such as search engines, social media, or newsletters for content dissemination.
Identify Necessary Assets: Determine the additional resources required, such as custom images or videos, to complement your content.
Allocate Responsibilities: Assign roles to team members involved in the content creation process, including designers, copywriters, and managers.
Establish Timelines and Metrics: Set clear deadlines for content delivery and define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.

Action Steps

Review your latest content and analyze the steps taken to produce it, focusing on the following aspects:

Delays: Were there any points in the process where progress was stalled?
Dependencies: Were any tasks delayed due to reliance on another team member?
Content Inventory: Assess the condition of your content inventory and any corrections made post-publication.
Task Ownership: Highlight moments where it was unclear who was responsible for a task.

Compile the above information to help pinpoint any weak spots in your content production process. Allocate time with your team (or alone if you manage all stages) to review, address, and improve issues using the approach described in this lesson.

Remember to document each step thoroughly to create a more effective and efficient content production process.

Resources

Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot content-related issues.
Visit our tools and resources section for additional courses, guides, and helpful tools and resources.

Next Lesson

Return to Content Production Overview
Return to the Course Outline

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Content Production Schedule

This section looks at structuring your team’s content production schedule to meet content production targets.

Content Production Schedule

This section looks at how to structure your content team’s production schedule to meet content production targets.

In order to deliver content that consistently meets high-quality standards and production targets, your content team needs to run like a well-oiled machine.

A well-oiled machine, however, consists of different moving parts that must work together frictionlessly and seamlessly.

In this lesson, we’ll briefly review what parts your content team needs to run like a well-oiled machine, and look at ways to structure your content team’s production schedule to ensure that it is able to consistently meet the content quality standards and content production targets set by the business.

We’ll also look at different options for structuring your content team’s production schedule depending on whether you have a larger or smaller team.

Contents

Before You Begin

Make sure to complete all the lessons in the modules below before beginning this lesson:

Turning Your Content Production Team Into A Well-Oiled Machine

The phrase “to run like a well-oiled machine” is typically used to describe teams and organizations where all the parts are coordinated effectively so that everything works smoothly, operates efficiently, and results are delivered consistently on time, and to high standards.

To make sure that your content production team can run like a well-oiled machine, however, you need to have parts like the ones listed below working frictionlessly and seamlessly together:

Documentation
Resources
Time Management
Expertise
Skills
Tools
Training
Communication

Let’s go briefly through each of these:

Documentation

To operate efficiently and effectively, your content team needs access to good documentation.

This includes:

A content strategy and content plan.
Documented workflow systems and processes.
Guidelines, procedures, and best practices for:
- Creating content,
- Organizing, storing, and archiving media and other content production files, etc.

The better the documentation you can provide to your content production team, the less time and problems they will experience creating and delivering content that meets the quality standards and production targets set by the organization.

To learn more about the types of documentation your business should create, go here: Content Documentation

Resources

Your organization’s resources determine your content team structure, what kind of team roles you can fulfill through internal hiring or outsourcing, what type of content marketing activities your business can engage in, the types of content you can produce, how much content you can create, and how to track your results, so this is quite an important area.

Without sufficient or adequate resources, your entire content strategy could boil down to being able to write only an occasional blog article or post a social media update.

Having said this, most businesses operate with limited resources, so they need to become “resourceful” and use ingenuity, creativity, and willingness to operate efficiently.

Later in this lesson, we will look at examples of how to schedule content production whether you are a team operating on limited resources or have no resources at all.

Time Management

All members of your content team need to develop and implement efficient time management practices to produce and deliver high-quality content on time, especially as they will probably be required to wear different hats and assume other responsibilities.

As we will see later in this lesson, the best way to implement effective time management systems is to build these into your production schedule.

Expertise

Your content strategy should tell you what kind of expertise your content team will require.

For example, if your content strategy is to utilize content marketing methods like blogging, video marketing, and email marketing, then your team will need people who have expertise in article writing, video making, and copyrighting.

For more information on different types of digital-based roles and the expertise required to fulfill those roles in an organization, go here: Team Roles

Skills

Your team members may have the expertise required to fill the role, but do they have the skills to create the types of content your organization intends to produce?

Ideally, the answer should be “yes.” However, with all the new, emerging, and different technologies and platforms available, having the knowledge and expertise of knowing “what to do” doesn’t always equate with knowing “how to do it.”

For example, if your organization lacks the resources, in addition to having writing skills, your humble blog article writer may need to develop skills in different areas like:

SEO
Data Analytics
Video Production
Media Editing
Graphic Design
Lead Generation
Conversion Tracking
Content Management Systems
etc.

Tools

All professionals need “tools of the trade” to deliver results.

In addition to having the necessary expertise and skills to perform their responsibilities successfully, your content team may also need to develop proficiency using various tools, such as:

Developing competency and proficiency using tools requires not only documentation and resources but also…

Training

Your business has probably already invested a significant amount of money into specific platforms, solutions, and tools, and developing and implementing processes and procedures to fit your workflow around these.

Creating an effective onboarding process to train new and existing team members to use these platforms, solutions, and tools, and follow your processes and procedures requires additional documentation, resources, time management, expertise, skills, tools, etc.

Many software platforms and tools include their own training and documentation, so make sure to add this into your own internal training documentation (e.g. create a “Quick-Start” manual or guide on how to access and use these tools).

Additionally, you may need to invest in external training courses (e.g. online video courses) to help skill up your content team.

Communication

In addition to everything we’ve listed so far, turning your content production team into a well-oiled machine requires a seamless communication process.

This is especially important if your company employs remote-based team members, as many companies do nowadays.

An effective team-based communication system typically involves using various workflow and digital processes, documentation, work collaboration tools, project management software, and basic communication tools like email, phone apps, and face-to-face meetings.

Content Production Team Schedule

Now that we have looked at what components are required to create a “well-oiled machine,” let’s look at how to put together an effective content production team schedule to ensure that all content will be produced and delivered on time, to high-quality standards, and can meet your content production targets.

We recommend starting your content team’s production schedule with a basic framework that the team can refine as they work together.

Once production gets into its stride, your team will have a better idea of how long it takes to create an article outline, edit a draft, wait for relevant parties to review content and provide feedback, what days work best to publish content, etc.

You can then apply this useful information as a group to coordinate content production, schedule content promotion, and manage your editorial calendar.

To help make this a practical lesson, let’s focus on two different but realistic scenarios:

A small-to-medium business with limited content creation resources.
A solo business with little to no resources to hire/outsource a content team.

Scenario #1 – SME Business With Limited Resources

For this example, we’ll use my regular job as a blog editor and content writer for a privately-owned SME technology company.

The company sells digital B2B products and services worldwide and employs a distributed workforce with around 150+ team members located all around the world.

My role is to help ensure that the company’s blog produces and publishes regular content to a large readership base (over 2 million unique visitors annually).

Google Analytics - Unique Blog Visitors 2021 — I’m part of a content production team for a tech blog that gets over 2 million visitors annually.

Additionally, the blog’s audience is tech-savvy and well-versed in the technology platform the company specializes in, so the content always needs to be expertly written, of very high quality, informative, educational, engaging, and authoritative.

To deliver the above, here’s what our content team consists of and what our content production schedule looks like:

The Content Team

Our blog’s content production team currently consists of:

3 x blog writers (including myself with additional editing duties), responsible for researching and writing articles, creating screenshots, proofing copy, checking content SEO and formatting guidelines, replying to comments left on blog posts, etc.

The blog team also has access to the following internal resources:

1 x marketer (who mostly works on landing pages, email marketing, promotional ads, copyrighting, and social media, but provides editing assistance to the blog team).
3 x illustrators (for blog post banners and additional artwork).
1 x documentation person (for content feedback).
1 x SEO adviser (for assistance with content strategy).
Technical development and product support team (150+ people) – these provide mostly technical feedback and technical checks during the content’s final review stage.
The company’s CEO (who fills the role of senior content editor).

As you can see, it’s not a very large content publishing team, given the size of the company’s customer base and target audience. Most of the organization, in fact, is comprised of people filling technical software development roles.

Content Production Targets

The blog team described above has a target of publishing at least 2-3 new high-quality articles on the company blog every week (while continually reviewing and updating existing content).

Also, new content has to be published by no later than the close of business each Thursday.

Here is the reason why:

The marketing team needs to include links to the new articles in its weekly email round-up to subscribers, and promote these on the company’s social media channels each week. Emails are scheduled to go out every Thursday night.
I work for a distributed company that prioritizes customer responsiveness and employee work-life balance, so while it aims to deal immediately with all customer issues, our team members are located all around the world and have weekends off. If the content is published after Thursday and there is an issue with it, we won’t know about it until the start of the new business week on Monday. Hence, we have an internal policy that nothing new gets published or released on Fridays. This helps to avoid any situations that could create negative customer experiences (e.g. having unanswered comments left on blog posts).

Team Meetings

To make sure that our content production workflow is on track, the content writing team meets virtually twice every week (audio call meetings only).

We meet early on Tuesday mornings (Monday evening for some of our team members) for an hour to focus on the specific assignments each team member is working on and to discuss any issues or roadblocks that may prevent the article from getting published by its deadline.

We also meet mid-morning on Thursdays (Wednesday evening for some of our team members) with the CEO to discuss content production issues at a higher (i.e. strategic) level and to clarify any unresolved issues regarding specific assignments or projects.

Throughout the week, the team stays in constant communication with each other and with other teams via the Slack messaging software.

Note: given the fact that our team members live in different countries and across different time zones, sometimes we don’t get a reply until the following day.

Content Production Team Meeting Agenda

Here’s a simple template you can use to create your content production team meeting’s agenda:

Review of the previous week’s content production progress
Approval of upcoming content calendar
Discussion of any production challenges or delays
Review of analytics for recent content
Brainstorming for new content ideas
Assigning tasks for next week’s production
Review of any new tools or resources that can improve the production process
Any other relevant items or concerns (e.g. ask team members if there are any upcoming leaves or time-off planned that may affect production schedules).

Content Workflow

Once the topic of a new article is agreed on and assigned to one of the writing team members, it goes through the following workflow sequence:

Outline – This includes a headline, intro, section headings, and a rough description of the content for each section.
Outline Review – This is to make sure that the article presented in the outline is on track and aligned with the agreed content strategy and content plan, and to make any additional suggestions or corrections to the content structure.
Initial Draft – Initial draft gets written with screenshots, internal links, etc. content
Initial Review – The editor and team members review this draft and make additional comments, suggestions, corrections, etc.
Draft 1 – The writer incorporates initial review notes into the article, polishes up the article, and transfers content to the blog (CMS).
Review 1 – The editor and team members review the amended draft and make additional comments, suggestions, corrections, etc.
Draft 2 – The writer incorporates review notes into the article.
Technical Review – If the article contains technical or product-specific information, it needs to be reviewed by someone with expert technical or product knowledge to make sure the information is 100% accurate.
Final Draft – The writer incorporates feedback, comments, suggestions, recommendations, etc. from the technical review
Final Review – The team and CEO (Senior Editor) give the article one final check and read over. If everything is ok, it’s approved for publishing.
Publish – Pre-publish checks are made (e.g. website URL slug, post excerpt, categories, feature image added, SEO elements, etc. and the article is then published.

All of the above has to factor in the fact that team members and anyone involved in reviewing and approving the content happen to live in different parts of the world and work in different time zones, so a draft article can sometimes take a day or more to be reviewed.

After the article is published, it gets logged on a spreadsheet (for future content reviews)…

Spreadsheet - New Content Blog Posts Log — We log every newly published blog post on a spreadsheet. Source: WPMU DEV

The team is then notified via the company’s communication app…

New blog post notification on Slack — The team gets notified on Slack after each new blog post is published. Source: WPMU DEV

And the content is then promoted through various channels (e.g. email, social media, etc.)

Email Roundup — New blog posts get promoted to email subscribers and social media followers. Source: WPMU DEV

Content Production Tools

In the example shown above, there are lots of moving parts, so a number of different tools are used in content production.

For example, the blog team’s content production schedule is tracked using Jira…

WPMU DEV's Jira blog Board — Content production is documented on the team’s Blog Board on Jira.

Post drafts are created using GDocs (where editors and other team members can leave comments, feedback, and suggestions)…

Google Docs - Draft Article — The blog team uses Google Docs to create article outlines and draft articles.

Once articles have been reviewed and edited, they are then moved into WordPress…

WordPress Post editor — This blog post has been added to WordPress and is ready for final review and publishing.

And all communication related to content projects being worked on is done via team channels on Slack…

WPMU DEV Slack Channels — All communications with team members are done on Slack.

For more details on the above, see the Content Production Tools section.

Scenario #2 – Solo Business

ContentManagementCourse.com (i.e. the site you are looking at) is a great example of a solo business with a lot of content to manage.

Since there is only one person looking after all of the content on this site (i.e. me 👋), a spreadsheet is enough to track the site’s content production and workflow.

After formulating a content strategy and content plan for this course, a list of all the content that would need to be created for the course lessons was added to a spreadsheet. Additional columns were added for workflow processes and checks.

Content Production Team Schedule - Content Production Spreadsheet. — This spreadsheet contains a list of all the course’s planned lessons.

As each lesson is worked on, its corresponding entry on the spreadsheet is highlighted in yellow…

Content Production Team Schedule - Content Production Spreadsheet - Work in Progress — As each lesson is worked on, it is highlighted in yellow.

After each lesson is completed and all the workflow columns are checked off, the highlight color is then changed to green…

Content Production Team Schedule - Content Production Spreadsheet. Work in progress with some tasks completed. — Completed lessons are highlighted in green.

Once all of the content scheduled on this production spreadsheet was completed and all workflow processes done and checked off, this site was finally ready to launch and go live.

Content Production Team Schedule - Content Production Spreadsheet completed. — After months of work, this is what the content production spreadsheet for this course looks like.

Of course, content production never ends.

As new content is scheduled for production, it is entered into the content production spreadsheet and the process then repeats all over again.

Content Production Team Schedule - Content Production Spreadsheet with new and ongoing tasks. — This course has ongoing content planned and being worked on. Everything is tracked on a spreadsheet.

Note: Additional subtasks are added to worksheets (e.g. link redirects, content fixes, updates, rewrites, etc.) for future content reviews.

To learn more about the planning involved in creating this course site, go here: What Effective Content Management Looks Like

Content Production Scheduling – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content production scheduling:

What is content production scheduling?

Content production scheduling is the process of planning, organizing, and managing the creation and publication of content across various platforms and channels.

Why is content production scheduling important?

Content production scheduling helps maintain consistency, meet deadlines, allocate resources effectively, and ensure content aligns with strategic goals.

What are the key components of content production scheduling?

Key components include defining goals, identifying target audience, creating a content calendar, allocating resources, setting deadlines, and monitoring performance.

How do I create a content production schedule?

Start by identifying your goals, audience, and available resources. Then, create a content calendar outlining topics, deadlines, and responsible team members.

What tools can help with content production scheduling?

Tools like project management software, content calendars, and collaboration platforms can streamline content production scheduling processes.

How can I optimize my content production schedule for efficiency?

Optimize by batching similar tasks together, automating repetitive processes, delegating responsibilities effectively, and regularly reviewing and adjusting your schedule.

What are common challenges in content production scheduling?

Common challenges include managing tight deadlines, dealing with unexpected delays, balancing quality and quantity, and coordinating cross-functional teams.

How can I adapt my content production schedule to changes in priorities or resources?

Stay flexible by building buffer time into your schedule, communicating openly with stakeholders, and regularly reassessing and adjusting your plans as needed.

Summary

For your content production team to run like a well-oiled machine, various parts must work frictionlessly and seamlessly together, and follow a clear team production schedule with document workflow processes and regular meetings to communicate about new and existing projects.

This lesson shows you how to put this together, whether you are a business operating with limited resources or a team of one.

Action Steps

Assess each of the areas that can affect your content production team to ensure that it will run like a well-oiled machine (i.e. documentation, resources, time management, expertise, skills, tools, training, and communication)
Work with the team to create a content production team schedule with the aim of consistently meeting the content quality standards and content production targets set by the business.

Resources

Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot your content-related issues.

Visit our tools and resources section for additional courses, guides, and helpful tools and resources.

References

WPMU DEV Blog

Next Lesson

Return to Content Production Overview
Return to the Course Outline

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Source: Office workers

Content Repurposing

Learn how to maximize your content production efforts and resources with content repurposing strategies.

Content Repurposing

Learn how to maximize your content production efforts and resources with content repurposing strategies.

Creating high-quality content on a regular basis involves a significant investment of time and resources.

With a little planning, you can get more value from the time and effort you have invested and recycle and breathe new life into your existing content by repurposing it into other content types.

In this lesson, we’ll look at the benefits of repurposing content and provide different examples of content repurposing.

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What Is Content Repurposing?

Content repurposing is re-using your existing content and presenting it in a new or different format to expand its reach and maximize its lifespan.

Essentially, content repurposing is the process of taking existing content and adapting it for use on different platforms or in different formats.

This can include things like turning a blog post into a video, republishing an article on a different website, or creating an infographic from a research report.

The goal of repurposing content is to get the most out of the content you have already created and to reach new audiences.

Benefits Of Repurposing Content

Repurposing content has several benefits, including:

Increased reach: By republishing content on different platforms, you can reach new audiences and expand your reach. For example, republishing a blog post on LinkedIn can help you reach a professional audience.
Cost-effective: Repurposing content allows you to get the most out of the content you have already created, which can save you time and resources.
Reinforcing brand awareness: By republishing content on different platforms, you can reinforce your brand and make it more familiar to your target audience.
Increased engagement: Repurposing content in different formats can lead to increased engagement. For example, a video version of a blog post can increase audience engagement.
SEO improvement: By republishing content on different platforms and linking them to your website can help to improve your website’s SEO.
Audience targeting: Repurposing content in different format and platforms allows you to target specific audience. For example, republishing a podcast episode on YouTube can help reach a younger audience who may not listen to podcasts.
Long-term value: Repurposing content can provide long-term value, as the content can continue to be useful and relevant to your audience even after it’s first published.

Content Repurposing Examples

Once you have created a great piece of content, all the hard work involved in researching, planning, and creating it is already done. You have an asset you can use to help promote and grow your business.

Sometimes, content created for a very specific purpose can have a limited lifespan. For example, let’s say you put a great deal of effort into researching and writing a great blog article, which then gets promoted to your newsletter subscribers and posted on your social media channels.

For a week or two, your blog article gets a lot of attention and attracts a good number of visitors, thanks to your team’s promotional efforts.

Then, new content gets published on your blog, pushing the article down the list, and traffic to your post drops. If that post isn’t ranking high on the search engines, traffic can dwindle significantly.

Now, you have a great piece of content with lots of useful information sitting on your site doing very little for your business.

What if you took that great content and reused it in different formats?

For example, let’s say you create a really great series of blog articles with well-researched statistical data, detailed screenshots, memorable quotes, etc.

With a little planning, you could easily repurpose these blog articles into new content types, such as:

Long-Form Content: Compile your blog posts into a guide, eBook, online course, or report.
Short-Form Content: Use testimonials, quotes, and statistical data to create sharable social media posts, tweetable quotes, news releases, etc.
Emails: Turn your blog content into full email newsletter articles or email snippets pointing to your articles, or compile these into an email course (e.g. a “7-day course”)
Images: Turn your information and images into an infographic, or a slide presentation.
Videos: Turn your information into sales videos or video tutorials (tip: turn your blog posts into a slide presentation and use screen capture software to turn your slide presentation into narrated videos).
Audios: Use Text-To-Speech software to create audio narrations for accessibility purposes, turn your articles into podcasts, etc.

You can do the same thing if you create a more comprehensive piece of content like a guide or eBook (i.e. turn the content into a series of blog articles and all of the above content types).

Content Repurposing – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content repurposing:

What is content repurposing?

Content repurposing involves adapting your existing content into different formats or for different platforms to expand its reach and lifespan.

How does content repurposing differ from cross-posting or reposting?

Content repurposing is about transforming content to suit different formats or contexts, while cross-posting involves sharing the same content across various platforms without modification. Reposting generally means re-sharing the exact same content on the same platform.

