A practical guide to content management for small businesses.
Introduction to Content Management
In today’s digital age, effective content management has become a cornerstone for small business success.
This practical guide provides an introduction to content management for small businesses and offers a blueprint on how to effectively organize, manage, and optimize your digital content.
It also provides a comprehensive overview on content management systems (CMS), content strategy development, and best practices for content creation, curation, and distribution.
This series of articles is also designed to address common challenges faced by small businesses in the digital sphere, including limited resources, content visibility, and audience engagement. It will help you gain a practical understanding of how to develop a personalized content management plan that aligns with your business objectives, to enhance your online presence and drive growth.
Whether you’re looking to launch a new business, elevate an existing one, or searching for tools and insights to make content work smarter, not harder, for your business, we recommend using this series as a roadmap to your digital empowerment.
NOTE: For accompanying online tutorials that expand on the topics covered in this guide, click on the links in the content.
Why Do You Need This Guide?
The importance of having quality content cannot be overstated. Businesses, both big and small, are constantly competing for the attention of their target audience.
To stand out from the crowd, therefore, it is crucial for your business to have an effective content management strategy in place.
This practical guide dives into the concept of content management, exploring its significance and providing practical insights for small businesses looking to develop their own content management blueprint.
What is Content Management?
Content management can be defined as the process of organizing, creating, managing, and distributing valuable content to reach and engage a specific audience. It encompasses various activities, such as content creation, editing, storage, and publishing.
A well-executed content management strategy helps your business establish brand identity, attract potential customers, and retain existing ones.
For a small business, having a content management blueprint is vital for several reasons. Firstly, it allows you to have a clear understanding of your target audience and their needs.
By creating content that resonates with your audience, your businesses can build trust and credibility, ultimately driving customer loyalty and increasing sales.
Secondly, a content management blueprint helps your businesses maintain consistency across different channels.
Whether it’s a blog post, social media update, or email newsletter, delivering a consistent message and tone helps reinforce your brand image and fosters a sense of familiarity among customers.
Furthermore, effective content management enables your business to stay relevant and up-to-date in your industry.
By regularly sharing valuable and informative content, your business can position itself as a thought leader, attracting industry experts and influencers to collaborate and promote your brand.
Developing a content management blueprint for your small business starts with defining your goals and objectives. This includes identifying your target audience, specifying the types of content to be created, and determining the desired outcome.
Once your goals are clear, your business can start developing a content calendar, outlining the topics, formats, and distribution channels to be utilized.
To ensure the success of your content management blueprint, it is essential to regularly analyze and measure the effectiveness of the content.
Your business can monitor metrics such as website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates to evaluate the impact of their content and make necessary adjustments.
In conclusion, content management is a critical component of any successful small business marketing strategy.
By developing a content management blueprint, your business can effectively engage itstarget audience, build brand awareness, and drive business growth.
Importance of Content Management for Small Businesses
No doubt, you’ve heard that “content is king.”
Content is everywhere. All websites need content, and all content needs management.
Whether you are a small business owner or an entrepreneur looking to establish your brand online, content management is essential for your success.
Let’s explore, then, the significance of content management and highlight the benefits it can offer your business.
Content Management Blueprint: A Practical Approach
Businesses often struggle with limited resources. However, by implementing a content management blueprint tailored to your needs, you can effectively manage your online presence.
A content management blueprint provides your business with a practical approach to creating, organizing, and distributing your content consistently across various platforms.
Enhancing Brand Awareness and Visibility
One of the primary reasons your business should prioritize content management is to enhance your brand awareness and visibility.
By consistently producing high-quality and relevant content, you will engage your target audience, build credibility, and establish your brand as an industry expert.
This increased visibility can lead to more website traffic, improved search engine rankings, and ultimately, more conversions.
Driving Customer Engagement and Loyalty
Effective content management allows your business to engage customers in meaningful ways.
By creating valuable content such as blog posts, articles, videos, and social media updates, you will establish a connection with your audience.
Engaging content not only keeps your customers informed and entertained but also fosters loyalty, as they perceive your business as a reliable source of information.
Content management and SEO go hand in hand. By optimizing your content with relevant keywords, meta tags, and descriptions, you can improve your search engine rankings.
When potential customers search for products or services related to your business, having a solid content management strategy in place will make your website more visible, increasing the likelihood of attracting organic traffic.
Streamlining Workflow and Collaboration
Efficient content management systems streamline workflow and collaboration within small businesses.
By centralizing content creation, editing, and scheduling processes, you can eliminate duplicate efforts, reduce errors, and ensure consistent messaging across all channels.
Additionally, content management tools often offer collaboration features, allowing team members to work together seamlessly, even remotely.
In conclusion, content management plays a crucial role in the success of small businesses.
By implementing a content management blueprint tailored to your specific needs, you can enhance brand awareness, drive customer engagement and loyalty, improve SEO rankings, and streamline workflow and collaboration.
Investing time and resources in content management will undoubtedly yield long-term benefits, and help your small business thrive in the digital landscape.
This is the end of part 1. To continue reading this article series, click on the pagination section below.
Content governance helps to create and publish high-quality content consistently and deliver a better ROI.
Content Governance
Learn how content governance can help you create and publish high-quality content consistently and deliver you a better return on investment.
Content governance is the process of establishing rules and guidelines for creating, editing, and publishing content.
This ensures that all content is consistent, accurate, and aligned with your organization’s overall messaging and goals.
In this lesson, we look at the importance of content governance and the role it plays in helping to maintain consistency and quality in all of your content.
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What Is Content Governance?
Content governance is the process of establishing rules and guidelines for creating, editing, and publishing content in your organization. It is a framework for managing the overall strategy, production, distribution, and archiving of your content.
The goal of content governance is to ensure that all of your content is consistent, accurate, and aligned with your organization’s overall messaging and goals while addressing legal and compliance requirements, performance measurement, and retention policies.
Examples of content governance include:
Defining roles and responsibilities for content creation and editing helps to ensure that your content is created and edited by the appropriate individuals or teams and that the content review and approval process is followed and actioned by all the necessary parties. (See Content Team)
Setting guidelines for messaging, tone, and style of content ensures that your content is consistent in terms of language, tone, and style, which helps to maintain a strong and consistent brand message. (See Content Style Guide)
Setting guidelines for the use of images and videos ensures that all visual content is consistent in terms of style and quality, which helps to maintain a strong and consistent brand message.
Creating a process for reviewing and approving content ensures that your content is accurate and meets your organization’s standards before it is published. (See Content Workflow)
Implementing a content management system allows your organization to organize and streamline its content creation and publishing process, make it easier for multiple users to access and edit content, manage, track, and measure the effectiveness of the content, and control access and permissions for content creation and editing. (See CMS)
Establishing a content calendar and production workflow helps to ensure that your content is created and published on schedule and that it goes through the necessary review and approval steps before being published. (See Content Calendar)
Archiving and retention policies ensure that your content is kept safe and can be recovered in case of any loss. (See Content Documentation)
Legal and compliance requirements ensure that your content is compliant with legal and regulatory requirements.
Measuring performance and monitoring ensures that your organization is able to evaluate the performance of its content to identify what’s working and what’s not and make adjustments to the content and governance process accordingly. (See Content Tracking)
Regularly reviewing and updating guidelines helps to ensure that the guidelines remain relevant and effective and that they are followed consistently.
Having a legal compliance review process in place helps to ensure that your content is compliant with legal requirements such as copyright laws and advertising regulations.
Implementing a governance board or committee helps to ensure that the content governance process is followed consistently and that any issues or concerns are addressed in a timely manner.
Benefits Of Content Governance
The key benefits of having established rules and guidelines for creating and publishing content through content governance include the following:
Consistency: Establishing guidelines for tone, style, and messaging ensures that all content is consistent and helps build trust and credibility with the audience. Example: All press releases are to be written in a formal and professional tone, using the Chicago Manual of Style.
Efficiency: Guidelines streamline the content creation and approval process, reducing errors, and making the process more efficient. Example: Create a content review process with specific steps, roles, and time frames defined for each step, and make sure that the content is reviewed and approved in a timely manner.
Brand alignment: Guidelines help to ensure that all content aligns with the brand’s messaging and values. Example: All social media posts are to reflect the brand’s mission and values.
Legal compliance: Guidelines help to ensure that all content is compliant with legal requirements such as copyright laws and advertising regulations. Example: all images and videos used in content must be properly licensed and attributed.
Better ROI: Guidelines can help to ensure that all content is effective in achieving its goals and generating a positive return on investment (ROI). Example: Establish a clear set of guidelines and metrics to measure the success of our content marketing campaign so we can optimize the content to generate a better ROI.
Why Rules And Guidelines For Creating, Editing, And Publishing Content Are Important
Rules and guidelines for creating, editing, and publishing content are important because they ensure consistency and accuracy in all content and help to maintain a strong and consistent brand message, which is essential for building trust and credibility with audiences.
Additionally, they help to ensure that all content is of high quality, which is important for engaging and retaining audiences.
Here are some examples of rules and guidelines you can implement for creating, editing, and publishing content:
Tone And Style Guidelines
Specify the tone and style of different types of content, such as formal and professional for business proposals, and conversational and friendly for social media posts.
Example: All press releases should be written in a formal and professional tone and style.
Grammar And Formatting Guidelines
Define the rules of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and formatting for your content.
Example: Use the Chicago Manual of Style as the primary guide for grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and formatting.
Branding And Messaging Guidelines
Specify how content should align with your brand’s messaging and values.
Example: All social media posts should reflect the company’s mission and values.
Legal Compliance Guidelines
Ensure that all content is compliant with legal requirements such as copyright laws and advertising regulations.
Example: All images and videos used in content must be properly licensed and attributed.
Content Creation Guidelines
Define who is responsible for creating different types of content, such as blog posts, social media posts, and marketing materials.
Example: The content creator is responsible for writing blog posts and social media posts.