What are the benefits of content repurposing?

It can extend the life of the original content, reach a broader audience, enhance SEO, save resources, and provide more value from the content already created.

Which types of content are best suited for repurposing?

High-performing content such as popular blog posts, videos with high engagement, and content with timeless relevance are ideal candidates for repurposing.

What are some effective strategies for content repurposing?

You can turn blog posts into podcasts or videos, create infographics from data-rich content, use webinar content to produce guides or e-books, or convert a series of related posts into an email course.

How does repurposing content impact SEO?

Repurposing helps target various keywords, increases content visibility across platforms, and can generate more backlinks to your original content.

What challenges might I face while repurposing content?

Finding the right balance between reuse and freshness, maintaining the quality and relevance of the content, and ensuring it fits the new format or platform can be challenging.

How can I measure the success of repurposed content?

Track metrics such as engagement rates, traffic sources, conversion rates, and overall reach compared to the original piece of content.

Summary

Content repurposing is a great way to maximize the value of your content and your organization’s resources and reach new audiences.

Content repurposing can also be used to increase your reach and visibility online using different content channels, help improve your SEO, nurture lead generation streams, improve engagement and retention, and garner new insights to help you continually refine and improve your content strategy.

With the right strategy and approach, repurposing content can be a powerful tool for growing your online presence and driving results.

Action Steps

Take a great piece of content that your team has invested time and effort into creating, list all the ways you can repurpose it, and turn it into new content types.

Rinse and repeat this process with other additional existing content, and begin to incorporate content repurposing into your content planning.

Resources

Free Content Ideas Course – Learn how to never run out of great content ideas for your blog, website, or email newsletters.
Video Courses – Links to video courses on content creation for different content types (e.g. blogging, videos, emails, podcasting, etc.)
Tools & Resources – Useful tools and resources for planning, producing, and promoting different content types.

References

Next Step

Learn about different content types: Content Types
Return to the Content Production Overview

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Image: Whiteboard

Content Types

Learn about the different types of content you can create to help meet your organization’s strategic goals.

Content Types

Learn about the different types of content you can create to help meet your organization’s strategic goals.

The type of content your business or organization decides to create will depend on its content strategy and its audience’s content preferences.

In this lesson, we cover the following:

Why Create Different Types Of Content
Content Types vs Content Deliverables
Overview Of Content Types (with a summary of best practices and challenges of creating this content)

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Why Create Different Types Of Content

Different users learn and consume content differently. While some users may prefer reading text on a screen, others may want something more visual like videos or infographics. Another group of users may find that they engage better with information via audio content formats, such as podcasts and narrated articles.

Content preferences also vary depending on the type of business you are and the audience you are targeting (e.g. B2B, B2C, etc.), the phase of the customer or buyer journey they are at, their search intent, and trends over time.

For example, according to a B2B content survey carried out by sales and marketing research company Demand Gen Report, B2B customers report relying increasingly more on well-researched content backed by data filled with insights to research and make their purchasing decisions, such as webinars and research-based content (e.g. survey and third-party analyst reports), ebooks, blogs, white papers, case studies, and community-based sources, such as industry newsletters.

Demand Gen Report 2022 Content Survey Report Chart - Which Forms of Content Have You Consumed During The Past Year? Webinars 67%, eBooks 56%, Research/survey reports 55%, Blog posts 54%, White Papers 52%, Case Studies 49%. — The main forms of content B2B companies are consuming. Source: Demand Gen Report

Additionally, the research showed that users preferred different content at different stages of their buying journey.

For example, the most popular content formats for early-stage research were informational content like infographics, blogs, and podcasts, while assessments, webinars, and case studies were the preferred content types they researched during the mid-stage. For late-stage research, buyers cited the most useful content types being those that present concrete evidence such as user reviews, third-party analyst reports, and ROI calculators.

Demand Gen Report 2022 Content Survey Report Chart - Which Content Types Are Most Valuable For Early, Mid, and Late Stages Of The Buying Process? — Types of content that B2B companies consume at different stages of their buying journey. Source: Demand Gen Report

While B2B companies seem to choose content types backed by data and research, B2C companies make different choices.

For example, research from the Content Marketing Institute shows that B2C companies focused on creating content like short articles, videos, and infographics to reach their audiences.

Chart: Content Assets B2C Marketers Created/Used in Last 12 Months — Preferred content types of B2C Companies in 2022. Source: Content Marketing Institute

B2C companies also seemed to experience better results using content types like short posts, videos, and virtual events/webinars/online courses.

Chart: B2C Content Assets That Produced the Best Results in Last 12 Months (Top 3) - 2022 — The best-performing content types for B2C Companies in 2022. Source: Content Marketing Institute

As mentioned earlier, it’s also important to be aware of changes in content preferences over time.

For example, if you look at content marketing trends before and after the global pandemic, you can see that there’s been a change in the content types favored by B2C companies, especially in areas like social media content and in-person events.

Chart: Content Types B2C Marketers Used in Last 12 Months (Top 6) - 2022 — Preferred content types of B2C Companies in 2019. Source: Content Marketing Institute

Before deciding on the content type you will create, then, ask yourself questions like:

What type of business model does your business fall into?
Which audience group are you targeting?
Which phase of the buyer journey are you addressing?
What type(s) of content are companies similar to yours currently creating to reach your target audience?

Content Types vs Content Deliverables

According to Draft.dev, content types set the overall tone of an article, help the writer understand what perspective they should write from, and sets client expectations, while content deliverables define the actual contents of the article.

So while a content type helps to define the difference between creating an article as a “tutorial” or as a “guide,” the elements that will be included in the article, like screenshots, stock images, diagrams, code samples, etc. are the content deliverables.

Understanding this difference is important, because…

“Defining content types and deliverables helps to assign articles to the writers best suited for them, resulting in great content.”

Source: Draft.dev

For resources on sourcing content deliverables like stock images and screenshot/image editing software, see our Tools & Resources section.

Now that we have looked at why businesses may need to consider creating different types of content and the difference between content types and content deliverables, let’s look at different content formats and different content types.

Content Formats

There are many different types of content formats, including:

Text: This is the most basic and common type of content and includes anything from articles and blog posts to emails and social media updates.
Images: This type of content includes photographs, illustrations, and infographics. They can be used to supplement text or to convey information on their own.
Video: This type of content includes anything from short clips and animations to full-length films and documentaries. Video can be used to tell stories, provide instructions, or demonstrate products.
Audio: This type of content includes podcasts, music, and sound recordings. Audio can be used to tell stories, provide information, or entertain.
Interactive: This type of content includes quizzes, polls, and interactive infographics. It allows the audience to engage with the content and can be used to gather information from the audience.
Virtual reality (VR) and Augmented reality (AR): This type of content provides immersive experiences, allowing the user to explore and interact with a digital environment. It can be used in gaming, education, and other industries.
Live streaming: This type of content is a real-time broadcast of an event or activity. It can be used for events, news, and entertainment.

Content Types

Content can be delivered in digital or printed (i.e. physical) formats. The type of content and format your organization chooses to create will determine the content production process and content workflow to follow.

Although there are more than 100 ways of using content in content marketing, here are the main content types you may want to consider creating for your organization:

Articles & Blog Posts

Articles are a form of content suitable for publishing on the blog section of a website or as a page of the website itself (e.g. a landing page, company page, or product/services page).

Different types of articles can be written to suit different purposes. For example:

Tutorials

Tutorials are “how-to” articles that provide information showing readers how to complete certain tasks and how to achieve specific results. Tutorials can include detailed (or bullet point) step-by-step instructions videos, screenshots, examples (e.g. before and after images), etc.

You can write “how-to” tutorials on just about anything and everything. Simply open your web browser and type in “how to” into Google and you will see all kinds of suggestions popping up for “how to” searches that users are looking for.

Check out an example of a detailed step-by-step “how-to” tutorial here: How To Change The Admin Username In WordPress
For a great article on what kinds of “how-to” topics get searched on Google, check out this excellent interactive article: How To Fix A Toilet And Other Things We Can’t Do Without Search

Listicles

A listicle, or “list post,” is an article written in list format. Listicles (also sometimes referred to as “Roundups”) provide a list of comparable products, tools, or items where each item is typically only a few sentences or paragraphs long and aimed at educating or entertaining readers.

Listicles can be fun or informational and typically have titles like “The 100 Best Rock Album Covers Of All Time” (fun), or “9 Essential Ingredients Every Cook’s Kitchen Should Have” (informational). Great listicles often get shared widely online.

Here is a great article on how to write a listicle.

Comparisons

Comparison articles are educational pieces that compare different products and services to help potential buyers assess their options and make a decision.

Comparison articles are similar to listicles but are much more in-depth, typically focusing on comparing two or three options only across different categories or competing brands, and presenting the “pros and cons” of using the products or services.

Here are some great examples of comparison articles.

Reviews

These articles typically focus on reviewing products, services, events, etc.

Writing product review articles (or creating product review videos) is a strategy that is often used in affiliate marketing.

Ideally, the review writer will have used the product, experienced the service, or attended the event they are reviewing. Review articles typically define their target audience (e.g. people interested in home cooking, moviegoers, etc.), list the upsides and downsides or good and bad aspects of the product, provide visual proof (e.g. photos, videos, etc.), try to take a balanced and honest approach, and offer some form of helpful conclusion.

Persuasive Writing

According to Grammarly, persuasive writing “is any written work that tries to convince the reader of the writer’s opinion and point of view. Persuasive writing tries to appeal to emotion alongside factual evidence and data to support its claims.”

Business-related content like sales copywriting uses persuasive writing to influence readers to choose the company’s products or services over their competitors.

To learn more about using persuasive writing, see this article: 6 Successful Persuasive Writing Strategies

eBooks And Guides

eBooks and Guides provide readers with a more comprehensive understanding of a specific topic or a particular area of interest and can be used as a high-value asset in lead generation (e.g. offer the eBook or guide to potential clients in exchange for giving you their email address and subscribing to your newsletter).

In terms of content planning, an effective way to write an eBook/guide is to start by creating an outline of all the chapters you plan to include arranged in a logical sequence and then write each chapter as an in-depth and self-contained article.

This approach lets you repurpose the chapters of your guide later on as separate articles or as an article series on your blog or website, or even expand the content into an eBook.

Alternatively, you can start by creating an in-depth article series with some foreplanning, and then publish these collectively later as a downloadable guide or eBook.

For more information, go here: How To Create eBooks & Online Courses

Best Practices for Creating eBooks

Use a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: The title and description should be engaging and make people want to read more.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the eBook: A consistent format and design will make the e-book easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use well-researched and engaging content: Make sure that the content is well-researched, accurate, and engaging, to keep readers interested.
Use images, videos, and infographics to break up text and make the eBook more visually appealing: Adding multimedia elements can help to make the e-book more engaging and make it easier for readers to understand the content.
Include a call-to-action at the end of the eBook, such as directing readers to a landing page or asking them to subscribe to a newsletter: This will encourage engagement and make it more likely that the eBook will be shared.

Challenges of Creating eBooks

Creating a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: Creating a title and description that is engaging and makes people want to read more can be challenging.
Writing well-researched and engaging content: Writing content that is interesting, engaging, and well-researched can be challenging, particularly if you are not a natural writer.
Finding the right images and graphics: Finding the right images and graphics to supplement the text can be time-consuming.
Staying consistent: Creating regular eBooks can be challenging, particularly if you are busy or have a limited budget.
Keeping up with industry trends: Staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends and changes in technology can be difficult and time-consuming.

Online Courses

Online courses are a type of digital learning experience that can be delivered over the internet.

Online courses can also be used to generate leads, and also to nurture leads through the funnel, by providing more in-depth and comprehensive information.

Online courses can include a wide range of content such as videos, audio, text, images, and interactive elements such as quizzes, assessments, and forums. They can be self-paced or instructor-led and can range from a few minutes to several hours in length.

Examples of using online courses as part of content marketing include:

Product or service training: Create online courses that provide training on how to use your products or services. For example, a software company could create a course that teaches customers how to use their software effectively and how to optimize their performance. Or, a company in the finance industry could create an online course that provides training on financial planning, investment strategies, and other related topics.
Industry-specific education: Create online courses that provide education on a specific industry or topic. For example, a marketing agency could create a course that teaches the principles of digital marketing.
Self-Improvement And Personal development: Create online courses that provide information and guidance on personal development topics such as leadership, time management, and stress management. For example, a company in the health and wellness industry could create an online course that provides information and guidance on topics like nutrition, exercise, and stress management.
Thought leadership: Create online courses that provide insights and advice on industry-specific topics, which will position your company as a thought leader in the industry and increase your visibility and credibility. For example, a company could create an online course that provides insights and advice on industry-specific topics, which will position the company as a thought leader in the industry and increase its visibility and credibility.
Certification: Create online courses that provide training and certifications on a specific skill or technology. For example, a company in the technology industry could create an online course that provides training and certifications on a specific technology or programming language.

Best Practices For Creating Online Courses

Define your target audience: Understand your target audience and their needs, interests, and pain points. This will help you create content that is relevant and valuable to them.
Create a clear learning outcome: Define a clear learning outcome for the course, and make sure that all the content and activities support that outcome.
Keep it interactive and engaging: Use interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and discussion boards to keep the course engaging and interactive.
Use multimedia: Use a variety of multimedia elements such as videos, images, and audio to make the course more engaging and to appeal to different learning styles.
Use storytelling: Use storytelling to make the course more engaging and to help learners relate to the content.
Provide assessments and quizzes: Provide assessments and quizzes to help learners check their understanding and to provide feedback on their progress.
Use feedback and testing: Use feedback and testing to assess learners’ understanding and to identify areas for improvement.
Provide support and assistance: Provide support and assistance to learners, such as answering questions, providing feedback on assignments and offering additional resources.
Be mobile-friendly: Ensure that the course is mobile-friendly and accessible on different devices and platforms.
Monitor and analyze: Monitor and analyze the course engagement and completion rates to understand the effectiveness of the course and to identify areas for improvement.
Keep it updated: Keep the course updated to ensure that the content is accurate and relevant.

Challenges Of Creating Online Courses

Creating online courses can be a powerful way to provide valuable information and education to customers, but it can also present some challenges.

Here are a few examples of the challenges of creating online courses:

Developing high-quality content: Creating engaging and informative content that is relevant to the audience can be time-consuming and challenging. It requires a good understanding of the topic, the target audience, and the format of the course.
Maintaining consistency and quality: Online courses often include multiple modules or lessons, and it can be challenging to maintain consistency and quality throughout the course.
Designing and developing interactive elements: Online courses should be interactive and engaging, which requires the development of interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and interactive videos.
Marketing and promoting the course: Once the course is created, it needs to be promoted and marketed effectively to reach the target audience.
Tracking and measuring success: Measuring the success of the course can be challenging, as it requires tracking engagement, completion rates, and other metrics.
Keeping up with technology: Online courses should be designed to be mobile-friendly and accessible across different devices and platforms, this also requires keeping up with the latest technology trends.
Providing support and assistance: Online courses often require support and assistance, such as answering questions and providing feedback on assignments.
Staying current and up-to-date: The topic of the course may change rapidly, and it’s important to keep the course updated to ensure that it stays relevant and valuable to the audience.

Creating online courses can be a significant investment of time and resources, but it can also be a powerful and effective way to educate and engage customers and position your company as a thought leader and authority in your industry.

For more information, go here:

Emails

Internet marketers often state that “the money is in the list.”

Emails are a great way to keep readers informed and updated about new products and services, useful tips, training, and more.

Running a regular email newsletter and email campaigns is one of the most effective ways to build a subscriber list and nurture leads. Email marketing consistently delivers great ROI and is a proven method used by B2B and B2C organizations to generate sales and grow their business cost-effectively.

Writing a series of short, concise emails with compelling headlines and calls to action with links to more detailed website pages (e.g. landing pages, sales pages, e-commerce or product information pages, tutorials, etc.) can be very effective when used as lead nurturing follow-ups or short email-based subscriber/customer training courses (e.g. a 7-day course on using your products).

Emails can also be triggered by user behavior and used to rescue sales and reduce eCommerce shopping cart abandonment.

Most reputable email service companies provide email personalization, campaign segmentation features, and statistical data reporting tools that allow you to analyze the results of your email campaigns and improve the content of your emails and your sales process.

Best Practices For Creating Emails

Segmenting your email list: Segmenting your email list allows you to send targeted, personalized messages to specific groups of people. This can increase the relevance and effectiveness of your emails.
Keeping the subject line short and clear: The subject line is the first thing that people see when they receive an email, so it’s important to make sure it’s clear and to the point.
Creating a clear and compelling call to action: Make sure your emails have a clear and compelling call to action, such as a link to a landing page or a button to make a purchase.
Optimizing for mobile devices: More and more people are checking their email on mobile devices, so it’s important to make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices.
Testing and analyzing: Test your emails and analyze the results to see what works and what doesn’t. This will help you improve your emails over time.

Challenges Of Creating Emails

Standing out in a crowded inbox: With so many emails being sent every day, it can be difficult to make your emails stand out.
Avoiding spam filters: Spam filters are designed to block unwanted emails, so it’s important to make sure your emails are not flagged as spam.
Maintaining high open and click-through rates: High open and click-through rates are key indicators of email success, but they can be difficult to achieve.
Creating content that resonates with the audience: Creating content that resonates with your audience can be challenging, as you need to understand their needs, interests, and pain points.
Keeping up with regulations: There are a number of laws and regulations that govern email marketing, such as the CAN-SPAM Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so it’s important to make sure you are compliant with these regulations.

Videos

Video is everywhere and video marketing is one of the most effective forms of content marketing available. Millions of online consumers worldwide are reached using videos and the demand for video content is increasing each year (see the “Infographics” section below).

There are many forms of video content you can create, including:

Explainer videos (short videos explaining products or services)
Simple Sales Videos (e.g. video narrations of PowerPoint slides)
Vlogs (video blogs)
Video interviews
Video presentations and recorded webinars
Video tutorials
Product reviews
Product demos and walkthroughs
Live stream recordings
Video testimonials
Video ads

As the chart below shows, video content serves a wide range of purposes.

Chart - Purpose of videos created. — Most popular uses for videos. Source: State Of Video Marketing Report

Video production for your products and services doesn’t have to be expensive. Businesses can produce videos cost-effectively in-house (i.e. shot on smartphones or recorded and edited using screen capture software), and even outsourced inexpensively on freelancer sites (e.g. explainer videos).

For tools and resources to help you create or source video content, see Media Creation Tools.

For the latest video marketing statistics, see these articles:

Best Practices For Creating Videos

Keep the video short and to the point, ideally less than 2-3 minutes: The attention span of viewers is limited, so it’s important to make sure that the video is concise and gets to the point quickly.
Use a strong and clear script: A script will help to keep the video on-topic and make it easier for viewers to understand the message.
Use high-quality visuals and audio: Good lighting, sound, and editing are essential for creating a high-quality video that is visually appealing and easy to understand.
Optimize for search by including a title, description, and keywords: This will help search engines understand the content of the video and make it easier for people to find it.
Include a call-to-action at the end of the video, such as directing viewers to a landing page or asking them to subscribe to a channel: This will encourage engagement and make it more likely that the video will be shared.

Challenges Of Creating Videos

Ensuring that the final product is high-quality and visually appealing: Creating high-quality videos can be time-consuming and require specialized equipment and skills.
Script-writing and storyboarding: Writing an engaging and compelling script and storyboard for the video can be challenging for non-creative people.
Producing videos can be time-consuming and expensive: The process of creating a video, from pre-production, filming, post-production, and editing, can be time-consuming and costly.
Staying on top of industry trends: Keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in video production can be difficult and time-consuming.
Measuring the performance of videos: Measuring the performance of videos can be difficult, as it’s hard to track how many people have watched the video, how long they watched it for, and how engaged they were with it.

Webinars

Webinars gained a significant increase in popularity as a preferred content type for many audiences after the global pandemic.

As the charts at the top of this lesson show, 67% of B2B and 48% of B2C consumers prefer watching webinars. The research also shows that while most buyers typically spend between five to 30 minutes reviewing nearly all
content formats, many are willing to invest 30 to 60+ minutes watching
a webinar.

Here are some additional stats you may want to know about using webinars as content…

State of Webinars 2020 Infographic — Source: ClickMeeting.com

Webinars are great for:

Lead Generation: Webinar participants typically register with their contact information before attending. You can capture their information, then follow up with content on topics that you know they’re already interested in (e.g. using a sequence of pre-written, personalized emails).
Community Building: Webinars can be very engaging and a great way to build relationships with customers. They allow you to position your brand while users interact with experts and thought leaders in your organization. Most webinar tools allow participants to chat and ask questions, providing instant engagement and a way to address concerns and objections directly in real-time.
Cost-effective Marketing: Webinars may not be as powerful or effective as live events, but when you consider that webinars require far less time, money, and resources to coordinate and put together than a live event, even if you get a smaller return on investment, running a successful webinar should more than offset and justify the risks vs trying to run a live event. Additionally, consider the downsides. There is less risk of experiencing a significant financial loss if you cancel a webinar due to low registrations than canceling a live event. Also, should you decide to run a webinar with fewer attendees than expected, this will give you more time to answer their questions and address their concerns, resulting in better engagement and interactivity with your target audience than live events.
Repurposing Content: You can repurpose webinar content for use in other distribution channels. For example, you can turn webinar topics into a series of blog articles, a video course, or sharable tweets (using memorable quotes or stats), and turn questions from attendees into new content like FAQs, tutorials, etc. Additionally, you can turn your webinars into slides for sharing on sites like SlideShare.
Evergreen Content: Record your webinars and add them to a “Resources” or client training page, or use them as high-value content for your lead generation campaigns. Webinars can continue delivering results long after making an initial investment of effort to create them.

Go here to learn how to host your first webinar.

Best Practices For Creating Webinars

Use a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: The title and description should be engaging and make people want to attend the webinar.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the webinar: A consistent format and design will make the webinar easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use a clear and engaging presentation: Make sure that the presentation is clear, engaging, and easy to understand for the audience.
Use images, videos, and infographics to break up text and make the webinar more visually appealing: Adding multimedia elements can help to make the webinar more engaging and make it easier for attendees to understand the content.
Include a call-to-action at the end of the webinar, such as directing attendees to a landing page or asking them to subscribe to a newsletter: This will encourage engagement and make it more likely that the webinar will be shared.

Challenges Of Creating Webinars

Creating a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: Creating a title and description that is engaging and makes people want to attend the webinar can be challenging.
Preparing a clear and engaging presentation: Preparing a clear and engaging presentation can be challenging, particularly if you are not a natural speaker or presenter.
Finding the right images and graphics: Finding the right images and graphics to supplement the text can be time-consuming.
Staying consistent: Creating regular webinars can be challenging, particularly if you are busy or have a limited budget.
Keeping up with industry trends: Staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends and changes in technology can be difficult and time-consuming.

Audios

Audio-based web content creates new opportunities for content creators and content publishers to expand their range of products and services.

Audio content can help government, corporate, and business websites by:

Increasing online user engagement
Strengthening social responsibility
Expanding content reach and consumption by making information available in different formats for different types of users, and
Helping to create a more inclusive internet for everyone.

Podcasts

Podcasts are a highly engaging form of content and podcasting is becoming increasingly popular as a source of entertainment, education, and news.

Currently, there are over 2 million podcasts available and hundreds of millions of podcast listeners worldwide.

As the chart below shows, listeners prefer some podcast genres over others, so depending on the industry and niche of your business, creating and distributing podcasts could be an effective way to reach new audiences.

Chart - Most Popular Podcast Genres — Most popular podcasting genres. Source: BuzzSprout

An effective way to market your business with podcasts is to interview experts or leaders in your field to get advice and helpful information, discuss hot industry trends, provide useful tips and ‘how-tos’, etc. This lets you build your reputation as a reliable source of information your audience can trust.

For tools and resources to help you with podcasting, see Media Creation Tools.

For more stats on podcasting, see these articles:

Text-To-Speech

New AI developments in voice technology allow text-to-speech to convert your text files and documents into lifelike audio narrations, deliver realistic-sounding voice narrations to your web content, and provide audio content to help make the web more inclusive by giving users with special learning needs, visual impairments or disabilities access to information in a format that they can more easily consume and digest.

The latest AI text-to-speech voice technology also allows you to translate your text files and documents into dozens of languages and turn these into high-quality voice narrations using hundreds of different male and female AI voices.

You can use text-to-speech voice recordings to create audio-based content like:

Educational videos, sales videos, training videos, explainer videos, product review videos, webinars, etc.
Narrated audio presentations and documentation.
e-Learning courses
Audiobooks and audio-based digital products.
Podcasts.
Spoken web pages.
Online/video/social media/radio advertising.
Translating your training or HR documentation into different languages
Creating audio content for visually-impaired users
Recording document drafts that can be listened to and reviewed on the way to and from work
Recorded greetings and announcements.
Other content and media formats

In summary, some of the benefits of using text-to-speech for content creation include:

Save time and money creating and publishing content. Getting text-to-speech voice narrators to enunciate your courses or narrate your podcasts or audiobooks is an economical and time-saving solution compared to hiring voice talent.
Create e-courses and audio products faster with less time and less cost.
If you plan to use human voice talent for your finished product, text-to-speech allows you to create drafts and audio scripts for professional narrators.
Create better content. If you plan to create an audiobook, podcast, e-learning product, or training course, listening to an audio draft helps to improve content structure and layout, fix spelling or grammatical errors, and generate new ideas.
Write more effective content. Hearing your sales pitch or content read aloud helps you to focus on your message, improve your copywriting and writing skills, and write more effective sales or training video scripts and presentations, web content, radio ads, and many other forms of content.
Create and deliver content to a global audience by making it easier to create multilingual audio content and audio products from language translations.

If you need help creating audio-based content using text-to-speech, see this excellent Text-to-Speech Course (narrated entirely using AI voices) or see the Content Production Tools section for text-to-speech software.

Best Practices For Creating Podcasts

Use a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: The title and description should be engaging and make people want to listen to the podcast.
Use a consistent format and theme throughout the podcast: A consistent format and theme will make the podcast easier to understand and more engaging for listeners.
Use high-quality audio equipment: Good sound quality is essential for creating a professional-sounding podcast that is easy to listen to.
Use engaging and well-researched content: Make sure that the content is engaging, well-researched, and relevant to the audience.
Include a call-to-action at the end of the podcast, such as directing listeners to a landing page or asking them to subscribe to the podcast: This will encourage engagement and make it more likely that the podcast will be shared.

Challenges Of Creating Podcasts

Creating a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: Creating a title and description that is engaging and makes people want to listen to the podcast can be challenging.
Preparing engaging and well-researched content: Preparing engaging and well-researched content can be challenging, particularly if you are not a natural writer or researcher.
Finding the right equipment: Finding the right equipment to produce a high-quality podcast can be expensive and time-consuming.
Staying consistent: Creating regular podcasts can be challenging, particularly if you are busy or have a limited budget.
Keeping up with industry trends: Staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends and changes in technology can be difficult and time-consuming.

For more information, go here:

Social Media Posts

Promoting products and services using specially crafted content for social media platforms can be a powerful way to increase brand awareness, build a community, create engagement with your target audience, and drive traffic to your business.

Social media marketing requires using different strategies for different platforms. What works on Facebook, for example, may not work on LinkedIn or TikTok.

Additionally, some of the most popular social media platforms in the world are not primarily targeting English speakers, so creating content for users on these platforms may require an entirely different approach altogether.

Most Popular Social Media Platforms in 2022 — Not all of the most popular social media platforms target English speakers. Source: Shopify.

For a useful guide on creating content for social media, see this article: Social Media Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

Best Practices For Creating Social Media Posts

Use a clear and attention-grabbing headline: The headline is the first thing that readers will see, so it’s important to make sure that it is engaging and makes them want to read more.
Use a consistent brand voice and tone: Use the same brand voice and tone throughout the post to ensure that it aligns with the overall brand image.
Use images, videos, and infographics to break up text and make the post more visually appealing: Adding multimedia elements can help to make the post more engaging and make it easier for readers to understand the content.
Use relevant hashtags and keywords: Use relevant hashtags and keywords to increase the visibility of the post and make it more discoverable.
Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages: Engaging with your followers will help to build a sense of community and encourage engagement.

Challenges Of Creating Social Media Posts

Staying consistent: Creating regular social media posts can be challenging, particularly if you are busy or have a limited budget.
Finding the right images and graphics: Finding the right images and graphics to supplement the text can be time-consuming.
Keeping up with industry trends: Staying up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in social media can be difficult and time-consuming.
Measuring the performance of social media posts: Measuring the performance of social media posts can be difficult, as it’s hard to track how many people have seen the post, how engaged they were with it, and how it influenced their decision to buy.
Managing multiple social media accounts and platforms: Managing multiple social media accounts and platforms can be difficult and time-consuming, especially for small businesses or those with limited resources.

For more information, go here:

Images

Images can be used as content in many ways, including:

Infographics

An infographic (or information graphic) uses engaging images, data visualizations (e.g. pie charts and bar graphs), and minimal text to communicate information or data quickly and clearly in an easy-to-understand overview format.

Infographic - The importance of Video Marketing — An infographic about the importance of video marketing. Source: Impact+

Study any successful infographic carefully, and you will see that it typically combines 5 essential elements:

Story
Data
Copy
Design
Charts & Graphs

Source: EnvisionUp

Infographics can be used in any business to explain anything that would be too hard or take too long using words only.

You can create infographics to provide a quick overview of just about any topic, make complex information easier to understand, summarize long articles or reports, display research findings or survey data, compare different options, raise awareness of an issue or cause, etc.

To view some great examples of infographics, go here.
To learn how to write content for infographics, see this article: How To Write Great Content Infographics.
To research infographics for content planning purposes, see Content Research Tools.
To source infographics for your content, see Content Production Tools.
For tools that will help you create infographic content, see Media Creation Tools.

Best Practices For Creating Infographics

Use a clear and attention-grabbing headline and description: The headline and description should be engaging and make people want to read more.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the infographic: A consistent format and design will make the infographic easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use high-quality visuals and colors: Good visuals and colors are essential for creating an infographic that is visually appealing and easy to understand.
Use a clear and logical structure: Organize the information in a logical and clear manner, using headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up the text.
Use a consistent brand voice and tone: Use the same brand voice and tone throughout the infographic to ensure that it aligns with the overall brand image.

Challenges Of Creating Infographics

Finding the right data and statistics: Finding the right data and statistics to include in the infographic can be time-consuming and difficult.
Making sure that the final product is visually appealing and easy to understand: Creating an infographic that is visually appealing and easy to understand can be challenging.
Staying on top of industry trends: Keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in infographic design can be difficult and time-consuming.
Limited scalability: Some infographics may not be scalable to different languages or formats.
Measuring the performance of infographics: Measuring the performance of infographics can be difficult, as it’s hard to track how many people have viewed the infographic, how long they spent looking at it, and how engaged they were with it.

Memes

Meme: Give your plants all the love you have in your heart...and if that's not enough, try watering them! — My gardening philosophy!

Memes can be great for getting your business noticed, especially if the subject of the meme relates to your brand.

For more information about using memes as content and meme-generation tools, go here: Using Memes And Cartoons In Your Content Marketing

Whitepapers

Here’s a practical and useful definition for businesses looking to promote their products or services using whitepapers…

“A whitepaper is a persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem and provides a solution. Marketers create whitepapers to educate their audience about a particular issue, or explain and promote a particular methodology. They’re advanced problem-solving guides. “

Source: HubSpot

Whitepapers are great for capturing leads. However, they are not meant to be used as “product pitches.” Their aim is to promote an in-depth level of expertise and industry knowledge and inform and persuade readers based on well-researched facts and evidence.

Whitepapers tend to be more serious in tone and better researched than other long-form content like cornerstone (i.e. authoritative) articles, ebooks, and reports. Whitepapers also tend to be around 3,000 to 5,000 words long and are generally made available as downloadable PDFs (preferably delivered after capturing the reader’s email details).

For an excellent resource on this topic, check out this guide: What Is A Whitepaper?

Best Practices For Creating Whitepapers

Use a clear and attention-grabbing title and abstract: The title and abstract should be engaging and make people want to read more.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the whitepaper: A consistent format and design will make the whitepaper easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use well-researched and engaging content: Make sure that the content is well-researched, accurate, and engaging to keep readers interested.
Use images, charts, and tables to supplement the text and make the whitepaper more visually appealing: Adding visual elements can help to make the whitepaper more engaging and make it easier for readers to understand the content.
Include a call-to-action at the end of the whitepaper, such as directing readers to a landing page or asking them to subscribe to a newsletter: This will encourage engagement and make it more likely that the whitepaper will be shared.

Challenges Of Creating Whitepapers

Creating a clear and attention-grabbing title and abstract: Creating a title and abstract that is engaging and makes people want to read more can be challenging.
Writing well-researched and engaging content: Writing content that is interesting, engaging, and well-researched can be challenging, particularly if you are not a natural writer.
Finding the right data and statistics: Finding the right data and statistics to include in the whitepaper can be time-consuming and difficult.
Staying consistent: Creating regular whitepapers can be challenging, particularly if you are busy or have a limited budget.
Keeping up with industry trends: Staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends and changes in technology can be difficult and time-consuming.

Case Studies

Case studies and client profiles use “success stories” to showcase your business and your services and provide readers with concrete data as proof of your company’s value, authority, and expertise in helping clients get results.

Although case studies usually require a great deal of time and energy to create (and reaching out to past customers/clients to get their consent for using them in your case study), they can be influential in helping B2B buyers make more informed purchasing decisions.

As shown in the graph at the top of this lesson, almost half of all B2B consumers prefer case studies over other types of content when researching information about products or services they are looking to purchase.

As content, case studies work well when used as lead magnets, landing pages, repurposed blog posts, and video testimonials.

For useful examples of case studies, go here: 12 Inspiring Content Marketing Case Study Examples

Best Practices For Creating Case Studies

Use a clear and attention-grabbing title and description: The title and description should be engaging and make people want to read more.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the case study: A consistent format and design will make the case study easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use real-world examples: Use real-world examples to illustrate the benefits of a product or service, this will make the case study more relatable and convincing.
Use a problem-solution-result structure: Organize the case study into a clear and concise format, such as a problem-solution-result structure, to make it easy for readers to understand the main points.
Use testimonials from customers or clients: Use quotes from customers or clients to provide credibility and social proof for the case study.

Challenges Of Creating Case Studies

Finding the right real-world examples: Finding the right real-world examples to illustrate the benefits of a product or service can be challenging.
Gaining permission from clients or customers to use their information in the case study: Obtaining the necessary legal permissions to use client or customer information can be a challenge.
Writing a clear and concise format: Creating a clear and concise format, such as a problem-solution-result structure, can be challenging.
Staying on top of industry trends: Keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in case study creation can be difficult and time-consuming.
Measuring the performance of case studies: Measuring the performance of case studies can be difficult, as it’s hard to track how many people have read the case study, how engaged they were with it, and how it influenced their decision to buy.

Content Templates

Content templates are pre-designed layouts or structures that can be used as a starting point for creating new content helping to save valuable time creating content from scratch.

Templates can include text, images, and other elements, and can be customized to suit the specific needs of the content being created.

Examples of content templates include:

Blog post templates: Blog post templates provide a structure for creating new blog posts, including sections for the introduction, body text, and conclusion.
Email templates: Email templates provide a structure for creating emails, including sections for the subject line, header, body text, and call to action.
Social media post templates: Social media post templates provide a structure for creating social media posts, including sections for the text, images, and hashtags.
Landing page templates: Landing page templates provide a structure for creating landing pages, including sections for the headline, body text, and call to action.

You can use different kinds of templates to create content for website pages, blog posts, infographics, ebooks, videos, slide presentations, etc.

Depending on the type of business you are in, you can also create and distribute your own templates (or checklists) as content and use these to help your clients, generate new leads, or even sell them as information products.

For example, Nusii provides a selection of free, professional, online proposal templates that let you add your company branding and bid on various projects.

Nusii - Free Online Proposal Templates — Nusii’s Free Online Proposal Templates. Source: **Nusii**

For an excellent collection of 200+ free content and content marketing templates, go here: The Ultimate Collection Of Free Content Templates

Best Practices For Creating Content Templates

Keep it simple: Create templates that are easy to use and understand. Avoid using complex layouts or design elements that can make the template difficult to use.
Be consistent: Use a consistent format, design, and style throughout your templates to ensure a cohesive look and feel for all of your content.
Make it customizable: Allow for enough flexibility in the template to allow for customization, such as adding brand colors, imagery and fonts.
Optimize for usability: Ensure that the template is user-friendly, with easy-to-find elements and intuitive navigation.
Test and iterate: Test the templates with a small group of users and make necessary adjustments based on their feedback.

Challenges Of Creating Content Templates

Balancing consistency and creativity: Finding the right balance between consistency and creativity can be difficult when creating templates.
Limited flexibility: Creating templates that are too rigid can limit the ability to customize and adapt to different types of content.
Limited scalability: Some templates may not be scalable to different types of content, such as different languages or formats.
Time-consuming: Creating templates can be time-consuming, particularly if you need to create multiple templates for different types of content.
Requires technical skills: Creating templates often requires knowledge of graphic design and layout, which can be a challenge for those without the necessary technical skills.
Keeping them up-to-date: Templates, especially those that are code-based, need to be updated frequently to avoid errors or incompatibility issues with the software being used.

Interactive Content

Interactive content refers to digital media that allows users to actively engage and participate in the content, rather than simply consuming it passively.

Examples of interactive content include quizzes, polls, surveys, assessments, interactive infographics, and games.

Interactive content can be used in many different ways to increase engagement, boost brand awareness, and generate leads.

For example:

Quizzes And Assessments

Examples:

A company in the health and wellness industry might create a quiz that helps users determine their “health age” based on their lifestyle habits, this not only provides valuable information to users but also collects information about their health and wellness interests that can be used for targeted marketing efforts.
A skincare company could create a quiz that helps users determine their skin type, and then provide personalized recommendations for products.
A company in the finance industry may create interactive financial calculators. This would allow visitors to make calculations on their own and see the results while providing valuable information on the company’s products and services.

Interactive Polls And Surveys

Polls and surveys are a great way to gather feedback from customers and gain insights into their preferences and opinions, provide valuable feedback for companies, and allow customers to share their thoughts with other potential customers.

Examples:

A company could create a survey asking customers about their experience using their products or services.
A company in the service industry might create an interactive survey that allows customers to rate their satisfaction with the service they received.

Interactive Infographics

Interactive infographics can be used to present data or information in an engaging and interactive way.

Examples:

A company in the real estate industry could create an interactive infographic that shows the most popular neighborhoods in a city and allows users to filter the data by different criteria.
An e-commerce company might create an interactive infographic that shows the different features and benefits of its products. This allows users to explore the products in more depth and learn more about what sets them apart from the competition.

Interactive Videos And Webinars

Companies can create interactive videos and webinars that allow users to engage with the content through polls, quizzes, Q&A, and other interactive elements.

Example:

A software company might create an interactive video that provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to use its product. This allows users to learn how to use the product at their own pace and provides a more engaging experience.

Interactive Games

Companies can create games that are related to their products or services.

Examples:

A company that sells outdoor equipment could create a game that challenges users to complete different outdoor activities, such as hiking or camping, using their products.
A company in the entertainment industry might create a game that allows users to interact with the brand and learn more about the company’s products or services in a fun and engaging way.

Interactive eBooks

An educational company might create an interactive e-book that allows users to interact with the content in various ways, such as by highlighting text, taking notes, and answering questions. This allows users to learn in a more engaging and interactive way.

Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality Experiences

Companies can create virtual or augmented reality experiences to showcase their products or services in an interactive way.

Examples:

A company in the automotive industry could create a virtual reality test drive experience for its customers.