Content Editing Guidelines
Define who is responsible for editing different types of content, such as proofreading, fact-checking, and legal review.
Example: The editor is responsible for proofreading and fact-checking all written content.
Content Approval Guidelines
Describe the approval process, including who is responsible for reviewing and approving content before it is published.
Example: All written content must be reviewed and approved by the editor before being submitted to the approver.
Content Archiving Guidelines
Specify guidelines for archiving or removing content that is no longer relevant or useful.
Example: All content that is more than 2 years old should be archived.
Metrics And Analytics Guidelines
Set guidelines for measuring and analyzing the performance of content, and using the data to make adjustments to the content and governance process accordingly.
Example: Use Google Analytics to track the performance of the website and adjust the content accordingly.
Review and Update Guidelines
Specify how your organization will ensure the guidelines themselves remain relevant and effective.
Example: Review guidelines every 6 months and update them as needed.
Additional Guidelines
Include additional guidelines in your documentation.
For example:
Forum / User-Generated Guidelines
Here are some widely acceptable guidelines you may want to include in your documentation for posting user-generated content on forums, membership sites, etc. :
Respectful Communication: Encourage members to communicate respectfully, avoiding personal attacks, harassment, or offensive language.
Supportive Environment: Foster a supportive and inclusive community where members feel safe and comfortable sharing their thoughts and experiences.
Content Relevance: Post content relevant to the forum’s purpose and categories to maintain a focused discussion.
No Spamming: Avoid excessive self-promotion, spam, or unrelated content. Prohibit the posting of repetitive, irrelevant, or promotional content to maintain the quality of discussions.
Membership Tiers: Align content with the appropriate membership tiers to maintain exclusivity and fairness.
Contribution Quality: Encourage high-quality contributions, such as long-form blog posts, videos, interviews, webinars, and relevant resource lists.
Sophistication: Acknowledge the sophistication of the community and adhere to higher standards of discussion.
Content Protection: Implement role-based content protection to ensure access aligns with membership privileges.
Copyright Compliance: Emphasize the importance of respecting copyright laws and not posting copyrighted material without proper authorization.
Constructive Criticism: Encourage constructive feedback and discussions while discouraging negative or unhelpful comments.
User Privacy: Respect members’ privacy by refraining from sharing personal information without consent and adhering to data protection regulations.
Updates and Amendments: Reserve the right to update or amend forum guidelines as necessary, with clear communication to all members.
Moderation Policies: Outline the consequences of violating forum guidelines, including warnings, temporary suspensions, or permanent bans, to ensure accountability.
Report Functionality: Encourage members to report inappropriate content or behavior to moderators for prompt action.
The Role of Content Governance
Content governance plays an important role in areas like:
Maintaining consistency in your brand messaging
Ensuring the quality of your content
Managing access and permissions for creating and editing content
Tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your content
Let’s take a look at each of these areas.
Maintaining Consistency In Brand Messaging
Content governance plays an essential role in maintaining consistency in your brand messaging by ensuring that all content is consistent in terms of language, tone, and style, and by providing guidelines for visual elements and a process for reviewing and approving content.
This helps to maintain a strong and consistent brand message, which is crucial for building trust and credibility with your audience.
Examples of how content governance helps to maintain consistency in your brand messaging include:
Defining a specific tone and style for all content ensures that all content is consistent in terms of language, tone, and style.
Setting guidelines for the use of images and videos ensures that all visual content is consistent in terms of style and quality.
Creating a brand style guide sets guidelines for the use of colors, typography, and other visual elements that are used across all content.
Implementing a content management system allows your organization to manage, track, and measure the effectiveness of your content, and to control access and permissions for content creation and editing.
Having a centralized team responsible for creating, editing, and publishing content ensures that all content is consistent and aligned with your organization’s overall messaging and goals.
Having a content review and approval process helps to ensure that all content is accurate and meets your organization’s standards before it is published, which is important for maintaining the credibility of your organization and the consistency of your brand message.
Ensuring Quality Of Content
Content governance plays a crucial role in ensuring the quality of your content by establishing rules and guidelines for creating, editing, and publishing content. These rules and guidelines help to ensure that all content you publish will be accurate, relevant, and of high quality.
Examples of how content governance helps to ensure the quality of your content include:
Creating a process for reviewing and approving content ensures that all content is accurate and meets your organization’s standards before it is published.
Establishing guidelines for research and fact-checking ensures that all content is based on accurate and credible sources, which helps to ensure the quality of your content.
Setting standards for the use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling ensures that all content you create will be free of errors, which helps to ensure the quality of your content.
Implementing a content management system allows your organization to manage, track, and measure the effectiveness of your content, and to control access and permissions for content creation and editing. This ensures that the content is of high quality and meets your standards.
Having a centralized team responsible for creating, editing, and publishing content ensures that all content is consistent and aligned with your organization’s overall messaging and goals and that the quality of your content is maintained.
Having a content review and approval process ensures that all content you produce is accurate, relevant, and of high quality before it is published, which is important for maintaining the credibility of your organization and the quality of your content.