Best Practices For Creating Interactive Content

Use a clear and attention-grabbing headline and description: The headline and description should be engaging and make people want to engage with the content.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the interactive content: A consistent format and design will make the interactive content easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and games to engage the audience: Interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and games can make the content more engaging and increase user participation.
Use a clear and logical structure: Organize the information in a logical and clear manner, using headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up the text.
Use a consistent brand voice and tone: Use the same brand voice and tone throughout the interactive content to ensure that it aligns with the overall brand image.

Challenges Of Creating Interactive Content

Finding the right interactive elements: Finding the right interactive elements, such as quizzes, polls, and games, to include in the content can be time-consuming and difficult.
Making sure that the final product is visually appealing and easy to use: Creating interactive content that is visually appealing and easy to use can be challenging.
Staying on top of industry trends: Keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in interactive content can be difficult and time-consuming.
Measuring the performance of interactive content: Measuring the performance of interactive content can be difficult, as it’s hard to track how many people have engaged with the content and how engaged they were with it.
Limited scalability: Some interactive content may not be scalable to different languages or formats.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any content that has been created by users of a product or service, rather than by brands, publishers, or the company itself.

User-generated content can include text, images, videos, and other forms of media. Examples of UGC include social media posts, product reviews, blog comments, testimonials, forum discussions, and ratings.

User-generated content can be an effective way to build brand trust and credibility with potential customers, as well as to provide valuable customer insights.

Examples:

A company might encourage customers to share their experiences with a product or service on social media, and then repost those reviews or testimonials on their website. This can help to build trust with potential customers who are considering purchasing the product or service.
A company creates a hashtag for their customers to share their photos and experiences with the product. This would allow the company to use the customer’s photos and experiences in their marketing campaigns.
A clothing retailer might showcase customer photos of people wearing their clothing on their website or social media pages. This not only provides social proof that their products are popular, but it also allows customers to see how the clothing looks on people with a similar body type.
A company that runs a blog allows customers to submit their own articles. This would not only provide a different perspective but also increase customer engagement and loyalty.

For more information, go here: Content Marketing With User-Generated Content

Best Practices For Creating User-Generated Content

Encourage users to share their content: Make it easy for users to share their content on your platform by providing clear instructions and guidelines.
Use a consistent format and design throughout the user-generated content: A consistent format and design will make the content easier to understand and more visually appealing.
Use a clear and logical structure: Organize the information in a logical and clear manner, using headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up the text.
Use a consistent brand voice and tone: Use the same brand voice and tone throughout the user-generated content to ensure that it aligns with the overall brand image.
Use a clear and attention-grabbing headline and description: The headline and description should be engaging and make people want to engage with the content.

Challenges Of Creating User-Generated Content

Encouraging users to share their content: Encouraging users to share their content can be challenging, particularly if they are not familiar with the platform or are hesitant to share their personal information.
Managing and moderating the content: Managing and moderating the content can be time-consuming, particularly if you have a large volume of user-generated content.
Ensuring that the content is accurate and reliable: Ensuring that the content is accurate and reliable can be challenging, particularly if it is not reviewed or moderated by an expert.
Measuring the performance of user-generated content: Measuring the performance of user-generated content can be difficult, as it’s hard to track how many people have engaged with the content and how engaged they were with it.
Limited scalability: Some user-generated content may not be scalable to different languages or formats.

Content Types – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content types:

What are content types in digital marketing?

Content types in digital marketing refer to the various forms of content used to engage audiences, such as blogs, videos, infographics, podcasts, and social media posts. Each type serves different purposes and is used in different contexts to maximize impact and reach.

How do I choose the right content type for my marketing strategy?

Choosing the right content type depends on your audience’s preferences, the goals of your campaign, the message you want to communicate, and the platforms you are using. Analyzing audience data and previous engagement metrics can guide your decisions.

What are the benefits of diversifying content types in a marketing campaign?

Diversifying content types helps to reach a broader audience, cater to different learning styles and preferences, and enhance engagement by keeping the content fresh and interesting. It can also boost SEO performance by providing multiple ways to feature keywords and backlinks.

Can the same content be repurposed into different content types?

Yes, repurposing content into different formats is a cost-effective strategy to maximize reach and reinforce messages. For example, a series of articles can be turned into an eBook, or a blog post can be turned into a video, a podcast episode, or an infographic, each appealing to different segments of your audience.

What tools can help manage multiple content types effectively?

Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla can help manage and schedule different types of content efficiently. These tools often come with features that allow for easy editing, organization, and publication of diverse content types without extensive technical knowledge.

Summary

There are many different types of content you can create to help promote and grow your business. The content type you create depends on factors like the audience group you are targeting, which phase of the buying journey your customers are at, and different content trends and preferences.

Your content strategy should help you decide which content types your production team should focus on creating.

Action Steps

When choosing a specific content type to create, it’s helpful to study examples of how other organizations in your industry or niche have used that type of content to promote their business successfully.

Build a ‘swipe file’ of ideas for different content types and make sure to check out the ‘Resources’ and ‘References’ sections below.

See the tutorials below to learn how to use the above content types in your content marketing strategy:

Resources

Free Content Ideas Course – Learn how to never run out of great content ideas for your blog, website, or email newsletters.
Video Courses – Links to video courses on content creation for different content types (e.g. blogging, videos, emails, podcasting, etc.)
Tools & Resources – Useful tools and resources for planning, producing, and promoting different content types.

References

Next Step

Learn how to repurpose different content types: Content Repurposing
Return to the Content Production Overview

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Image: Laptop

Content Backup Strategy

This section looks at implementing an effective content backup strategy for your business.

Content Backup Strategy

This section looks at implementing an effective content backup strategy for your business.

If content plays any part in the success and growth of your business, website, or digital presence, then we recommend developing and implementing an effective content backup strategy.

This will ensure that, if anything should happen to your business, to your website, or to your digital presence, your content can be fully restored quickly and easily.

This section looks at implementing an effective content backup strategy – what needs backing up, how often to back up, and cost-effective backup tools and methods.

Contents

Content Backups Goals And Objectives

The goals and objectives of performing regular content backups include:

Protect against data loss: This goal aims to protect your business against data loss due to hardware failure, software corruption, or other unforeseen events. Examples include regularly creating backups of website files, using backup software or services, and storing backups in multiple locations.
Ensure business continuity: This goal focuses on ensuring that your business can continue to operate in the event of data loss. Examples include having a disaster recovery plan in place, regularly testing backups to ensure they can be restored, and ensuring backups are easily accessible in case of an emergency.
Meet compliance requirements: This goal aims to meet any legal or regulatory requirements for data retention and backup. Examples include adhering to industry-specific regulations such as HIPAA or SOX, and keeping backups for a certain period of time to meet legal requirements
Easily revert to a previous version: This goal focuses on providing the ability to easily revert to a previous version of your website in case of errors or issues. Examples include creating point-in-time backups, keeping multiple versions of backups, and having the ability to easily restore backups.
Save time and resources: This goal aims to save time and resources by automating the backup process and reducing the need for manual intervention. Examples include using backup software or services that automate the backup process, setting up scheduled backups, and utilizing incremental backups to minimize data transfer.
Secure backups: This goal focuses on ensuring that backups are secure and protected from unauthorized access. Examples include encrypting backups, using secure protocols for data transfer, and using secure storage for backups.
Monitor and test backups: This goal aims to regularly monitor and test backups to ensure they are working correctly. Examples include regularly testing backups to make sure they can be restored, monitoring backup logs for errors, and setting up alerts for backup failures.
Store backups in multiple locations: This goal focuses on ensuring that backups are stored in multiple locations to protect against data loss due to physical disasters. Examples include storing backups on the cloud, on external hard drives, and on a separate server.

Your Content Backup Strategy

Having a content backup strategy is all about answering this question…

“How would we feel if something happened to our business, our website, or our digital presence?”

With this answer…

“Peace of mind.”

People take out health insurance, life insurance, business insurance, income insurance, home insurance, car insurance, etc. for “peace of mind.”

This is no different. If your content is important to your business, then you need content insurance to give you peace of mind.

Having an effective content backup system in place will ensure that your content can be restored fully, quickly, and easily should anything unpredictable or unexpected happen to your business or content.

The challenge is that in order to implement an effective content backup system that can fully restore your content quickly and easily, your business first needs to implement the following systems:

Content Documentation System

Your content documentation system includes planning and documenting all the processes, procedures, policies, guidelines, workflows, and checklists used to create all the content used in your business.

This ensures that if something disastrous were to happen and you have no backups, your business can assess what content it needs to recreate.

We cover this in more detail in the Content Documentation lesson.

Content Organization System

Your content organization system includes planning and deciding where all of your documentation will be stored.

This ensures that in the case of an emergency, you can quickly and easily retrieve all of your stored content.

We cover this in more detail in the Content Organization lesson.

Content Backup System

If the goal of your content backup strategy is to have “complete peace of mind,” then your content backup system must be comprehensive and take into account all business-related content generated from every area of the business, stored everywhere, including external servers and applications, internal company drives, and user devices.

In essence, this involves making an inventory of what needs to be backed up in each of the following areas:

Servers

Most of your public-facing content will be stored on servers.

This includes your website and all of its files, data, databases, and applications.

Many webhosting services include daily, weekly, or monthly server backups (full or incremental) depending on your webhosting plan. Some even include hourly backups, which are useful for sites that process large amounts of data, eCommerce sites, etc.

Typically, these backups are run automatically and managed by your webhosting company.

When creating your content backup strategy, contact your web host and ask them or review how data and files on your servers are backed up, how often, how data, files, and content can be restored, etc., and include this in your documentation.

Applications

Many applications, services, and tools used for work productivity, content production, and content promotion are run on cloud-based platforms (i.e. Software as a Service, or SaaS).

This makes the companies running these services responsible for keeping your account secure and your content backed up.

When creating your content backup strategy, make an inventory of all the services and applications that host your content externally, make a note of their backup processes and policies, and find out if it’s possible to export or back up your content and data files to your own backup solutions, so you can safeguard and protect your content.

Devices

Content such as business documentation and company-branded media files (e.g. logos, banners, etc.) should be stored on devices accessed through company accounts.

Sometimes, however, these files can end up being stored on personal devices, such as laptops and mobile devices of staff members.

It’s important, therefore, to assess and review where all of your business documentation is being stored and implement correct policies and procedures so that content isn’t lost if a team member leaves their role or loses their laptop or mobile phone.

Once you have done this, add this information to your backup plan.

Content

While your website content will typically be stored on a server and your business may choose to store other content on external applications or services, there are loads of internal documents that are probably being stored on internal drives, user devices, and other locations.

This content includes documents for external distribution (e.g. marketing brochures, pdf guides, reports, lists, drafts, revisions, etc.), content for internal communications (e.g. emails), etc.

It’s important to make sure that a record of this content is also uploaded to company folders, services, and accounts listed in your backup plan.

Back-Up Your Backups

Human error, malicious activity, technical errors, and natural disasters can lead to serious loss of data.

As stated earlier, if the plan is to achieve “complete peace of mind,” then your content backup strategy must not only include a system for backing all content from all areas of the business stored on all devices across the organization but also maintain regular backups of your backups.

Having multiple backups of backups stored across different locations is the ultimate strategy for mitigating and protecting your company’s content and data.

What Is An Offsite Storage Solution?

An offsite storage solution involves storing your website data and backups in a different physical location from your primary site.

This can be achieved through services that keep your data in secure data centers away from your main operations, offering protection against local disasters like fires or floods.

Why Use A Secure Data Storage Solution?

Storing your data backups on your computer hard drive can present a serious risk if your computer crashes or dies due to excessive use, or malicious viruses.

Using a secure offsite, remote, or cloud data storage solution for your website backups and files is a practical and sensible way to ensure that your valuable data can be recovered quickly if something happens to your computer.

For example, if your website is compromised by a cyberattack, having an offsite backup ensures you can restore the site to a previous, uncorrupted state quickly, avoiding prolonged downtime and potential loss of revenue.

Additionally, offsite storage solutions often provide scalable options that can grow with your business, offering cost savings compared to maintaining your own backup infrastructure.

Which Type Of Storage Solution Should You Use?

There are different types of storage solutions you can consider using.

For example:

Offsite Storage:
- Definition: Physical storage of data in a location separate from your main site.
- Example: Backing up your WordPress site to an external hard drive kept in a different building.
Remote Storage:
- Definition: Accessing data stored at a distant location via the internet.
- Example: Using a remote server to access and store files that are not physically close to you, such as through a company’s distant data center.
Cloud Storage:
- Definition: Data stored on virtual servers hosted on the internet by third-party providers.
- Example: Services like Google Drive or Dropbox, where data is stored in the cloud and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.

For more information on this, visit our File Transfer Tools tutorial, or see this article: How To Back Up Your Backups For Bulletproof Protection

How Often Should You Back Up Content?

The ideal backup interval depends on how often new content is added to your system and how valuable the content is.

If you run a high-volume eCommerce website, for example, you may want to back up your transaction data (and accompanying external sales data, communications, etc.) hourly.

If new content is regularly added to your website, then your website should get backed up at least daily (or nightly).

You may choose to back up files and content used for content planning, content production, or content promotion (e.g. media files, outline or draft documents, etc.) weekly or monthly.

The same applies to company documentation such as guides, policies, templates, etc. Depending on how often these documents are updated, you may want to create a monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual backup schedule.

The bottom line is that backup intervals must suit your business and help to eliminate the risk of losing important content, files, or data should anything unexpected happen.

Where To Backup Content

Your organization’s content will either reside internally or externally.

Content stored internally (documents, files, data, applications, etc.) is typically backed up using solutions like remote or cloud backup services and external drives.

As stated earlier, backing up content stored or hosted externally is the responsibility of the service providers. If you can export your data from these services, then add those export files to your internal data backup system.

For information on business cloud storage backup services, backing up your computer devices, and WordPress backup plugins, see the articles and tutorials listed in the “References” section at the end of this lesson.

Create A Content Backup Strategy Document

Your Content Backup Strategy document includes your content documentation and organization systems, a list of where all your content is being backed up to, their corresponding backup schedules, and who is responsible for performing these backups.

For this reason, we recommend focusing first on creating and implementing a Content Documentation System and Content Organization System.

Your Content Backup System then becomes the process of regularly backing up these systems.

Content Backup Checklist

Use the checklist below to ensure you have a complete content backup system for backing up the following:

Server Backup
- Server applications
- Website files
- Website data
- Databases
Applications
- SaaS (e.g. work productivity tools, content production software, content promotion services)
- Subscriptions
- Externally-hosted services
- Email
Device Backup (Desktop, Laptop, Tablet, Mobile)
- Programs and applications
- Files
- Data
Content Backup
- Documentation (including logins, passwords, licenses, etc.)
- Documents (e.g. PDF guides, downloadable files, etc.)
- Website (files, data, content revisions, etc.)
- Media (e.g. images, videos, audio, slide presentations, etc.)

Content Backups – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content backups:

What is a content backup?

A content backup refers to the process of copying and archiving website data so that it can be restored in the event of data loss, whether accidental or due to a cyber attack.

Why are backups important in content management?

Backups are crucial as they ensure that your digital content is safeguarded against data loss, corruption, or system failures, thus maintaining business continuity.

How often should I backup my website content?

The frequency of backups depends on the volume of content changes and the critical nature of your data. Daily backups are common, but more frequent backups might be necessary for highly dynamic sites.

What should be included in a content backup?

A comprehensive backup should include all website files, databases, images, and any additional resources used by the website such as plugins or custom code.

Where should I store my backups?

It is best practice to store backups in multiple locations, including both on-site and off-site storage solutions. Cloud storage services are also a popular and secure option.

How can I ensure my backups are secure?

Secure your backups by using encryption, strong access controls, and ensuring that any physical or cloud storage providers comply with industry-standard security practices.

What is the difference between incremental and full backups?

A full backup copies all selected data, whereas an incremental backup only copies data that has changed since the last backup, which can save storage space and reduce backup time.

How do I restore from a backup?

Restoring from a backup typically involves accessing your backup storage, selecting the appropriate backup, and using your CMS or a specialized tool to restore the data to your live environment.

Can automated tools help with content backups?

Yes, many CMS platforms have plugins or built-in features that automate the backup process, scheduling backups at regular intervals and storing them in predefined locations.

What common issues should I be aware of with content backups?

Potential issues include incomplete backups, backups failing to run as scheduled, data corruption during backup, and inadequate testing of backup integrity.

Summary

Trying to keep track of all the content flowing in, out, and through your organization is complex and challenging.

However, it is important to have a Content Backup strategy in place, so that if a disaster ever strikes your business, you can restore your content fully, quickly, and easily, and return to business as usual.

Action Steps

Review your Content Documentation and Content Organization systems.
Review the backup processes for all content stored on servers, applications, user devices, etc.
Choose backup intervals to suit your business that will eliminate the risk of losing important content, files, or data should anything unexpected happen to your business, website, or digital presence.
Automate as much of the backup process as you can, including uploading backup and export files of all your content to secure cloud storage solutions or external drives.
Create and implement a content backup system for all of the above that includes making backups of your backups.
Document all of the above in your Content Backup Strategy Document.

Resources

References

Next Steps

Return to the Content Management Overview course module
View the Course Outline

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Image: Cloud Storage

Content Management Checklists

Checklists and templates to help you manage your content more effectively.

Content Management Checklists

This section provides checklists and templates to help you manage your content more effectively.

Use the checklists and templates in this section to help improve your content team’s efficiency and productivity in areas like content strategy, content planning, content production, content promotion, and content management.

Note: To receive practical content management tips and links to useful information, including downloadable checklists, and templates, sign up for our free Content Management Course Lessons, delivered directly to your inbox.

Contents

Checklists & Templates

Checklists and templates play a pivotal role in content management for several reasons:

Consistency and Standardization: Checklists and templates ensure a consistent approach to content creation, editing, and publication, fostering standardization across various tasks and team members.
Efficiency and Time-Saving: They streamline workflows, providing a structured framework that helps content managers and teams efficiently navigate through tasks. This leads to significant time savings.
Communication and Collaboration: Checklists serve as clear communication plans, outlining job responsibilities and facilitating collaboration within the content management process.
Error Reduction: Templates act as guides, reducing the likelihood of errors in content creation and publication. They ensure that essential steps and details are not overlooked.
Productivity Boost: By providing a structured roadmap, checklists and templates contribute to enhanced productivity, allowing content managers to conquer goals and meet deadlines more effectively.

Below you will find checklists with links to the Content Documentation section and other lessons in this training course containing downloadable templates and resources and additional information.

Refer to our content management glossary if you need help understanding some of the terms or concepts described in this section.

Your Business

Complete the steps below to ensure that your business has set up the right foundation to develop an effective system for managing its content:

Review Business Basics
Document essential Company Information
Assess the structure of your Digital Business
Understand the Role Of The Content Manager
Evaluate your resources for building a Content Team
Set up your main Content Publishing Platform
Review your Web Pages

Content Strategy

Complete the steps below to develop an effective Content Strategy that will help your business achieve its goals and objectives:

Review Business Basics
Review the Content Strategy module and lessons
Perform a Content Audit
Perform an SEO Site Audit
Perform a Website & Web Content Accessibility Audit
Document your Content Strategy.
See this Content Strategy Checklist for additional steps.

Content Planning

Complete the steps below to develop an effective Content Plan aligned with your Content Strategy:

Review your Content Strategy.
Review the Content Planning module and lessons.
Set up your Content Planning Documentation system.
Implement your Content Research Tools.
Set up an Editorial Calendar
Document your Content Plan.
See this Content Planning Checklist for additional steps.

Content Production

Complete the steps below to create content for your business:

Review your Content Strategy.
Review your Content Plan.
Review the Content Production module and lessons.
Set up your Content Production Documentation system.
Implement your Content Production Tools.
Decide on the Content Types you will create.
Set up your Content Production Workflow.
Document Your Content Production Workflow.
Set up a Content Team Production Schedule.
Develop a plan to maximize your content production efforts by Repurposing your content.
If you plan to outsource any area of content production, content promotion, content planning, etc., use these outsourcing checklists.
See this Content Production Checklist for additional steps.

Content Promotion

Complete the steps below to ensure that your Content Promotion activities are aligned with your Marketing Strategy:

Review your Marketing Strategy.
Review your Marketing Plan.
Review the Content Promotion module and lessons.
Set up your Content Promotion Documentation system.
Implement your Content Promotion Tools.
Define your Content Metrics.
Define your Content Distribution channels.
Use these Content Distribution checklist.
Create your Brand Positioning Statements – use this Brand Positioning Template if you need help.
Review your Content SEO guidelines.
Review your Reciprocal Linking guidelines.
Set up and configure your Social Media Accounts.
Implement the Content Marketing methods specified in your marketing strategy and marketing plan.
Develop Lead Magnets to generate Email Marketing subscribers.
See this Content Promotion Checklist for additional steps.

Content Management Checklists

Complete the steps below to ensure that you are managing your content effectively:

Review the Content Management module and lessons.
Set up your Content Management Documentation system.
Set up your Content Organization system.
Set up your Content Tracking system.
Schedule regular Content Reviews.
Set up a Content Backup Strategy – use this checklist
See this Content Management Checklist for additional steps.
Refer to the Content Management Glossary if you are unfamiliar with some of the concepts or terminology mentioned on this site.

WordPress Checklists

If your site runs on WordPress, there are a number of WordPress checklists and templates you can use to save time, including:

Website Planning Process Flowchart – Use this website planning process flowchart to help you plan your new website.
Website Records – Use this checklist to keep records of your website’s important information.
WordPress Post & Page Creation Checklist – Use this checklist to help you create effective posts and pages in WordPress.
WordPress Keyboard Shortcuts – Become a WordPress power user and save time editing content with this handy WordPress keyboard shortcuts reference guide.
WordPress Security Checklist – Use this WordPress security checklist to make sure that your site is fully secured and protected against hackers and malicious users.

Resources

Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot content-related issues.
Digital Business Video Courses – Video courses to help you develop the digital skills you need to manage content effectively.
WordPress User Manual – A detailed and comprehensive step-by-step WordPress user manual for non-technical website users.

Visit our tools and resources section for additional courses, guides, and helpful tools and resources for managing content effectively.

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Return to the Content Management Overview
Return to the Course Outline

Image: Checklist

Content Documentation

This section looks at practical ways to build a content documentation system for managing content effectively in your business.

Content Documentation

This section looks at practical ways to build a content documentation system for managing content effectively in your business.

Documenting systems and processes in areas of your business like content planning, content production, content promotion, and even content management itself allows you not only to better manage these areas but also to improve your results.

In this lesson, we look at the documentation we recommend you develop and store for effectively managing content in your business.

Refer to our content management glossary if you need help understanding some of the terms or concepts described in this section.

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Contents

The Importance Of Documentation

Imagine that your business is run by a team of highly competent, experienced, and knowledgeable people and that there is no need to document anything in your business because everyone is an expert in their area and knows exactly what to do in every situation.

One day, a group of very wealthy investors comes along and expresses an interest in buying your business. They love your products and are very impressed with how things are run.

After introducing them to your wonderful team, they express curiosity about how your business is able to maintain such great standards of quality and consistency and ask about your systems and processes.

You start telling them about the wonderful people in your team and how they know everything.

Your investors then quickly lose interest and withdraw their offer to buy your business.

Why?

Because without documentation, all of the systems and processes of your business exist only inside people’s heads and only for as long as they are physically present and working in your business.

Human skull illustration with a superimposed flowchart diagram. — If this is where all of your business systems and processes live, then yours is a very high-risk business! Source: The Small Business Digital Manager

If someone leaves your business, they take your business systems and processes with them.

Documented systems and processes:

Allow your business to improve quality and consistency across all areas.
Help to provide better and faster hiring and training across your organization.
Lead to higher individual/team productivity and efficiency, and better performance and results.
Save time and speed up business growth.
Increase the value of your business.

More importantly, having documented systems and processes allows you to work on your business and improve its results by improving its systems and processes.

Content Documentation - Image of 3-ring binders inside a laptop. — Documentation helps you manage your content more effectively.

The section below includes a list of the documentation we recommend your business develop, keep regularly updated, and make accessible to your content team. It will help to improve the quality, consistency, accuracy, and management of all content and content processes in your organization.

Internal Documentation

“Internal documentation is the record of all your company’s internal knowledge, ranging from processes and procedures, best practices, IT and software specs, and much more. Internal documentation is intended for reference by employees to get their work done and standardize performance across the organization.”

Source: Document360

There’s a whole range of internal content your business should create, document, and maintain.

Different types of internal documentation include:

Process Documentation – How-to guides and manuals, best practices, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), checklists, etc.
Project Documentation – Proposals, plans, strategic documentation, meeting minutes, risk analysis, issue logs, etc.
Technical Documentation – Software and IT infrastructure, product specifications and requirements, development processes, etc.
HR Documentation – Company policies, onboarding and training materials, employee handbooks, etc.

For more information, see this article: Internal Documentation: How To Create, Tips & Examples

Business Documentation

In addition to having internal documentation such as company policies and documenting procedures and processes describing how work should be done in the business, keeping documentation for the areas below will help your team create accurate content about the company aligned with its business objectives:

Internal Content

Business Vision, Mission, Core Values
Company History
Business Strategy/ Business Plan
SWOT Analysis
Team Organization Chart
Employee/Team Member Profiles And Descriptions (for blog author pages)
Support Request Guidelines (to help the Customer Support team)

For more information on additional content you can document about your business, see the Business Basics section.

Web Pages

Check that your site has the following pages (note: some pages are optional) and review their content:

Basic Pages

Home Page
About Us/Meet The Team
Contact Page
FAQs
Landing Pages (Products and Services)
Blog Section
Portfolio/Our Work
Careers/We’re Hiring
Roadmap

Legal Pages

Privacy Statement
Terms And Conditions
Website Disclaimers
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance
Affiliate Agreement
Anti-Spam Policy
Compensation Disclosure
External Linking Policy
Health Disclaimers
Refund Policy
Media Terms Of Use

Web Content Accessibility

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide technical specifications to improve the accessibility of web content, websites, and web applications across all devices for people with a wide range of disabilities.

Essential Accessibility is an all-in-one accessibility platform that provides accessibility tools, expertise, training, and support, including compliance guides and a downloadable interactive WCAG checklist.

Essential Accessibility WCAG 2.1A and AAA checklists — Use Essential Accessibility’s WCAG 2.1A and AAA interactive checklists to ensure your site and content are compliant with accessibility guidelines.

Access the checklist here: WCAG 2.1 Checklist

Content Planning Documentation

Documenting the content below will help to speed up the process of content creation and ensure content is aligned with business outcomes and expectations:

Content Strategy
Content Plan
Content Inventory
Content Guidelines:
- Researching Content
- Content SEO

Content Production Documentation

Documenting the content below will help to speed up the process of content production, improve timely delivery to production deadlines, and help to ensure the quality and consistency of all created content:

- Workflow Documentation
- Content Brief Templates
- Content Guidelines
  - Content Style Guide
  - Content Quality Guide
- Glossary of Terms
- Creating Production Reports

Additionally, you can help to improve your team’s efficiency and productivity with documentation covering processes like:

How to set up and use workflow tools (get new team members up to speed faster)
How to keep content organized (so everyone can access it quickly and easily)
How to share content effectively with others (internally and externally)

This documentation can include training, guides, guidelines, and tips on:

Organizing email inboxes and folders
Using applications and sharing content on work tools (e.g. Slack, Zoom, etc.)
Uploading files to your website, web server, and cloud storage services.

Most professional tools provide their own documentation and tutorials, so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Just create a simple guide with key processes team members should follow, add links to the tool’s documentation, tutorials, and help sections, and include additional resources from the web (e.g. links to helpful articles or videos).

For example, you can use links to resources like the examples shown below to quickly create a simple yet useful guide for team members on how to organize their Gmail inboxes to help them save time and increase their productivity, then provide this guide as part of their orientation and training process:

Gmail Training And Help (Gmail Documentation)
Organize Your Gmail Inbox (Gmail Documentation)
Get Inbox Zero: How To Organize Your Gmail – The Ultimate Guide (Article)
How To Organize Your Gmail Inbox In 15 Minutes – 17 Secrets (Article)
Gmail Tutorial – Quick Start Training (Video)
How To Use Gmail With Tips And Tricks – Detailed Tutorial (Video)

Content Promotion Documentation

Documenting the content below will help to improve results in areas like lead generation and sales conversions:

Marketing Strategy/ Marketing Plan
Content Marketing Documentation
- Content Metrics
Content Guidelines:
- - Branding (e.g. see “Positioning Statements” section below)
  - Reciprocal Linking (See Content Distribution)
User Documentation
- Lead Generation (e.g. Guides, PDF reports, etc.)
- User Education & Training (help users get the most out of your products and services)
- Distribution Materials (e.g. for wholesalers, retailers, vendors, partners, affiliates, etc.)
Marketing Training (Manuals and guides)
- Using Promotional Tools
- Using CMS
Creating Marketing Reports

Brand Positioning

Positioning statements help to ensure that your marketing efforts are aligned with your brand.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Describes to your target market how you’re different and why they should buy from you.
Unique Selling Point– Describes how your company stands out from the competition.
Value Proposition – Describes what you are offering to customers for what they are paying and answers the question: Why should customers care that you’re different?

For examples of positioning statements and a free template, go here: Examples Of Positioning Statements (Free Template)

Content Management Documentation

Documenting the areas below will help to improve your content management processes:

Website Documentation

Keeping the information on your website accurate and up-to-date is a form of documentation.

This includes:

Company Pages (e.g. About Us)
Products & Services Pages
FAQs
Blog
Legal Pages

Legal Pages

Your website needs various legal pages to comply with regulatory requirements (e.g. federal and state laws), and 3rd-party providers (e.g. Google). Legal pages can also protect your business from legal issues, legal threats “takedown” notices, etc.

Legal pages include:

About Us
Contact Page
Privacy Statement
Terms And Conditions
Website Disclaimers
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

Additionally, depending on the nature of your business, you may also want to consider including some or all of the following pages:

Affiliate Agreement (if you sell products or services through an affiliate program.)
Anti-Spam Policy
Compensation Disclosure
External Linking Policy
Health Disclaimers (e.g. if your website provides general health or medical content.)
Refund Policy (if you run an e-commerce site.)
Media Terms Of Use (e.g. if you allow users to download videos or audio files on your site.)

Disclosure Pages – Types

Adding correct disclosure information to your site is essential. For example:

No Material Connection – Make your visitors aware that you will not receive compensation for writing the content.
Affiliate Links – Make your readers aware that you may be compensated financially if they buy through your affiliate link.
Review/Sample Copy – Disclose to your visitors if you have been given a review or sample copy of the product or service you’re reviewing by the author or developer.
Sponsored Post – Make your visitors aware that you were compensated in some way to write the post.
Third-Party Advertising – Let users know if you’re using online behavioral tracking technology. This is required to comply with the “enhanced notice” the Better Business Bureau has been requiring website publishers to show prominently on their sites since January 1, 2014.

Remember to regularly review and update the information on all of the pages listed above.

Documentation Management Systems

Other types of systems that allow you to manage documentation and your content include:

Document Management Systems – A software program designed to help organizations manage, store, and track their electronic and physical documents.
Digital Asset Register – Keep a record of all your documentation and digital assets with descriptions, versioning, location, access URLs, software licenses, subscription services, logins, passwords, etc.
CMS – Building your online presence using a platform like WordPress functions both as a content management system, and a content documentation system as described in the “Website Documentation” section above. Also, see these different types of Content Management Systems:
- WCMS – Web Content Management System
- ECMS – Enterprise Content Management System
- CCMS – Component Content Management System
- DAMS – Digital Asset Management System
Document Library – A document library is a collection of files, documents, or records that are systematically organized and stored in a digital format.
Content Tracking – Create documents and guides to help your team track content production and content performance across your organization, understand and interpret results, and create reports.
Documentation Storage – Create documents and guides to help your team access and use various digital storage tools (see below).
Content Guidelines For:
- Spam Comment Moderation.

Document Storage

Effective content management requires effective ways to collaborate, store, organize, and retrieve documents and content.

Storing documents and content, however, presents its own challenges, as this involves not only working out an efficient way to store, access, and archive digital assets, but also making sure that assets can be worked on collaboratively and be shared, reused, and repurposed across multiple channels.

Some options for storing your documentation and your content include storing your documentation using digital asset management (DAM) software…

Screenshot of Canto - Digital Asset Management Software — You can use Digital Asset Management (DAM) Software…Source: Canto

On a knowledge base platform…

Document 360 - Knowledge Base Platform — Store public or private documentation and content for customers and employees on an online self-service knowledge base. Source: Document360

On a cloud storage solution (e.g. Amazon S3, Dropbox, etc.)…

Screenshot of Amazon AWS buckets — Store your documentation on the cloud using a solution like Amazon’s AWS…

In folders on a shared drive (e.g. Google Drive)…

Screenshot of artwork stored on a Google Drive folder. — Store your documentation inside folders on a shared drive.

In the WordPress Media Library (if you use WordPress as a CMS)…

Or in additional places like cloud-based email, work productivity tools (e.g. Slack channels), and other tools.

Whether your organization chooses to use a digital asset management (DAM) system, online knowledge base software, or set up folders on a shared drive or cloud storage solution will depend on your organization’s digital asset management strategy.

Create an organized system of folders to add all the documentation your team members will need to complete their projects and make these sharable and accessible to your team.
Use easily identifiable folder naming conventions when storing documentation to ensure that the process remains standardized.
Make sure to reference where the folders containing your documentation are located. You can do this using your web browser’s Bookmarks tool and in internal documentation (e.g. create an online guide for your content team for easy access and retrieval of documents).

Document Access

You’ve documented everything in your business and worked out where to store it all…great!

Now, you need to work out how to make all of this documentation easily accessible and retrievable for your team. Otherwise, this will defeat the purpose of creating an efficient system to manage all of your documents and content effectively.

Content Documentation Chart - Documentation, Storage, and Access orbiting around Content Management — Effective content management requires effective documentation, storage, and access systems.

In addition to the storage methods mentioned earlier (e.g. DAM and Knowledge Bases), there are many places to access your documentation, including:

Your web browser bookmarks
Your Content Management System (CMS) and its Media Library
Your Workflow Management Tool
Shared drives on cloud storage or company server
Internal guides (e.g. downloadable PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, flowcharts, etc.)
Online guides and manuals (e.g. SOP=Standard Operating Manual)
Your website’s staff/team training section.
Checklists
Etc.

For example, your web browser’s Bookmarking tool is a great way to organize and access links to documentation and useful tools and resources for your content team.

Bookmark Organization — Your web browser’s Bookmarking tool is a great way to organize and access links to documentation, tools, and useful resources.

You can even export and share your bookmarks so everyone in your team can access the documents, tools, and resources they need quickly and easily.

Google Chrome Browser Bookmarks — Use your web browser’s Bookmarking tool to create an organized way for team members to quickly and easily access all the documentation they need to create, promote, and manage content.

Content Documentation – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content documentation:

What is content documentation?

Content documentation refers to the process of creating, storing, managing, and updating all forms of documentation related to a company’s content processes, including text, images, video, and multimedia. This ensures information is easily accessible and can be updated or repurposed efficiently.

Why is content documentation important?

It helps maintain consistency across various content channels, improves collaboration among team members, ensures compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, and serves as a historical record of content strategies and outputs.

What are the key elements of effective content documentation?

Effective content documentation should include a clear purpose, audience identification, structured format, detailed content guidelines, and revision history. These elements ensure that documentation is useful and accessible to all stakeholders involved.

How does a content management system (CMS) support content documentation?

A CMS helps in organizing, controlling, and publishing documentation without requiring technical expertise. Features like version control, access permissions, and integration capabilities make CMS an indispensable tool for content documentation.

What should be included in a content documentation strategy?

The strategy should outline the content lifecycle, roles and responsibilities of the content team, documentation standards, storage and retrieval processes, and tools and technologies used for creating and maintaining documents.

How do I choose the right tools for content documentation?

Select tools based on your specific needs for collaboration, version control, ease of use, scalability, and integration with other systems. Consider the nature of your content and the size of your team to find a suitable solution.

What are some common challenges in content documentation and how can they be addressed?

Common challenges include maintaining up-to-date records, ensuring document accessibility, and managing multiple content formats. Regular audits, training for team members, and leveraging a robust CMS can help address these issues.

Summary

All too often, business knowledge, systems, and processes are stored in the heads of employees and scattered across all the various tools used in the business. There is little documentation and no single source of truth for it.

This leads to valuable time and effort wasted searching for information across all areas of the business, including information required to assist in speeding up areas like content planning, content production, and content promotion.

An effective content documentation system that allows your content team to quickly and easily access all stored documents is essential to effective content management.

Documentation is a massive undertaking, but once started and implemented, it leads to improved results in all areas of the business.

Action Steps

Review this lesson and identify all the different areas of your business that need documentation.
Create a list of all the documented systems and processes each of these business areas needs to operate efficiently and effectively, especially in areas related to content planning, content production, and content promotion.
Develop a plan for organizing, storing, accessing, distributing, and implementing all business documentation.
Begin documenting all systems and processes listed above. This can be as simple as creating bullet-point guides, procedures, and checklists.
Train your team members to use and follow the documentation.
Continually review and improve your documentation.

Resources

How To Use Amazon S3 – Video course on using Amazon AWS to store files (e.g. media, documentation, etc.)
Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to help you troubleshoot issues with your content and improve your content management.

References

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Image: Woman Typing, 3-ring Binders in Laptop

Content Management

Learn how to set up systems for managing your content effectively.

Content Management

This section looks at how to set up systems for managing your content effectively.

The most effective way to help your business realize its goals and objectives is to turn every content-related area of your business into systems that anyone in your organization can help to manage.

It’s difficult to manage content effectively if you have not set up effective systems and processes to handle the areas of your business responsible for planning, creating, delivering, distributing, and promoting your content.

At the same time, it’s difficult to plan, create, deliver, distribute, and promote your content successfully if your business doesn’t have an effective way to manage all these processes.

In this module, we look at how to address these challenges.

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Contents

Before You Begin

Please review The Role Of The Content Manager lesson and the Content Strategy module before starting on the lessons in this module.

As a subscriber, you will also get notified when new posts containing practical information and valuable content management tips are added to our blog.

Content Management Is Challenging

Managing content for your website and other digital assets can be challenging as it involves a combination of creativity, organization, and technical skills.

Here are some of the main challenges of managing your content that you may run into:

Content creation: Generating new, high-quality content that aligns with your goals and resonates with your target audience.
Content curation: Selecting, editing, and organizing existing content to keep your website fresh and up-to-date.
Content organization: Structuring your website’s content in a logical and user-friendly way, making it easy for your visitors to navigate and find what they are looking for.
Content maintenance: Keeping your website’s content up-to-date, removing outdated or irrelevant information, and updating, revising, and archiving content to keep it accurate, relevant, and useful.
Content governance: Setting guidelines, policies, and standards for creating, managing, and publishing content on your website, and ensuring that all content on the website adheres to legal and ethical guidelines and company policies.
Multiple authors and contributors: Managing the contributions of multiple authors and ensuring consistency and quality across all content.
Integration with other systems: Integrating your content management system with other systems such as CRM, analytics, or e-commerce platforms.
Multilingual content management: Managing content in multiple languages for your website catering to a diverse audience.
Content security and backups: Protecting your website’s content from unauthorized access, complying with data privacy regulations, and ensuring that regular backups are made to restore the content in case of unfortunate events.
Measuring and analyzing performance: Tracking metrics such as website traffic, engagement rates, and conversion rates to measure the success and effectiveness of your content management efforts.

Addressing The Challenges Of Managing Your Content

According to digital marketing experts, your business should use content marketing to promote and market itself using content, and you should do this by:

Publishing new content regularly on your blog and on social media,
Sending out regular email newsletters to your subscribers (and your email marketing should be segmented to different users – i.e. prospects, customers, partners, etc.)
Creating special reports, and guides to generate new leads for your businesses.

But that’s not all…

Your business should also be continually creating new content targeting different audiences using tweets, pins, stories, videos, audio, infographics, slides, webinars, etc.