Managing Access And Permissions For Content Creation And Editing
Content governance plays an important role in managing access and permissions for content creation and editing.
By establishing rules and guidelines for creating, editing, and publishing content, content governance ensures that only authorized individuals have access to create and edit content, and that content is reviewed and approved by the necessary parties.
Examples of how content governance helps to manage access and permissions for content creation and editing include:
Defining roles and responsibilities for content creation and editing ensures that all content is created by the appropriate individuals and is reviewed and approved by the necessary parties.
Creating a process for reviewing and approving content ensures that all content is accurate and meets your organization’s standards before it is published and that only authorized individuals have access to create and edit content.
Implementing a content management system allows your organization to manage, track, and measure the effectiveness of your content, and to control access and permissions for content creation and editing. This ensures that only authorized individuals have access to create and edit content.
Having a centralized team responsible for creating, editing, and publishing content ensures that all content is consistent and aligned with your organization’s overall messaging and goals and that only authorized individuals have access to create and edit this content.
Establishing an access control system ensures that only authorized individuals have access to create and edit content, and that content is reviewed and approved by the necessary parties.
Assigning different levels of permissions allows your organization to assign different levels of permissions to different users, such as content creators, editors, and reviewers, to ensure that only authorized individuals have access to create and edit content.
Tracking And Measuring The Effectiveness Of Content
Content governance plays a crucial role in tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your content by providing a framework for managing, analyzing, and reporting on the performance of your content.
This allows your organization to evaluate the performance of your content, make necessary changes, and improve the effectiveness of your content over time.
This also helps your organization to make data-driven decisions, which can lead to a more effective content marketing strategy and ultimately increase audience engagement.
Examples of how content governance helps in tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your content include:
Implementing a content management system allows your organization to manage, track, and measure the effectiveness of your content, including metrics such as views, shares, and engagement.
Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) for content allows your organization to track and measure the effectiveness of your content by monitoring specific metrics that align with your goals and objectives.
Creating a process for analyzing and reporting on content performance allows your organization to evaluate the performance of your content and make necessary changes, such as adjusting the tone, style, or format of your content.
Having a centralized team responsible for creating, editing, and publishing content ensures that all content is consistent and aligned with your organization’s overall messaging and goals and that your team is able to track and measure the effectiveness of your content.
Using web analytics tools allows your organization to track and measure the effectiveness of your content by monitoring website traffic, bounce rates, and other metrics.
Conducting audience research allows your organization to understand your target audience, their preferences, and behaviors, and make necessary adjustments to your content to make it more effective.
Establishing Rules and Guidelines
Establishing content governance rules and guidelines cover areas like:
Defining roles and responsibilities for content creation and editing
Setting guidelines for tone and style of content
Creating a process for reviewing and approving content
Implementing a content management system
Let’s take a look at each of these areas.
Defining Roles And Responsibilities For Content Creation And Editing
By following the steps and suggestions below, your organization can define roles and responsibilities for content creation and editing effectively, which helps to ensure that all content is created by the appropriate individuals and is reviewed and approved by the necessary parties:
Step 1: Identify the key players involved in content creation and editing.
This includes individuals such as content creators, editors, marketers, designers, approvers, and legal or compliance teams.
Step 2: Assign specific roles and responsibilities to each member of the team.
Create guidelines for who is responsible for creating and editing different types of content.
For example:
Content Creator: Research, write, and produce high-quality and engaging content that aligns with the brand’s messaging and goals.
Editor: Review, proofread, fact-check, and edit content to ensure that it is accurate, grammatically correct, and consistent with the organization’s standards.
Marketer: Promote the content through various channels to reach the target audience and increase engagement.
Designer: Create visual elements for the content, such as images and infographics, to enhance the overall design and appeal of the content.
Compliance or Legal Team: Ensure that the content is compliant with legal and regulatory requirements and that the organization is protected from any legal liabilities.
Step 3: Create a process for reviewing and approving content.
This process should clearly outline the steps that need to be taken before content is published, including who is responsible for reviewing and approving the content.
Step 4: Establish a system for tracking and measuring the effectiveness of content.
This system should be used by the team to monitor the performance of your content and make necessary changes.
Step 5: Communicate the roles and responsibilities to the team.
Make sure that each member of your team understands their specific roles and responsibilities, and how they fit into the overall content creation and editing process.
Also, make sure that everyone involved in content creation and editing understands the approval process.
Some suggestions to make this process effective:
Make sure that the roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and communicated to your team members to avoid confusion and mistakes.
Assign roles and responsibilities based on the skills and expertise of each team member.
Review and update the roles and responsibilities regularly to ensure that they are aligned with your organization’s goals and objectives.
Encourage collaboration and teamwork among team members to ensure that your content is of high quality.
Here’s a template you can follow to define roles and responsibilities for content creation and editing in your organization (modify it to suit your own needs):
1. Assign roles:
Content creator: Writes and creates content
Editor: Review, edit, and proofread content for accuracy and style
Approver: Approves and publishes content
2. Establish clear guidelines:
The content creator is responsible for writing blog posts and social media posts
The editor is responsible for proofreading and fact-checking all written content
The approver is responsible for reviewing all content before it is published
3. Define the approval process:
All written content must be reviewed and approved by the editor before being submitted to the approver
The approver must review and approve all content before it is published
4. Communicate the process:
Send out an email to all team members outlining their roles and responsibilities in the content creation and editing process
Hold a team meeting to discuss the process and answer any questions
Review and communicate the process regularly to ensure that all team members are aware of changes.
Setting Guidelines For Tone And Style Of Content
Setting guidelines for the tone and style of content is an important aspect of content governance.
It ensures that all content is consistent in terms of language, tone, and style, which helps to maintain a strong and consistent brand message.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to set guidelines for the tone and style of content:
Step 1: Define the tone and style of the brand.
This should align with your organization’s mission, values, and overall messaging.
Include guidelines for how the content should sound and feel.
For example, the content might be written in a friendly and conversational tone. Or, if your organization wants to present itself as professional, informative, and trustworthy, the tone of the content should be formal and informative, and the style should be clean and simple.
Also, clearly define the tone and style that should be used for different types of content. For example, a formal and professional tone for business proposals and a conversational and friendly tone for social media posts.
Step 2: Create a brand style guide.
This guide should include guidelines for language, tone, style, and visual elements such as typography, colors, imagery, and composition.
Provide examples of appropriate and inappropriate language: This can include a list of words or phrases that should be used or words or phrases that are considered offensive or insensitive and should be avoided in the content.
For example, the style guide could include examples of appropriate language and tone, such as the level of formality. Guidelines might specify that all content should use active voice and avoid jargon.
Step 3: Communicate the guidelines to the team.
Make sure that all members of your team understand and are familiar with the guidelines.
Create a checklist of items that need to be reviewed before content is published, such as grammar, tone, and style.
Share the style guide with the team, make it easily accessible, and provide training to the team members on how to use it effectively.
Step 4: Provide examples of content that align with the guidelines.
This will help team members to understand what is expected of them and make it easier for them to create content that aligns with the guidelines.
Step 5: Review and update the guidelines regularly.
As your organization and its audience evolve, the guidelines should be reviewed and updated to ensure that they align with your organization’s mission, values, and overall messaging.
Some suggestions to make this process effective:
Make sure that the guidelines are clear, concise, and easy to understand.
Keep in mind the target audience and the purpose of the content while creating the guidelines.
Encourage team members to ask questions and provide feedback on the guidelines.
Use the guidelines to train new team members and as a reference for existing team members.
Here’s a template you can follow to set guidelines for the tone and style of content (modify it to suit your own needs):
1. Define the tone and style:
Business proposals: Formal and professional
Social media posts: Conversational and friendly
Blog posts: Informative and engaging
2. Use a style guide:
Use The Chicago Manual of Style as the primary guide for grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and formatting
All headings must be in Title Case
Use serial comma
Use American English
3. Be specific:
Use active voice in all written content
Avoid using jargon
Use subheadings to break up long paragraphs
Use bullet points when listing items
4. Review and update regularly:
Review guidelines every 6 months
Update guidelines as needed based on feedback from team members and the audience.
Creating A Process For Reviewing And Approving Content
Creating a process for reviewing and approving content is an important aspect of content governance.
This ensures that all content is accurate and meets your organization’s standards before it is published, which is important for maintaining your credibility.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create a process for reviewing and approving content:
Step 1: Identify the key players involved in content review and approval.
This includes individuals such as content creators, editors, managers, legal or compliance teams, and other stakeholders.
Step 2: Assign specific roles and responsibilities to each member of the team.
For example, content creators may be responsible for researching and writing content, editors may be responsible for reviewing and editing content, managers may be responsible for approving the content, and legal or compliance teams will be responsible for making sure that the content is compliant with legal and regulatory requirements.
Step 3: Create a checklist of items to be reviewed before content is published.
This checklist should include items such as grammar, tone, style, accuracy, relevance, and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Step 4: Establish a timeline for the review and approval process.
This timeline should include deadlines for when each stage of the process should be completed.
Step 5: Communicate the process to the team.
Make sure that all members of your team understand the process and their specific roles and responsibilities.
Step 6: Implement a system for tracking and measuring the effectiveness of the process.
This system should be used to monitor the performance of the process and make necessary changes.
Here are some additional suggestions to make this process effective:
Use a content management system (CMS) to manage and track the review and approval process. This allows for easy access and collaboration among team members, and the ability to track the progress of the review and approval process.
Establish a workflow: Use a workflow management tool or create a content calendar to help track the progress of each piece of content and ensure that it is reviewed and approved on time.
Encourage collaboration and feedback among team members during the review and approval process. This allows for multiple perspectives on the content and can lead to a more accurate and high-quality final product.
Have a final approval step by senior management or a legal team before publishing the content. This ensures that the content is legally and ethically compliant, and aligns with the overall goals and messaging of the organization.