And your content must not only engage, entertain, delight, inform, educate, and sell, but if you want your content to rank well in the search engines, it must also be original, authoritative, expertly written, well-researched, and able to satisfy all the needs of your audience (or different audience groups).

That’s asking a lot of any business. Especially businesses with limited budgets and resources.

And once you figure out how to create (and meet the cost of creating) all this content…

How do you manage all of this content you have created?

How do you keep your content organized, up-to-date, and accessible so that anyone who needs it can quickly and easily access it without wasting time searching for it or duplicating it?

Managing all the content in your business requires setting up effective systems and processes for content planning, content production, and content promotion before you even start planning, creating, or promoting any content.

Without these systems and processes, your business is just guessing what may or may not work and hoping this will lead to great results.

Creating content without a plan, without defined targets, and without systems for measuring its performance and results is like throwing bricks into an empty yard and hoping these will somehow arrange themselves into a beautiful house.

This would be a complete waste of time, effort, money, and resources, wouldn’t you agree?

As we mentioned from the outset of this course…

The More Content You Have, The More Content You Have To Manage

Suppose you have a blog and you regularly publish new content on it.

In just a few short years, your blog could have hundreds or even thousands of existing posts. Many of these posts will eventually contain information that needs updating, rewriting, or removing.

You can’t stop creating new content, but as your content gets old, you also have to keep maintaining it.

Managing the existing content in your business is like painting bridges. Maintaining the structure fresh and up-to-date to make sure it remains standing while everything around is trying to corrode it is an ongoing process.

So many factors can affect your existing content.

For example:

Facts, stats, and prices are continually changing,
Companies, brands, and platforms appear, evolve, get acquired, change names, or collapse,
External pages that your content links to (and are out of your control) are constantly being added, modified, moved, or removed,
And many other things.

Keeping track of all your existing content to see if anything has changed (and if so, what has changed) is a massive challenge, especially as your business matures and your web presence becomes more established.

The Solution: Develop And Implement An Effective Content Management System

If…

Your business needs a web presence,
Your web presence needs web content,
Your content needs management, and
The more content you have, the more content you have to manage…

Then the challenge for your business is to figure out not only how it can keep pumping out new content regularly, but also how it can proactively maintain all of its existing content updated, relevant, and accurate, in addition to managing all of its content-related processes and activities, while working within its current business setup.

For additional information, read our article on the challenges of managing content effectively.

Assessing Your Current Content Management Practices

As we have just seen…

Effective content management involves managing both the planning, production, and promotion of new content and the ongoing maintenance of existing content, throughout your entire organization.

So, is your business ready to manage its content effectively?

Think about all the areas of your business that are involved in the planning, creation, delivery, distribution, and promotion of your content, and ask yourself these questions:

How quickly can your business create and publish new content?
How does your business keep a pipeline of new content going?
How does your business keep the information in your existing content (across all content types and distribution channels) up-to-date, relevant, and accurate?
How do you know when your content is out of date, has become irrelevant, inaccurate, or obsolete?
How can you tell if your content is performing well?
How do you keep your content processes documented, organized, and accessible so anyone who needs the information can quickly and easily locate it?
How can you tell if your team members are implementing and following effective content management processes?
How quickly can your business adapt to incorporate new content planning, production, and promotion processes, strategies, methods, and tools?

The above answers will help you develop an effective Content Management Strategy, which is outlined below.

Your Content Management Strategy

The first step to managing content effectively in your business is to develop a content strategy.

Without this blueprint to guide your content activities and direction, your business will be like a rudderless ship.

Once you have your strategy, you then begin to follow it to create your content plan. Use this plan to define how your business will manage areas like content research, content production, and content promotion.

While you are doing this, your team should also be documenting your content processes, tracking your content’s performance, and periodically reviewing your content to make sure it’s still aligned with your business objectives.

Additionally, your business needs to think about doing all this in an organized way while protecting and regularly backing up its content.

Your Content Management Plan

After creating your content strategy and content plan, the next step is to break your overall content plan down into smaller plans for content production, content promotion, and content management.

Your content management plan is a document that outlines the process and procedures for managing and maintaining the content that your business produces.

It typically includes your goals and objectives for your content, your target audience, the types of content to be produced, the distribution channels to be used, the roles and responsibilities of team members, the workflow and approval process, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your content management practices.

Your business needs a content management plan because it helps you to efficiently and effectively manage the content that you produce, from the initial idea to the final publication.

It also allows for a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of team members and stakeholders and establishes a consistent workflow, which helps to ensure that your content is accurate, on-brand, and on-time.

Also, a content management plan allows your business to track the performance of your content over time, and make adjustments as needed to ensure that you are meeting your content goals and reaching your target audience effectively.

Furthermore, a content management plan can help your business ensure that your content is organized, easily searchable, and retrievable, which can save time and resources in the long run, and provide a consistent customer experience.

Additionally, having a content management plan in place will help your business keep your content up-to-date and accurate, avoid duplication of effort, and ensure compliance with legal or regulatory requirements.

In short, your content management plan is a strategy for organizing, storing, and maintaining your business content.

It helps your business keep its content organized, ensuring that it stays up-to-date and relevant, and making it easily accessible to those who need it.

Content Management Plan Goals & Objectives

Common content management plan goals and objectives include:

Content organization: The goal is to create a structure and system for organizing and categorizing content in a way that makes it easy for users to find and access. This can be achieved by using tags and categories to organize blog posts and creating a hierarchical file system for document management.
Content creation: The goal is to create and publish new content that is relevant, valuable, and engaging for the target audience. This can be achieved by writing and publishing blog posts, creating and publishing videos, and creating and publishing infographics.
Content optimization: The goal is to improve the visibility and performance of existing content through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. This can be achieved by researching and including relevant keywords, optimizing meta tags, and creating internal and external links.
Content distribution: The goal is to reach and engage the target audience through various channels such as social media, email, and other digital platforms. This can be achieved by sharing content on social media, sending newsletters, and creating and sharing infographics on social media platforms.
Content measurement and analytics: The goal is to track and measure your content’s performance in terms of engagement, conversion, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). This can be achieved by using Google Analytics to track website traffic, using social media analytics to track engagement, and using A/B testing to optimize conversion rates.
Content governance: The goal is to ensure that all content is accurate, up-to-date, and compliant with legal, ethical, and brand guidelines. This can be achieved by creating and enforcing a content style guide, regularly reviewing and updating content, and ensuring that all content is accessible and inclusive.
Content archiving: The goal is to preserve and protect historical content for future reference. This can be achieved by keeping a record of all previous blog posts, preserving old videos, and archiving all previous documents and files.

How To Create A Content Management Plan

Here are the steps you can follow to create a content management plan for your business:

Inventory your content: Perform a content audit and create a list of all the content your business currently has, including the format, title, and location of each piece.
Identify the types of content: Group your content into categories, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, whitepapers, etc. This will make it easier to manage and keep track of.
Create a content schedule: Decide how often you will update and republish each type of content. This will help ensure that your content stays current and relevant.
Establish a process for creating and publishing content: Develop a workflow for creating and publishing new content, and make sure that everyone who creates content knows what is expected of them.
Create a system for storing and sharing content: Decide on a way to store and share your content, such as a content management system (CMS) or shared drive.
Define roles and responsibilities: Assign roles and responsibilities for content management to the appropriate people or teams within your organization.
Regularly review and update your plan: Regularly review and update your content management plan as needed to ensure that it is still effective.

Example Of A Content Management Plan

Here is an example of what a simple content management plan for a SaaS company that creates marketing software might look like:

Inventory: Blog posts, case studies, webinars, product demos, whitepapers
Types of content: Blog posts, case studies, webinars, product demos, whitepapers
Content schedule:
- Blog post: Once a week
- Case study: Once a month
- Webinar: Once a quarter
- Product demos: Once a quarter
- Whitepaper: Once a year
Process:
- Research: Marketing team
- Writing: Marketing team
- Editing: Marketing team
- Design: Graphic designer
- Publishing: Marketing team
- Storage: Google Drive
Roles and responsibilities:
- Content management: Marketing team
- Content scheduling: Marketing team
- Content publishing: Marketing team

By following these steps and regularly monitoring your results, the SaaS company will be able to create a content management plan that will help them keep their content organized, ensure that it stays up-to-date and relevant, and make it easily accessible to the people who need it.

Content Management Checklist

Define your content management goals: Clearly define the goals for managing the content, such as improving website traffic or increasing customer engagement.
Create a content inventory: Create an inventory of all existing content, including the format, topic, and target audience.
Develop a content strategy: Develop a content strategy that outlines the goals, target audience, topics, and formats for the content.
Establish a content workflow: Establish a content workflow that outlines the process for creating, reviewing, editing, and publishing content.
Set up a content calendar: Set up a content calendar that outlines the publishing schedule for your content.
Assign roles and responsibilities: Assign roles and responsibilities for creating, editing, and publishing your content.
Use a content management system (CMS): Use a CMS to organize, store, and distribute your content.
Optimize for SEO: Optimize your content for search engines by including relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and alt tags.
Track and analyze: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your content and gather insights for future content management.
Review and update: Review and update your content on a regular basis to ensure it stays fresh and relevant.
Collaborate and communicate: Collaborate and communicate with other teams and stakeholders to ensure the content aligns with the overall company goals and objectives.
Keep backups: Keep a backup of all your content.
Document all processes: Ensure that anyone can manage your content to the highest quality standards set by your business.
Continuously monitor and improve: Continuously monitor and improve your content management process based on your results and feedback.

Where To Start With Content Management

If you haven’t started building your online presence yet, then we recommend starting from the very beginning of this course, especially The Role Of The Content Manager, Content Management Mindset, and Content Strategy, and then going through all of the modules.

If your business is already underway and your content management practices have started to become chaotic and disorganized, then we recommend going through our Content Troubleshooting Guide.

Regardless of which of the above options applies to your situation, we also recommend also subscribing to our free content management course email lessons.

The email lessons will guide you through the course and provide the information you need to start managing your content effectively.

As a subscriber, you will also get notified when new posts (containing practical information and valuable content management tips) are added to our blog.

Content Management – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content management:

What is content management?

Content management involves the creation, organization, publication, and governance of digital content with a unified strategy to meet specific business goals. It encompasses tools, processes, workflows, and technologies to help individuals or teams streamline content production and distribution.

What are the key components of effective content management?

Effective content management relies on clear goals, well-defined workflows, collaboration tools, version control, metadata management, and analytics for continuous improvement.

How does content management benefit businesses?

Content management enhances productivity, ensures consistency, improves collaboration, facilitates compliance, enhances customer experience, and enables data-driven decision-making.

What are the common challenges in managing content effectively?

Common challenges include content fragmentation, inconsistent workflows, poor version control, lack of collaboration, content governance issues, and difficulties in measuring content performance.

How can businesses streamline content creation?

Businesses can streamline content creation by defining clear objectives, creating content calendars, establishing editorial guidelines, leveraging content templates, and using collaborative tools for efficient content production.

What are the best practices for organizing digital content?

Best practices include implementing a taxonomy and metadata strategy, using consistent naming conventions, organizing content hierarchically, implementing search functionality, and periodically auditing and updating content structure.

How can businesses ensure content quality?

Businesses can ensure content quality by establishing quality standards, conducting thorough reviews, leveraging style guides, implementing approval workflows, and providing training for content creators.

What role does content governance play in effective content management?

Content governance establishes policies, processes, and guidelines for content creation, publication, and maintenance to ensure consistency, compliance, and alignment with business objectives.

How can businesses measure the effectiveness of their content management efforts?

Businesses can measure effectiveness through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as traffic, engagement metrics, conversion rates, content reuse, and user feedback.

What are some strategies for effective content creation?

Plan your content strategically with a clear understanding of your target audience and goals. Use tools for content ideation, like keyword research and competitor analysis, and ensure consistency and quality in your content creation process.

How can I ensure my content meets quality standards?

Establish clear content guidelines, utilize content calendars for scheduling, conduct regular audits, and set up a process for peer reviews or editorial oversight.

What are the best practices for managing content updates and revisions?

Regularly review and update content to keep it relevant. Use version control systems to manage changes and maintain records of revisions. Ensure that updates are communicated effectively within your team and to your audience.

How do I optimize my FAQ page for effectiveness?

Your FAQ page should be easy to navigate, reflect your brand’s voice, and directly answer common questions. Organize questions logically or categorize them, and update the page regularly to include new or evolving questions.

Summary

All web content needs management and the more content you have, the more content you have to manage.

Before you can manage content effectively, however, you need systems and processes to manage all content-related areas of your business.

From creating high-quality and engaging content that aligns with your website’s goals to organizing and categorizing it in a way that is easy for users to navigate, managing content requires a strategic and systematic approach.

Additionally, maintaining and updating the content, ensuring adherence to legal and ethical guidelines, and integrating with other systems are also important aspects of content management.

Furthermore, measuring the performance, dealing with multiple authors and contributors, and ensuring the security and backup of the content are also significant challenges to be addressed.

Without a proper plan in place, managing content can be a time-consuming and complex task.

Action Steps

Review the lessons in this training module and begin to implement systems and processes for managing content effectively in your business.

Resources

Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot content-related issues.
The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work And What To Do About It – Michael E. Gerber’s classic book provides valuable information on how to stop working in your business and start working on your business.

References

List of Streaming Services (Wikipedia)

Module Lessons

The list below contains all the lessons included in this module:

Content Management

Learn how to set up systems for managing your content effectively.

View Lesson

Content Documentation

This section looks at practical ways to build a content documentation system for managing content effectively in your business.

View Lesson

Content Governance

Content governance helps to create and publish high-quality content consistently and deliver a better ROI.

View Lesson

Content Style Guide

Best practices for creating a content style guide, including how to organize your guide, what to include, and how to keep it up-to-date.

View Lesson

Content Management Best Practices

Best practices for planning, creating, managing, and promoting your content.

View Lesson

Effective Content Management: Documenting Procedures

Learn how to improve your content management practices by documenting procedures effectively.

View Lesson

Document Library

Learn how to use a document library to manage and organize your documents and digital content more effectively.

View Lesson

Managing Client Content

This comprehensive guide covers all you need to know about managing client content ... from content ownership to performance tracking & more!

View Lesson

Content Organization

Learn how to keep your content organized for a better user experience, improved SEO, and easier content management.

View Lesson

Content Tracking

Content-tracking methods and tools to help you better manage and improve content performance.

View Lesson

Content Measurement Plan

Track content progress and make data-driven decisions to optimize your content strategy with a content measurement plan.

View Lesson

Content Reviews

Content reviews are the best way to ensure that you stay on top of managing your existing content as your digital presence grows.

View Lesson

Content Protection

Learn how content theft can affect your business and how to prevent your website content from being stolen...

View Lesson

Image Management

A comprehensive guide on effective image management from image formats to image tools, image security, and image SEO optimization.

View Lesson

Content Linking Management

In this lesson, we look at effective content-linking management practices.

View Lesson

How To Prevent Content Hotlinking

Learn how to prevent unauthorized users from hotlinking to content hosted on your website.

View Lesson

Content Management Tips & Tricks

Useful content management tips & tricks to help you get things done faster.

View Lesson

Content Backup Strategy

This section looks at implementing an effective content backup strategy for your business.

View Lesson

Content Management Checklists

Checklists and templates to help you manage your content more effectively.

View Lesson

Keeping Website Records

Are you keeping records of your website's important information? Use this checklist to help you manage your digital presence effectively.

View Lesson

Document Management Systems

A Document Management System can improve your organization's productivity and efficiency.

View Lesson

Content Management Glossary

Useful terms and definitions related to the creation, management, and distribution of digital content.

View Lesson

Content Automation

Learn about the benefits, challenges, and the future of content automation.

View Lesson

Return to the Course Outline

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Image: Team discussion

Content Reviews

Content reviews are the best way to ensure that you stay on top of managing your existing content as your digital presence grows.

Content Reviews

Content reviews are the best way to ensure that you stay on top of managing your existing content as your digital presence grows.

Content reviews are a vitally important part of effective content management.

In this lesson, we look at why, when, and how to conduct periodic content reviews to ensure that your content remains in alignment with your content strategy.

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Contents

What Are Content Reviews?

Content reviews are the process of evaluating and checking the quality and relevance of the content on your website or other digital platforms.

Why Do Content Reviews?

The goal of a content review is to ensure that your content is accurate, up-to-date, and relevant to your target audience and that it aligns with your company’s brand and messaging.

As mentioned in the overview lesson of the Content Management module of this course, effective content management involves managing both the production of new content and the management of existing content in your business.

Managing your existing content and making sure that it not only remains up-to-date and relevant to your audience but is also aligned with your content strategy is an ongoing process.

This process becomes even more necessary as your digital presence grows and more new content is added, giving you more existing content to manage.

The solution is to implement an effective and periodic content review process.

Content Review spreadsheet. — Performing in-depth content reviews is a vitally important part of effective content management.

Content Reviews Goals And Objectives

The goals and objectives of performing regular content reviews include:

Ensure accuracy and credibility: This goal aims to ensure that all the content and information presented on your website is accurate, credible, up-to-date, and relevant to your target audience. Examples include fact-checking, verifying and citing sources, and updating outdated information.
Improve readability and clarity: This goal focuses on making sure the content is easy to read, understand, engage with, and user-friendly. Examples include using simple language, breaking up content into smaller sections, and using headings, subheadings, and formatting to improve readability.
Remove duplicate or low-value content: This goal aims to remove duplicate or low-value content that can dilute the user’s experience. Examples include identifying and removing duplicate content, consolidating similar content, and removing irrelevant or low-value content.
Increase search engine visibility: This goal focuses on improving your website’s search engine rankings in order to drive more organic traffic. Examples include optimizing meta tags, adding keywords, creating high-quality helpful content, and ensuring that your content is well-structured.
Increase user engagement: This goal focuses on making the content more engaging and interactive to increase user engagement. Examples include using multimedia and interactive elements and encouraging user feedback and comments.
Ensure consistency and brand alignment: This goal aims to ensure that all content is consistent with your brand’s voice, tone, and style. Examples include creating a style guide, reviewing for consistency in voice and the use of branding elements, and ensuring that all images and videos align with your brand.
Improve website navigation: This goal focuses on making your website easy for users to navigate and find the content they are looking for. Examples include creating a clear and consistent website structure, improving website navigation, reviewing for broken links, and ensuring that all pages are linked and that all links are working correctly.
Address user feedback: This goal aims to address any user feedback or complaints and make necessary changes to improve the website. Examples include monitoring social media and website comments, reviewing user feedback, and making changes based on user feedback.
Monitor analytics to identify gaps: This goal focuses on monitoring your website’s analytics to gain insights into user behavior, improve performance, and identify gaps in the content. Examples include setting up Google Analytics, setting up tracking codes, tracking website traffic, monitoring bounce rates, and regularly monitoring and analyzing website metrics.
Improve accessibility: This goal aims to make your website and web content accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Examples include reviewing for accessibility issues, providing alternative text for images, using captioning and transcripts for videos, and using semantic HTML.

The Content Review Process

During a content review, you or a member of your content team should go through all of the content on your website and check for errors, inconsistencies, and areas that need improvement.

This may include fact-checking, verifying sources, and updating outdated information. Your team should also check for readability, user engagement, and how well your content is optimized for search engines.

Performing a content review may include different steps such as:

Identifying the content that needs to be reviewed.
Assigning a team or individual to perform the review.
Setting up a schedule for the review.
Reviewing the content and making notes and recommendations.
Implementing changes and updates to the content.
Testing the changes and monitoring the results.

Developing Your Content Review Process

Before you can embark on a proper review of your existing content, make sure that you already have your Content Strategy and Content Production systems in place.

Without these systems, you won’t know what you are aiming toward or how to get there.

Once these systems are in place, the next step is to conduct a thorough Content Audit of your existing content.

This would result in a document listing every existing item of content in your business that is used to grow your business.

Note: To make this lesson practical, we’ll confine our Content Audit examples to website content only and use screenshots generated from the author’s work as the blog editor of a technology company’s website.

What Exactly Are You Reviewing?

Before we look at how to run a content review, let’s briefly review exactly what you should be looking at when reviewing your content.