Review and update the process regularly. As the organization and its audience evolve, the process should be reviewed and updated to ensure that it is still effective and aligned with the organization’s goals and objectives.
Provide training to the team members on how to use the process effectively, and make sure that all team members are aware of the process and their specific roles and responsibilities.
Use data and analytics to track the progress of the content review and approval process, and make necessary changes to improve the process over time.
Here’s a template you can follow to create a process for reviewing and approving content (modify it to suit your own needs):
1. Define the content review process:
Step 1: Content creation
Step 2: Initial review by the content creator
Step 3: Peer review by a team member
Step 4: Final review by the manager
Step 5: Approval and publication
2. Assign roles and responsibilities:
Content creator: Writes and creates content
Peer reviewer: Reviews content for accuracy, grammar, and style
Manager: Approves and publishes content
3. Establish a workflow:
Use Trello to track the progress of each piece of content and ensure that it is reviewed and approved on time
4. Set up guidelines:
All marketing materials need to be reviewed and approved before publication
All blog posts need to be reviewed and approved by a peer before publication
All press releases need to be reviewed and approved by the manager before publication
5. Communicate the process:
Send out an email to all team members outlining the content review process
Hold a team meeting to discuss the process and answer any questions.
Implementing A Content Management System
Implementing a content management system (CMS) can help organize and streamline your content creation and publishing process.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to implement a CMS:
1. Identify your needs
Determine what features and functionality you need in a CMS. For example, do you need a CMS that allows for multiple users and different levels of access, or one that integrates with other tools such as marketing automation software?
Example: Your company needs a CMS that can handle a high volume of content, allows for multiple users and different levels of access and integrates with the company’s marketing automation software.
2. Research and compare options
Research different CMS options and compare their features, pricing, and scalability. Some popular open-source CMS options include WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.
Choose a CMS
Select a CMS that best fits your needs and budget.
Install and set up the CMS
Follow the instructions provided by the CMS to install and set up the system on your webhosting account.
Customize the CMS
Customize the CMS to fit your specific needs. This may include adding plugins, creating templates, and configuring settings.
Create and organize content
Create and organize your content within the CMS. This may include creating categories and tags to organize content and creating a workflow for content creation and approval.
Train users
Train users on how to use the CMS, including how to create, edit, and publish content.
Test and launch
Test the CMS to ensure it is functioning properly. Once you are satisfied with the CMS, launch it to your audience.
For example, your company may decide to use WordPress as its CMS.
Here are frequently asked questions about content governance:
What is content governance?
Content governance involves the overarching management and structured control of content across an organization. This ensures that all content aligns with company standards and objectives.
Why is content governance important?
Content governance is critical for maintaining consistency, quality, and compliance in the content lifecycle. It ensures that every piece of content serves a specific purpose and meets established standards, ultimately enhancing effectiveness and accountability.
What are the main elements of a content governance model?
A content governance model typically includes structured processes, clear roles and responsibilities, and policies that guide content creation, management, and archiving. This model helps in achieving better control over content outcomes and efficiency.
How can I establish a content governance process?
Establishing a content governance process involves several steps:
Defining content roles and responsibilities.
Setting up detailed content creation and review workflows.
Implementing policies for content usage and maintenance.
Training team members on governance protocols.
What are the benefits of content governance?
Content governance helps in organizing content production and management processes, ensuring consistency across all channels, improving content quality, and aligning content with business goals. It also assists in compliance with legal and regulatory standards.
Are there different types of content governance models?
Yes, there are typically three main types of content governance models which vary based on the scale of operations and organizational needs. These models can be adjusted or combined to better fit specific organizational structures or goals.
How does content governance impact content creation?
Content governance sets a framework for content creation that includes planning, production, distribution, and maintenance phases. This framework helps in maintaining a consistent voice and style across all content and optimizes the use of resources.
What tools can assist in content governance?
Various tools can assist in content governance, including content management systems (CMS), digital asset management systems (DAM), and project management tools. These tools help in enforcing governance rules, tracking compliance, and facilitating communication among team members.
Summary
Here are the key takeaway points of this lesson:
Content governance is an essential aspect of creating and publishing high-quality content.
Establishing rules and guidelines for creating, editing, and publishing content ensures consistency and accuracy in all content.
By implementing content governance, your business can maintain a strong and consistent brand message, ensure the quality of its content, comply with legal requirements, measure the effectiveness of its content, and achieve a better return on investment.
Follow the above steps to implement content governance and ensure that your content is aligned with your overall messaging and goals.
Streamline your workflow and maximize your team’s potential with content management automation.
Content Management Automation
Streamline your workflow and maximize your team’s potential with these content management automation tips.
With the sheer amount of content being produced every day, manual management and optimization can be overwhelming.
Automating certain content management tasks can greatly improve efficiency and productivity and free up your team’s time to focus on more critical tasks, such as strategy, ideation, and analysis.
This lesson is part of our content automation series and provides essential content management automation tips that can help streamline your workflow and maximize your team’s potential.
Content Management Automation Tips
Here are some essential content planning automation tips to help you streamline your workflow and boost your team’s productivity:
1) Use AI-Powered Tools For Content Ideation
AI-powered tools can help you generate content ideas based on trending topics, search queries, and social media activity. These tools can analyze search data, social media trends, and competitor content to suggest topics that are relevant and likely to perform well, provide valuable insights into the performance of your existing content, and suggest ways to optimize it.
Follow these steps to automate your content ideation:
Enter a keyword or topic related to your industry or niche.
Use the tool to generate a list of content ideas based on popular topics and trends.
Use the ideas generated by the tool to create new content or improve existing content.
Some popular AI-powered content ideation tools include:
SemRush – offers a range of SEO and content marketing tools, including a content ideation tool that can help you generate ideas for your content.
BuzzSumo – allows you to analyze popular content and identify popular topics and trends.
AnswerThePublic – generates a list of popular questions related to your keyword, which can help you create content that addresses the needs and concerns of your target audience.
See these lessons and resources for more information:
Automating your content creation process can save your team hours of work every week and reduce your reliance on external content creators, which can result in significant cost savings.
You can use content creation templates, pre-designed layouts, and AI-powered tools to save time and generate content quickly and efficiently.
Follow these steps to automate your content creation process:
Identify the areas of your content creation process that can be automated, such as content formatting, image creation, or video editing.
Choose the automation tools that meet your needs.
Integrate the tools into your content creation workflow.
Test and optimize your automated content creation process to ensure that it meets your standards for quality and effectiveness.
Use content creation templates to streamline your process and ensure consistency in formatting and style.
Use AI-powered editing and proofreading tools.
Create a content calendar to plan and schedule your content in advance.
Delegate tasks to team members or freelancers to help reduce workload and ensure timely delivery.
Some popular content creation automation tools include:
ChatGPT – helps save time by generating high-quality content such as articles, blogs, social media posts, emails, and other types of content quickly and efficiently. Using predefined templates and guidelines can ensure that all content produced is aligned with your brand’s values and message.
Canva – allows you to create and edit images and graphics for your content.
Grammarly – offers a range of writing and editing tools, including grammar and spell check, tone detection, and plagiarism detection.
Copy.ai – an AI-powered writing tool that can help you write high-quality blog posts, social media posts, and emails faster and better by cutting down your writing time by up to 80%
Lumen5 – create videos from your existing content or from scratch using AI-powered technology.
See these lessons and resources for more information:
Optimizing your content for search engines can help you rank higher in search results, increase your visibility, attract more organic traffic, and reach a wider audience.
Automating the optimization process can save you time and ensure that your content is optimized for the right keywords, meta descriptions, and tags.
Follow these steps to automate your content optimization:
SmartCrawl – a popular WordPress plugin that provides on-page SEO optimization tools, including content analysis, meta-tag optimization, and keyword analysis.
Google Analytics – Google Analytics provides insights into your website traffic and user behavior, which can help you optimize your content for search engines.
Ahrefs – Ahrefs is an SEO optimization tool that provides insights into your website’s backlinks, keywords, and content performance.
See these lessons and resources for more information:
Social media scheduling can be a time-consuming task, but automating your social media scheduling process can help you save time, increase efficiency, and post content consistently and efficiently.
You can use scheduling tools to schedule posts in advance and ensure that your content is posted at the right time for your target audience.
Follow these steps to automate your social media scheduling:
Test and optimize your social media scheduling process to ensure that it meets your standards for quality and effectiveness.
Additionally:
Consider using AI-powered tools to help with content creation and scheduling.
Utilize social media analytics to monitor your performance and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Be sure to customize your content for each social media platform, taking into account the unique features and audience preferences of each one.
Some popular social media scheduling tools include:
SproutSocial – streamline your social media presence by automating the scheduling and publishing of posts across various social media channels, and easily manage your social media accounts from a single dashboard, making it easy to collaborate with your team members and track your social media performance.
Hootsuite – manage and schedule your social media posts across multiple platforms, including Facebook, and Twitter. Consider using Hootsuite’s Bulk Scheduling feature to upload multiple posts at once.
Buffer – schedule social media posts in advance across multiple social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
See these lessons and resources for more information:
5) Use Analytics Tools To Measure And Analyze Your Content Performance
Analytics tools can provide valuable insights into your content’s performance, such as engagement rates, traffic sources, and conversion rates.
Automating the analysis process with analytics tools can also help you track and analyze your content performance, so you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your content strategy.
There are many analytics tools you can use to measure your content’s performance, including:
Website analytics tools for tracking website traffic, user behavior, and conversion rates. Pay attention to metrics such as bounce rate, time on page, and conversion rate to evaluate the effectiveness of your content.
Social media analytics tools to help you track engagement and reach on social media platforms.
Heat mapping tools to help you analyze user behavior and improve website design and content.
Here’s how to use Google Analytics to measure and analyze your content performance:
Create a Google Analytics account and connect your website to the platform.
Set up goals and conversions to track user behavior and measure the effectiveness of your content.
Use the Behavior reports to analyze how users interact with your website and identify popular pages or areas that need improvement.