You know that your content has to meet the following criteria:

Provide your target audience what they are looking for.
Provide search engines what they are looking for.
Provide your business what it is looking for.

So, your content review is about ensuring that:

Your target audience will find your content to be 100% valuable, useful, informative, up-to-date, and accurate, and turn to your site for solutions to their questions, problems, and needs.
Search engines will find your content to be authoritative and 100% relevant to what users are searching for, and reward you with content that ranks increasingly higher in their search results, and delivers you consistent organic traffic.
Your business will achieve its strategic objectives, e.g. get more leads, sales, and conversions using content.

To achieve the above, the focus of your content review should be to make sure that all of the areas listed below deliver the best possible results when users and search engines land on your content:

Article outlines and structures make complete sense to readers and are fully optimized for search engines.
Headlines are compelling and lead to users clicking through to the rest of the article.
The introductory section describes succinctly what the content is all about and what readers can expect to gain from reading it.
Articles have a clickable table of contents. Readers can jump to the section they are interested in quickly.
The content structure is skimmable. Readers can quickly understand what the article is all about.
Stats, references, and citations are accurate and up-to-date.
The content is readable and easy to comprehend.
Internal links lead to useful and relevant content.
Graphics add value to users.
CTA used in the content has proven to convert well.
The content matches the overall query intent of the user.
Reading the content aloud makes perfect sense.
Content has been fact-checked by a subject matter expert (SME).

For details on each of the above areas, see this article: 13 Ways To Review Content For SEO To Rank Faster

Now that you know what you should be looking for in your content, let’s look at how to set up and run effective content reviews.

Your Content Audit Results

One of the most effective ways to document and present your content audit results is to use a spreadsheet.

You can add as much detail to your Content Audit spreadsheet as you like, but we recommend adding two distinct sections to your audit after listing all of your content items (one per row):

SEO Analysis

Create columns to record the results of all of your meaningful content SEO metrics for each content item, e.g.:

Content analysis metrics
Keyword performance metrics
Traffic performance metrics
Engagement metrics
Conversion metrics

SEO performance metrics are important because any changes you make to your content can impact your SEO results.

Incidentally, this also makes things more challenging when it comes to making decisions to improve your content.

For example, what happens if improving your content results in lower search rankings, less traffic, or fewer conversions?

Content Analysis

In this section, add columns where you simply indicate with an “X” which action you recommend taking for each post/article as you go through and review these.

For example:

Trash – Select this column if you are going to trash the article (because it has no traffic, no backlinks, the content is obsolete, etc.).
Redirect – Select this column if you are going to redirect visitors landing on this article to another article. For more information on redirecting articles, see further below.
Fix – If most of the content is fine but there are some minor glaring issues (e.g. spelling or grammatical errors, a sentence or paragraph that should be removed or added, links that need to point to different pages, etc.) and it would take no more than 15-30 minutes to fix this, then mark the item as a “quick fix” (or just fix it on the spot).
Update – If sections of the content are outdated, irrelevant, or obsolete and it would take more than an hour or so to fix these, the item may need to be scheduled for an update.
Rewrite – If the topic is worth preserving but the content contains mostly outdated, irrelevant, or obsolete information that would require a complete rewrite to fix, then the item may need to be scheduled for a rewrite.
Leave As Is – If the content is fine and performing well, you may simply want to leave it as is. Or, this could be an old announcement post where the content is outdated but has historical value for the company and so the decision is to leave it as it is.
Query – Select this column if you are not sure what to do with the article and need to consult other members of your team (e.g. an editor, SEO analyst, product manager, etc.
Comments – Use this column to add notes if you feel a need to further explain your rationale for why you recommend taking such an action or record important things about the item to keep in mind.

Once you have added this information to your audit document, assigned members of your team can then go through each piece of content, review, classify, and make recommendations, and decision-makers can then act on those recommendations in alignment with your content strategy.

Example: Blog Post Audit

Below is a screenshot taken from a section of a content audit performed for a popular technology blog containing over 3,000+ published posts.

Blog post audit spreadsheet. Source: WPMU DEV

This blog generates millions of visits each year and ranks for tens of thousands of industry-related keywords.

As no content audit had previously been done on the company’s blog, this was a massive project, so here’s how we made it doable:

First, we divided all the blog articles into the years they were published (e.g. 2010, 2011, 2012, etc.), all the way to the present year.

We then added these posts to worksheets for each year and assigned these worksheets to each content team member to review.

Blog Audit - Worksheets — Blog posts were assigned to worksheets in the audit spreadsheet according to the year they were published.

Use Color Schemes

Next, we agreed on a color-coding scheme to make it easier to determine ‘at-a-glance’, the status of each content item, and what (if any) action was required.

For example:

Green: Completed. This item has either already been fixed, reviewed, and approved by the blog editor or another role assigned the responsibility of making a final decision. In other words, this item’s action is completed and there is nothing else to do.
Yellow: Currently Being Worked On. This item has been scheduled for a quick fix, update, or rewrite, scheduled to a writer, and is currently being worked on.
Orange: Fixed – Needs Review. This item has been worked on and just needs someone to review it. If everything is ok, then the item gets marked green (i.e. completed).
Pink: Has Problems That Need Addressing. If a member assigned the task of reviewing this content item can’t decide what should be done with the article, then they tick the “Query” column for that item, add their notes in the “Comments” column, and highlight the item row in pink before moving onto the next item.
Blue: Redirection. The content reviewer has determined that this item should be redirected to another article or blog post. Here are the criteria used to make a redirection decision: if the old article has significant traffic and backlinks but the content is too outdated, irrelevant, or beyond saving, and there is a similar article or post that visitors can be redirected to, then it’s best to redirect this post to the other post. The reviewer should then add the suggested destination article to redirect this post to in the “Comments” section.

You can assign whichever review criteria you want to assign to content items.

In larger companies, different departments or teams may choose to create their own criteria and assign their own color schemes to mean different actions.

In this case, we recommend documenting this using the spreadsheet’s comments feature so that the color code explanations are viewable by hovering over each column header.

Color code explanation added to Status column — You can add your color code explanation to the Audit spreadsheet’s Status column and make it viewable as a tooltip.

In fact, we recommend adding comments to all the column headings in your spreadsheets so there is no confusion about what your content team is required to do. This is another great way to document your workflow processes.

Divide Large Tasks Into Smaller Projects

When performing a complex review or content audit for the first time, you may want to break the task down into smaller projects.

For example, some of your subtasks may include:

Review article URLs to improve SEO or check if content can be made evergreen (to save having to update it again).
Review content images for licensed use of media (to avoid licensing/copyright infringements) meta descriptions for SEO (e.g. image alt tags), etc.
Check if articles have consistent elements (e.g. featured images, correctly formatted sections, a table of content with jump links, calls-to-action, etc.)
Replace product or brand names, links to outdated products, update/remove pricing information, etc.

You can create as many subtasks as you like by simply adding new worksheets to your spreadsheet and populating each worksheet’s rows and columns with the information you need to review.

Worksheet tabs — Add new worksheet tabs for content review subtasks.

In the example we are looking at in this lesson, any time the content team is asked to review and change something throughout the blog (e.g. change links from the paid version of some products to their free version), a new worksheet is created specifically for handling that subtask.

Assign Priority Codes

After creating your main task spreadsheet (or subtask worksheet), you can assign priority codes to a column if you need to further segment the task into tasks that are urgent and should be worked on immediately vs non-urgent items that can be worked on when there is some spare time or items that will take longer to resolve.

For example, you could create a “Solution” or “Recommendation” column and assign a 1-2-3 priority code to items as follows:

Work on these immediately (quick wins, e.g. a quick fix or update). These may be assigned to high-traffic or high-converting articles containing wrong information or content that is outdated, irrelevant, or obsolete.
Schedule these into workflow (require more time, e.g. a content rewrite)
Loads of issues or problems (carefully review and assess these items before going any further).

Content review spreadsheet - Solution column with task prioritization. — Add a column to your content review spreadsheet to prioritize tasks if required.

As you review each item, add notes in the “Comments” column when appropriate or necessary. These notes will not only help you remember why you made the recommendation but it also helps others to understand the rationale behind your recommendation and to take over the project if required.

Content review spreadsheet - Notes column — Add a “Notes” column to your review spreadsheet where team members can jot down notes, comments, reminders, and recommendations.

Classify Your Content

If you are performing a content audit for the first time, it may also help to review and classify your content into main categories and subcategories.

This will help your business understand and identify:

What content topics you have (or have not) already published content about.
Which industry or niche topics to focus on for improving SEO rankings.
How many articles have been written on a similar or related topic (and checked for duplicate content or consolidated into authoritative articles).
How to better organize your content for SEO using silos, topic clusters, pillar pages, internal linking, etc.
Missing gaps in your overall content plan and new content opportunities.

Content review spreadsheet - Categorizing content — Content reviews provide a great opportunity to review and reorganize your content categories.

As you work on the review process, you can schedule content updates and rewrites (or new content projects) based on its recommendations.

This also gives you an opportunity to make sure that your existing content and any future scheduled work are aligned with your strategic objectives.

Additional Review Tasks

Here are some additional tasks (and subtasks) you may want to include in your Content Review (create separate worksheets for these if required and prioritize accordingly):

Check For Broken & Suspicious Links

Broken links not only deter visitors from staying on and returning to your site, but they can also negatively impact your search engine rankings.

Also, suspicious links can cause serious harm through malware or phishing.

You can check for broken links using tools that will not only automate the process and save you time by scanning all the URLs on your site but also allow you to export the results.

Dr. Link Check — Broken links in your content can impact your search results. Use broken link-checking tools to help you fix this.

For tools that can help you check and fix broken links, go here:

Use Evergreen Content URLs

While not all the content you create will be “evergreen,” you can avoid creating long-term problems by making sure that your article URLs are evergreen.

For example, everything looks fine in the article below. The article URL (10-plugins-to-improve-your-wordpress-pages) matches the article title (10 Plugins to Improve Your WordPress Pages).

Matching blog URL and blog title — This blog URL matches the blog title, but…

The problem is that as time goes by, your content may change.

With the listicle below, for example, several years after it was published, many of the items covered in the article no longer exist or are no longer available, so the content was updated.

Now the article’s URL (120-free-premium-wordpress-themes) doesn’t reflect the title (60+ Free Premium WordPress Themes) or the content that visitors may expect to see after clicking from a link with the original URL to the updated content.

Screenshot of original article URL highlighted showing a different number of items than is written in the article. — Visitors clicking through to the article may get confused or disappointed to find that the content contains a different number of items than shown in the article’s URL.

The solution is to make the article’s URL “evergreen” so that regardless of how often the content changes, it won’t affect the users’ experience or require the web address to be updated.

Blog post with evergreen URL highlighted. — The content of this post can change as often as needed…adding more or fewer items to this article won’t affect its URL or visitors’ experience!

This is not only a good content SEO practice, but it will also save you time making changes to the content in the future.

To keep your article URLs evergreen, therefore, it’s best to avoid wherever possible using words in the post slug that will create issues if/when your content changes.

For example:

Amounts, Numbers, Quantities, etc.: e.g. use best-burger-restaurants-foodsville instead of the-best-14-burger-restaurants-in-foodsville. You can now promote as many burger restaurants as you want in your article regardless of how many new restaurants you remove or add to the list.
Dates: e.g. use best-air-fryer-recipes instead of best-air-fryer-recipes-2022. Keeping the post URL generic allows you to update your list and change the article’s title every year to keep it relevant without creating any problems.
New, Launched, Released, etc.: e.g. use portable-brand-name-coffee-maker instead of new-portable-brand-name-coffee-maker-released. This keeps your article’s URL relevant long after the newly launched product or service stops being “new”.

Redirect Trashed Posts

If you consolidate the content of two or more blog posts into one new article (e.g. to make it more comprehensive and authoritative), you may want to trash the old posts to prevent duplicate content.

A good practice when trashing old posts or changing URLs is to create a 301 Redirect. This automatically redirects any visitors clicking on the old URL to the new article location and instructs search engines to follow the new URL whenever they come across the old URL.

If your site uses WordPress, you can use a plugin like Redirection to easily add and manage URL redirects.

WordPress plugin - Redirection — WordPress lets you easily manage URL redirections using a plugin.

Using tools to manage redirections is especially useful if you have an established web presence with thousands of published posts and trashed posts.

Screenshot of Posts table with Trash menu highlighted showing thousands of trashed posts. — A redirection tool can help you manage thousands of redirected links and trashed post URLs.

Check For Design Consistency

Another subtask you can add to your content reviews is to skim through the page and check for consistent design elements as you review each article or blog post.

Some elements you can check include:

Featured images (e.g. hero banners)
Content images (e.g. size: too small or too large, visibility: are there errors preventing images from displaying on the page? content: is the image showing incorrect, irrelevant, or outdated information?)
Media (e.g. check that videos are not displaying a “this video has been removed and is no longer available” message.)
Calls-to-action (CTAs) – e.g. Is the content promoting an expired offer or a product that you no longer sell?
Other: e.g. check pricing information, the presence of broken code, etc.

For example, during our content review of the technology blog, we noticed that many older posts were missing feature banners.

On this particular blog, banner images display above the article’s title.

Screenshot of a blog post with feature banner image missing. — This blog post is missing a featured image above the Post title.

It’s easier to check for things like missing featured images while conducting the content review, so here’s how to address this issue.

First, add a new column to your main Content Review spreadsheet or create a subtask worksheet (or even a separate spreadsheet altogether) to track articles that need design elements to be fixed (e.g. create a post banner, fix media problems like embedded videos that no longer play or have been removed, etc.).

Spreadsheet: Create new featured images for blog posts. — Create a new subtask using a spreadsheet.

Since you are already looking at the article, it should only take you a few additional seconds to notice something blatantly wrong or missing as you go through and review each content item and record it on your subtask list as a “to-do”.

Screenshot of a blog post with missing feature banner image. — Once you notice something missing on the page, even if you can’t see it, you can’t unsee it!

In this example (and as explained in the Workflow Documentation lesson), we work with a team of illustrators, so whenever article banners are required:

The person assigned to review the article adds the task to the “Banner required” spreadsheet, creates a task in the content production workflow tool (Jira), and pings the design team channel using the work communication tool (Slack) to notify them that a new job has been created.
Design team members work out amongst themselves who is available to take on the assignment. This is then noted on the spreadsheet using a color-coding system.
When the artwork has been created, the illustrator then provides a download link to the Design team’s artwork folder (Google Drive).
The team member who requested the artwork then uploads the banner to the article and marks the task as done on the subtask spreadsheet.

Screenshot of blog post with featured image added. — This old blog post now has a new banner image.

The content team member responsible for performing quality checks reviews the subtask spreadsheet periodically and clicks on each article link marked as “done” to make sure that each task has been completed successfully (i.e. check that a new banner has been added to the post) and did not get accidentally skipped or missed during the process.

This quality check also involves making sure that the artwork is visually suitable for the article topic, and consistent with branding guidelines, dimensions, resolution, etc.).

Blog post with featured banner image — Use content reviews to check for consistency in your content’s design and essential elements like CTAs, formatting, etc.

Check Meta Content

While conducting the content review, it’s also important to perform certain content SEO checks, like:

Images: Check images for alt tags, captions, etc. (and either fix or improve anything that needs fixing on the spot or make a note in the comments section)
Content Formatting: Check for correctly formatted section headings (e.g. H1-H6)
Other: e.g. check for the presence of a Table of Contents with jump links to section headings.

WordPress Media Library: Image meta fields. — Check images for alt tags and captions and fix or improve these wherever possible.

Check For Compliance Issues

If you outsource your content writing to external agencies, freelance writers, guest authors, etc. it’s important to make sure that your content is not going to get your site penalized by search engines or even get you into legal issues (e.g. copyright infringements, unauthorized use of images, etc.)

While conducting this kind of review can be quite elaborate and time-consuming, there are some things you can check for that won’t take as long, such as:

Make sure stock images are licensed: If your content uses stock images, make sure that you have the rights to use these in your content. If you can’t find the license or attribution or have any doubts about an image, it’s best to remove it from your content or replace it with an image that you do have the right to use and can prove if asked to do so.
Delete suspicious/spammy links: Unless you have entered into a prior agreement with the article writer, check and remove links that aren’t relevant, don’t make sense in the overall context of the content, or links that just shouldn’t be there (e.g. someone else’s promotional or affiliate links).
Disclaimers & Compliance – If your content does include affiliate links (e.g. Amazon), AdSense ads, etc. make sure that everything on your page complies not only with the policies of 3rd-party advertisers but also with state, federal, and legal requirements, such as adding disclaimers for site users, GDPR notices, etc.

Screenshot of WordPress content editor with image about to be removed. — Make sure that you have the rights to use stock images in your content.

For a list of sources where you can find images to use in your content, see this article: Where To Find Free & Royalty-Free Images For Your Content

Check Externally-Hosted Content

If your site displays content hosted on external sites (e.g. embedded media, applications, code snippets, etc.), it’s important to make sure that:

The 3rd-party service is active and operational,
The embedded content is working normally
You have access to the external service account

Having access to the external account hosting your content is very important and should not be overlooked during the content review process.

For example, if we go back to the technology blog we’ve been using as an example in this lesson, some of the articles on the blog feature snippets of code.

Sometimes, these code snippets are added as regular content with some special formatting to make it stand out from the rest of the article’s content, as shown in the screenshot below.

Code snippet added to content as regular content. — Here is a code snippet added to the content as regular content…

Other times, however, code snippets are hosted externally and added to the blog’s content via a script or shortcode.

This is fine, except for the fact that previous blog writers who no longer work for the company had:

Set up accounts under their own names on these external services, then
Created the code snippets within their own accounts, and
Added this content to the blog articles via shortcodes linked to their own accounts.

Example of a Github gist hosted on the content writer's account. — This content is hosted externally and embedded from the account of an author who no longer works for the company.

Most of the company’s previous writers had followed this method, putting every externally-hosted snippet of code on the blog in peril.

While it’s completely understandable why the article writers would have done this (many were guest writers and it’s easier for them to work inside their own accounts when writing their articles), what this means is that if any code in any of the snippets embedded in the blog needs editing, the company’s content team cannot access the snippets to make the necessary changes on their own content because they don’t control or have access to those accounts.

So, if the original author(s), who are no longer with the company (and who may not be contactable) decide to either close or deactivate their account, then managing articles containing their embedded content becomes a serious issue for the company.

Example of a Github gist. — If this user closes his or her account, this content may need to be recreated from scratch.

The recommended solution was for the company to create its own account with the 3rd-party service, transfer all the code snippets found on its blog to its account, then replace all the embedding shortcodes found in all blog articles with their own shortcodes.

GitHub Gist account — The company created its own account with the content-hosting service so all existing code snippets on its blog could be transferred from other users’ accounts.

As you can imagine, with thousands of published articles on the blog, this was quite an undertaking. It required a new and separate review of all the blog articles containing the embedded shortcode for this service.

Following the same content review process, we created a new worksheet for this subtask and assigned team members to go through and transfer all the content from the previous writers’ accounts to the company’s account.

Content Review Spreadsheet- partially completed. — Reviewing content may not be the highlight of a content manager’s life, but it definitely plays a big part in it!

After completing the transfer of content from a previous writer’s account to the company’s account and replacing the code snippet shortcode on the blog article, the team member marked the item as fixed and highlighted the item’s row in yellow.

Another team member then checked the articles highlighted in yellow to make sure that everything looked ok.

Gist moved to site owner's account — This content snippet was transferred successfully to the blog owner’s account.

After confirming that the content transfer was performed successfully, the item was then highlighted on the spreadsheet as green.

Checking the source of an embedded code snippet. — Every content snippet on the blog was checked to confirm that it was transferred to the site owner’s account.

This process continued until all items on the spreadsheet had been completed, checked, and marked as done.

Content review spreadsheet with all rows highlighted in green. — All code snippets were transferred successfully. This review is done!

If you use WordPress and need help adding scripts and codes to content, see this tutorial on How To Add Scripts And Code To WordPress Posts And Pages.

Create A Content Review System

If planned and executed correctly, your Content Review document (e.g. a spreadsheet or other tool) becomes your master blueprint, allowing you to perform future content audits, reviews, and performance assessments against defined metrics more easily.

Initially, it’s a lot of work to get all this done, but it will save a lot of time in the future. It will also allow your business to make better (i.e. more strategic) decisions about your content and adapt faster to any changes affecting your business moving forward.

Content Review Setup

You can stay on top of the tasks and subtasks associated with performing a content review by:

Assigning the work to team members (if you have the resources available),
Creating and maintaining an organized content production workflow (to handle the work that needs doing),
Scheduling regular team meetings (to review and discuss your progress).

Scheduling Content Reviews

When and how often should you schedule content reviews?

Ideally, you should perform an initial content audit and then aim to do a periodic review of your content at least once a year.

The schedule for reviewing content that will work best for your organization, however, really depends on:

How much existing content you have already published
How much new content you are currently publishing or plan to publish
What kind of content your organization publishes (i.e. cornerstone, gated, evolving)
How much of your content is currently outdated, irrelevant, inaccurate, or obsolete
What resources are available to conduct a thorough content review and implement its findings.

Also, keep in mind that the process described in this lesson works for both periodic (i.e. repeated regularly) and one-time reviews.

One-Time Reviews

One-time reviews are done when your organization requires global changes to be made to your content or some form of “search and replace” across your entire site or a section of it.

Examples of this are:

Pricing changes (e.g. update or remove pricing information across your site)
Replace product/service/brand name changes or descriptions
Replace or remove calls-to-action, expired offers, etc.
Check for broken or suspicious links, specific content sections, design elements, offers or text added manually to content, content belonging to specific topics, categories, authors, etc.

Periodic Reviews

Periodic content reviews are designed to ensure that your content is being maintained up to standards.

Examples of regular reviews include:

Complete or partial content audits to check if the content is up-to-date, relevant, and accurate for its intended audience.
SEO reviews (e.g. analyze the Top 20 most visited/best-converting articles each month for content and SEO improvements).
Spam comment checking – this can be done daily, weekly, at the start and end of the week, etc.

Spam Comment Checking

If you plan to allow site visitors to leave comments on your blog posts, you are opening yourself up to receiving — and having to deal with — comment spam.

Comment spam can negatively impact your content SEO.

For this reason, we recommend taking the following into account when developing a process for reviewing and handling spam comments:

Is it Spam? Sometimes it’s difficult to assess whether comments and replies left on blog posts are actually spam or not. You will need to define which kinds of comments are ok to leave posted and which should be deleted from your posts.
Is it technical? Make sure to work out how to respond to comments left on your blog that require a reply from someone with technical knowledge about your products or services. This may involve reaching out to your technical team for a reply or asking technical members of your team to reply directly.
Is it content related? Does the comment or reply relate to the topic of the article? Or did the commenter simply find an opportunity to inject a spam comment?
Who should reply? Who is responsible for replying to comments left on your blog posts? Should the post’s author or the customer support team reply? What if the original post author no longer works for your company?
How quickly should you reply? After defining who replies to comments left on articles the next is to work out the maximum acceptable period for leaving comments unanswered (e.g. 48 hrs).

Once you have defined the above process, make sure to document it and add it as part of your content management documentation.

Content Review Process

Here is a suggested process to make the content review simple and systematic:

We recommend you start the process by performing a thorough content audit listing all of your content items on a spreadsheet or other tool where you/your team will then record key information about each item.

Next, distribute and assign the work to those who are able to participate. Make sure to document what you are asking your team to review and assess either in the tool itself (e.g. using descriptive column names, tooltips, etc.) or in a shareable guide or document.

When team members review and assess each item, they should enter their recommendations by placing letters or marks in columns (e.g. “x” or ticking checkboxes if you want to add these), use color codes, assign priority numbers, type notes, comments, etc.

Content Review Spreadsheet - Initial stage — The sooner you begin implementing your content review process, the easier it will be to keep your existing content up-to-date.

Using a shared spreadsheet (e.g. Google Sheets) allows the process to be saved, so members can work on their assigned tasks a little bit each day or whenever they are not attending to other priorities, then leave and come back to the task, and pick things up again from where they left off.

Content Review Spreadsheet - work in progress — Your content review spreadsheet is both a tool for tracking work progress and documenting the process itself.

As your spreadsheet records the total work progress, how much work is being completed per session, and who is accountable for it, this allows you to set some benchmarks and metrics for future content reviews (e.g. how many content items a team member can review in X amount of time).

The better you design the process initially, the less time it will take to complete subsequent reviews.

As each subtask is completed and marked off…

Content Review Spreadsheet - moving towards completion — Once the review gathers momentum, it can be satisfying to see tasks are being completed.

You get closer and closer to completing the overall review…

Content Review Spreadsheet - Completion stage. — This is content review nirvana!

So that ultimately, your business achieves the goal of thoroughly reviewing and updating your existing content.

Content Review Process — Is there any greater satisfaction than seeing your content review spreadsheet go from this to this? You’ll look forward to doing it all over again next year!

Once your content review is completed, take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate your team for a great achievement, schedule the next content review on your content calendar (e.g. set it as a task to be done annually), and repeat this process all over again.

If performing a content review seems all too daunting, remember:

“Mile by mile, it’s a trial; yard by yard, it’s hard; but inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”

Gabrielle Giffords

Content Reviews – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content reviews:

What is a content review?

A content review is a thorough assessment of the text, images, videos, and other media on a website or in a content management system to ensure accuracy, relevance, compliance, and quality.

Why are content reviews important?

Content reviews help maintain the credibility and reliability of information presented, ensuring it meets the intended audience’s needs and complies with legal and ethical standards.

Who should perform a content review?

Content reviews should be performed by content specialists, editors, or subject matter experts familiar with the content’s context and the standards required for its presentation.

What does a content review involve?

A review involves checking for factual accuracy, grammatical correctness, style consistency, and compliance with regulatory standards. It may also include optimizing content for search engines and improving user engagement.

How often should content reviews be conducted?

The frequency of content reviews depends on the nature of the content. High-impact or frequently visited content might need more frequent reviews, while less critical material may be reviewed less often.

What tools can assist in content reviews?

Tools like content management systems, SEO platforms, grammar checkers, and plagiarism detectors can aid in efficient and effective content reviews.

How do you handle negative findings in a content review?

Address negative findings by revising the content accordingly, providing training for content creators, or implementing stricter quality controls to prevent future issues.

Can automated tools replace human content reviewers?

While automated tools can help streamline the review process and catch common errors, human judgment is essential for interpreting context and nuanced language, and for making strategic decisions about content.

What are the challenges in content reviewing?

Challenges include maintaining objectivity, managing large volumes of content, staying updated with the latest content standards, and balancing SEO with user experience.

What is the impact of not conducting content reviews?

Neglecting content reviews can lead to outdated or incorrect information, decreased user trust, legal repercussions, and a damaged brand reputation.

Summary

Content reviews are a critical step in ensuring that your website provides high-quality, valuable information to visitors, and they can also improve your overall website performance, user experience, and search engine visibility.

Regular content reviews are important to maintain the quality and relevance of your content, and to ensure that the website continues to meet the needs of your target audience.

Managing content effectively requires performing regular content reviews, so the best thing to do is to systematize it as soon as possible and integrate it into your overall content strategy.

Keeping track of all your existing content to see if anything has changed (and if so, what has changed) is a mammoth task, especially as your digital presence matures and becomes more established.

So many factors can affect your existing content. Facts, stats, and prices continually change. Companies, brands, and platforms appear, evolve, get acquired, change names, or collapse, products and services get added, modified, or dropped, externally-linked content gets moved or removed, and a host of other things can happen.

If you regularly publish new content, your website or blog can grow into hundreds or thousands of existing posts or articles in just a few short years, and many (if not most) will contain information that needs to be added, updated, or removed.

Content reviews are the best way to ensure that you stay on top of managing your existing content as your digital presence grows.

Action Steps

Perform an initial content audit of your website or blog’s content.
Review and implement the steps described in this lesson.
Schedule periodic maintenance reviews in your team’s content calendar.

***

Image: Man writing

Content Metrics

Learn about the key content metrics to track to assess how well your content is performing for your business.

Content Metrics

Learn about the key content metrics to track to assess how well your content is performing for your business.

Do you know how well your content is performing and which metrics you should be tracking and measuring to ensure this?

In this lesson, we look at the key content metrics that will help your organization assess your content’s performance by content type and track performance in areas like:

Brand Awareness
Audience Engagement
Customer Retention & Loyalty
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Lead Generation
Sales

Additionally, we will look at other areas of content performance where knowing which metrics to track can be useful.

Before You Get Started

Getting results from your content marketing activities can take time. Nonetheless, it’s important to set clear goals, as these will help you determine what type of content your team needs to create and how often to publish. Defining measurable goals will also help you track your content’s progress and performance over time and provide you with insights on ways to adjust and improve your results.

Your content goals should be defined in your organization’s marketing plan and content strategy.

These goals should include key performance indicators (KPIs) and the quantitative and qualitative metrics that will be used to measure content performance. Metrics should be relevant, actionable, and easy to measure.

KPIs vs Metrics

While all KPIs are metrics, not all metrics are KPIs.

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the “key” metrics or benchmarks that let you measure how you are progressing toward specific goals. Metrics are the measurements. KPIs can also be comprised of multiple metrics.

Table showing KPIs and Metrics — KPIs can comprise various metrics. Source: HubSpot

While all metrics can provide data about your business or your activities (e.g. your content marketing performance), some metrics may be more valuable to your business than others, depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Some metrics may just be “vanity” metrics, i.e. they make you feel good, but they’re not very meaningful. For example, an article may get many “likes” on social media but result in no increase in business (i.e. no subscribers, leads, sales, etc.).

It’s important, therefore, to define which “key metrics” you will be tracking when assessing your content’s performance.

Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics

Quantitative metrics measure things like how much content your business produced and over what period of time. This can be used to determine ways to increase content production and look for processes and tools that will result in greater content production efficiency.

Qualitative metrics measure aspects of content consistency, such as how accurate and relevant your content is for your audience, how well they engage with it, and how satisfied they feel consuming it.

Industry Benchmarks

Knowing what kind of metrics others in your industry are averaging and using to measure their content’s performance can be useful to help you understand how well your content is performing.

For example, WordStream looked at the performance of Google paid search ads across 20 common industries to benchmark click-through rates (CTR). If your organization uses paid search advertising, knowing the average CTR for your industry can tell you a lot about your own ad campaigns.

Google Ads Industry Benchmarks. Source: WordStream.

Similarly, Mailchimp published benchmarking data on email marketing campaigns CTR by industry…

Before embarking on content marketing and promotion activities, your organization should have also engaged in content planning and implemented content production processes and tools to help make content tracking easier (e.g. an editorial calendar, content workflows, etc.).

Track Only The Metrics You Absolutely Need To Know

We live in a world of information and it’s easy to get lost in (or drown) in an ocean of “interesting” and “useful” data.

With content like social media, for example, there is so much information you can track.

“The great thing about social media is that you can track almost every single detail through social media metrics. The tough thing about social media is that… you can track almost every single detail through social media metrics.”

Source: Hootsuite

It’s important, then, to be very clear about the metrics that matter to your business.

One key aspect of creating an effective content strategy is defining the content metrics that will be used to measure the success of your content.

The content metrics you define are then used to track the performance of individual pieces of content, as well as the overall effectiveness of your content strategy.

Here are a few examples of content metrics that you can set as goals in your content strategy:

Traffic: The number of people who visit your website or a page on your site. This is a basic measure of the reach of the content and can be used to determine which pieces of content are the most popular.
Engagement: The amount of time people spend on your website or a page on your site, or the number of actions they take (such as commenting or sharing). This can be used to measure the quality and relevance of the content and how well it resonates with the audience.
Lead Generation: The number of leads generated from your website or landing page. This can be used to measure the effectiveness of the content in converting visitors into potential customers.
Sales: The number of sales generated from your website or landing page. This can be used to measure the effectiveness of the content in converting leads into customers.
Conversion: This metric measures the percentage of visitors who complete a specific action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. A goal for conversion might be to increase the number of visitors who make a purchase by a certain percentage.
Bounce Rate: These metrics measure the percentage of visitors who leave your website or page after only viewing a single page. A goal for Bounce Rate might be to decrease the percentage of visitors leaving your website or page without visiting other pages.
Return Visitors: This metric measures the percentage of visitors who return to your website or page. A goal for Return Visitors might be to increase the percentage of visitors who return to your website after their first visit.
Return on investment (ROI): The overall return on the investment made in creating, publishing, and promoting the content. This measure the overall effectiveness of your content strategy and can help in determining whether or not a content program is delivering results.

These are just a few examples, depending on your business, other metrics may be relevant such as :

Brand awareness,
Product adoption,
Referral traffic,
Social shares, etc.

Content metrics will vary by industry and organization. The important thing is to select metrics that are directly relevant to the specific business goals of your organization and align with your overall content strategy.

The sections below will point you to many useful resources on content metrics.

We recommend:

Visiting the links to the references and resources that apply specifically to the types of content your organization produces and publishes.
Familiarizing yourself with the metrics associated with these content types. Understand the terminology and what it means.
Deciding on the key metrics that you will track to measure your content’s performance.
Implementing these metrics into your content tracking process.

Metrics By Content Type

You can track metrics by content type, as shown in the chart below:

Chart - KPIs By Content Type — KPIs By Content Type. Source: Content Marketing Institute.

There are a number of content promotion tracking tools and reports from various services you can use to measure your content’s performance when looking at metrics by content type.

For example, looking at the KPIs listed in the chart shown above for:

Blog Posts & Articles

All of the data listed above can be obtained from reports generated by tools like Google Analytics.

These articles provide more information on blog metrics:

Email

Some of the key email metrics to track include open rates, click-through rates (CTR), conversions, bounce rates, asset downloads, number of unsubscribes, list growth rate, churn rates, spam complaints, and more.

Email marketing providers like Aweber, Mailchimp, etc. provide tools for tracking these metrics.

These articles provide more information on email metrics:

Social Media

Social media performance can be tracked using metrics like engagement, follower counts, impressions, reach, shares, response rates, comments, and more.

Social media platforms and many 3rd-party services provide useful reporting tools and analytics to help you track the performance of your social media content.

These articles provide more information on social media content metrics:

Videos

Important metrics that will help you track the performance of your video content include view counts, engagement, play rates, watch times, social shares, clicks, click-through rates, conversions, and more.

There are a number of tools and platforms you can use to track the success of your video campaigns, including YouTube, Facebook, etc.

These articles provide more information on video metrics:

Podcasts

The number of unique listeners, subscribers, downloads, rankings, reviews, social sharing, and episode-by-episode metrics are just some of the key metrics you can use to measure the success of your podcasts.

These articles provide more information on podcast metrics:

PPC Campaigns

There are many metrics you can use to measure the success of your pay-per-click campaigns, including clicks, click-through rates (CTR), cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rate (CVR), and lifetime value (LTV).

These articles provide more information on PPC campaign metrics:

Content Performance Metrics

Here are some of the main metrics to track when measuring your content’s performance:

Brand Awareness Metrics

Website traffic
Page/Unique Page views
Video views
Document views
Downloads
Social chatter
Referral links

Audience Engagement Metrics

Blog & social comments
Likes/shares/tweets/retweets/pins, etc.
Follower counts
Forwards
Inbound links

Customer Retention & Loyalty Metrics

Percentage of content consumed by existing customers
Retention/renewal rates

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Metrics

Keyword ranking
Backlinks
Organic search traffic
Top exit pages for organic traffic
Breakdown of organic traffic from search engines
Page views per user
Average time on page
New vs. returning users
Bounce rate
Page speed
Conversion rate
Page Authority (PA)
Domain Authority (DA)

Lead Generation Metrics

Form completions and downloads
Email subscriptions
Blog subscriptions
Conversion rate
Leads generated
Lead quality/score
Existing leads influenced

Sales Metrics

Demo requests
Funnel conversion rate
Pipeline generated
Revenue influenced
Online sales
Offline sales
Manual and anecdotal reporting
Sales for new products/services (upsells and cross-sells)
Sales conversion rate
Sales cycle length

Content Marketing Metrics

Depending on the content marketing strategy that best suits your business, you may want to track and pay attention to different metrics.

For example, for B2C content marketing campaigns, you may want to focus on metrics like:

Social Engagement
Website Traffic
Conversion Rate
Lead Quality
Customer Retention and Loyalty
Marketing Revenue and Sales
Marketing ROI

Whereas B2B campaigns may also include tracking metrics like:

Current stats:
- Total social impressions for recent posts
- Total views for recent posts
- Total conversions for recent posts (email subscribers, free trial sign-ups, purchases, etc.)
- Number of social media shares for recent posts
Benchmarks and trends:
- Changes in reading time versus the previous time period
- Changes in bounce rate versus the previous time period
- Number of active email subscribers versus the previous time period
Highest performing content:
- Top 20 posts with the highest views
  Top 20 posts with the highest read time
  Top 20 posts with the highest conversions (email subscribers, free trial sign-ups, purchases, etc.)

Which Content Metrics Are Right For Your Organization?

Ultimately, the metrics your organization chooses to track to assess content performance will depend on which content promotion strategies it uses and which KPIs it choose to measure.

For example, while SEO, paid advertising, and content marketing can all deliver benefits to an organization in terms of content promotion, each strategy requires different time frames to assess the results of its campaigns and uses different content metrics to track performance.

Content marketing and SEO are a longer-term strategy than paid advertising and pinpointing an ROI for long-term strategies is more difficult than something that yields more immediate results, such as paid ads.

The infographic below shows a number of metrics and KPIs that are useful for measuring the performance of your content marketing strategy.

Infographic: 15+ Content Marketing Metrics to Measure Performance. Source: Agency Analytics. Click on the image above to view a larger version.

Here’s another approach suggested by Semrush for tracking content metrics, which measures 4 key groups (user behavior, engagements, SEO outcome, and company revenue):

Infographic: Essential Content Marketing Metrics to Track. Source: Semrush. Click on the image above to view a larger version.

Content Metrics – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about content metrics:

What are content marketing metrics?

Content marketing metrics are measures used to assess the performance of your content strategy. They help determine how well your content engages with your audience and achieves your marketing goals.

Why are content marketing metrics important?

Metrics are crucial because they provide insights into the effectiveness of content in engaging audiences, generating leads, and driving conversions. They help marketers optimize strategies for better results.

Which metrics should I track for audience engagement?

For audience engagement, focus on metrics like page views, time on page, bounce rate, social shares, and comments. These indicators reflect how compelling and relevant your audience finds your content.

What metrics are best for measuring content reach?

Track reach through metrics such as unique visitors, impressions, and the geographical distribution of your audience. These help you understand the breadth of your content’s influence.

How can I measure lead generation from my content?

Measure lead generation by tracking metrics like form submissions, newsletter signups, and downloads. Analyze which pieces of content most often lead to these actions to identify what attracts potential customers.

What are the key metrics for assessing conversion rates?

For conversions, important metrics include conversion rate from specific calls-to-action, the number of sales directly linked to content pieces, and overall ROI from content campaigns. This shows the economic value your content brings.

How do I use Google Analytics for content metrics?

Google Analytics can track many content metrics, including traffic sources, user behavior on-site, and conversions. It provides detailed insights to optimize your content based on performance data.

Can content metrics improve SEO?

Yes, analyzing metrics like organic search traffic, click-through rates, and keyword rankings can provide insights to enhance your SEO strategy, making content more visible and effective in search engines.

Summary

Content metrics help you track how well your content is performing and measure the success of your content marketing strategy.

Selecting metrics to measure your content marketing activities requires identifying your core objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs).

Action Steps

Review this lesson and your organization’s content strategy. Create a list of the most important metrics to track to ensure that your content marketing strategy aligns with defined KPIs to meet the strategic goals and objectives of your business.

Resources

Content Tracking – Refer to the “content tracking tools” section of this lesson for links to useful tools to help you track content metrics.

References

Next Lesson

Return to the module overview: Content Promotion
Go to the lesson on Content Marketing
Go to the lesson on Content SEO
Go to the lesson on Content Distribution
Return to the Course Outline

***

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