Use the Acquisition reports to track how users find your website and which channels are driving the most traffic.
Use the Audience reports to understand your audience demographics, behavior, and interests.
Use the Realtime reports to monitor your website traffic in real-time and make data-driven decisions.
Use the data gathered from these tools to inform your content strategy and make data-driven decisions for future content creation.
See these lessons and resources for more information:
Learn about the key benefits and features of an Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) and popular ECMS platforms.
Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECMS)
Learn about the key benefits and features of an Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) and popular ECMS platforms.
Learn what an Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) is, the benefits and key features of an ECMS, and how to choose the best ECMS platform for your needs.
Enterprise Content Management is a framework of tools, methodologies, and processes for managing content throughout its lifecycle, automating workflows and streamlining business processes to drive business goals.
An Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) is a type of CMS platform designed to facilitate this, allowing organizations to manage, store, and retrieve large amounts of critical business content.
ECMS provides a centralized repository for all types of content, including documents, images, videos, and other digital assets, and a range of tools and features for managing digital content, including document management, workflow management, and version control.
ECM systems also typically comprise six core components (Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve, Access, and Automate), allowing your organization to control all aspects of your document management lifecycle, from creation to destruction.
ECMSs are ideal for organizations that have a large amount of digital content and need to manage it efficiently. They offer features such as advanced search capabilities, secure access to content, and the ability to manage content across multiple departments and locations.
ECMS Features
Key features of Enterprise Content Management Systems include:
Physical document scanning and capturing via tools such as OCR and intelligent document processing.
Advanced search and retrieval capabilities for finding and accessing content via connected information silos.
Document management, workflow automation, approval processes, and collaboration tools for managing and publishing content simultaneously across multiple departments and locations.
Secure access controls for managing who can access and edit content.
Integration with other tools and systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM), customer communication management (CCM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
Ability to manage personalized interactions with large volumes of customers.
Version control and history tracking for managing multiple versions of content.
Records management to automatically retain and schedule content disposal.
ECMS Benefits
Enterprise Content Management Systems provide many tangible benefits to organizations. For example, they:
Simplify, centralize, organize, improve, and optimize business processes and information management, making it easy for organizations to manage and access large amounts of content across multiple departments and locations.
Help to ensure that critical business content and sensitive information is secure and accessible only to authorized users.
Provide tools for managing and publishing content effectively and act as a content repository for external applications, which can improve productivity and efficiency, and reduce costs.
Enhance collaboration by allowing multiple users to work on the same content simultaneously.
Enable mobile and remote working with cloud-based file sharing, and document library services.
Help to ensure that the latest version of content is always available, which can help to avoid confusion and errors.
Improve and strengthen compliance and governance by ensuring that content is managed in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements.
ECMS Pros
Some of the pros of using an Enterprise Content Management System include:
ECMS facilitates digital transformation.
ECMS provides advanced search and retrieval capabilities for finding and accessing content.
ECMS offers workflow and collaboration tools for managing and publishing content across multiple departments and locations.
ECMS provides secure access controls for managing who can access and edit content.
ECMS Cons
Some of the cons of using an Enterprise Content Management System include:
ECMS can be complex and difficult to set up and configure.
ECMS can be expensive and require a significant investment.
ECMS may require technical skills to set up and customize.
Popular ECMS Platforms
Most of the popular Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECMS) provide advanced features for collaboration, document management, and workflows, allowing businesses to securely store, manage, and access all types of digital assets, including documents, images, videos, and audio files, and offer platforms that are scalable and customizable, so it can grow with your business and be configured to meet your unique needs.
The ECMS platforms below will not only enable your organization to better manage and share content, documents, and information and collaborate on projects, but they will also help to improve your content management processes, streamline your workflows, and store and manage your content more effectively:
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is a cloud-based enterprise content management system (ECMS) that not only enables organizations to manage and share information and collaborate on projects, but it also allows users to create and manage websites, intranet portals, extranet sites, document libraries, and lists.
SharePoint integrates with other Microsoft applications such as Office 365, Exchange, and OneDrive, making it easy for users to access and manage their content from a single location. Additionally, SharePoint is a highly scalable and secure platform, making it ideal for organizations of all sizes and industries.
SharePoint provides a centralized platform for document management, version control, and workflow management. It also features powerful search capabilities and a flexible architecture that enables organizations to customize and extend the system to meet their specific needs.
Key features of Microsoft SharePoint include:
Integration with other Microsoft applications such as Office 365, Exchange, and OneDrive
Flexible and customizable architecture
Strong security features
Scalable and suitable for organizations of all sizes
IBM FileNet
IBM FileNet
IBM FileNet is an enterprise-level ECMS that is known for its advanced features, scalability, and integration with other IBM products. It provides tools for managing and organizing content, documents, and records.
IBM FileNet is a comprehensive enterprise content management system (ECMS) designed to help businesses manage, store, and share their critical content.
With IBM FileNet, you can centralize all your content in one place, regardless of format or source, and access it from anywhere, at any time. The platform provides robust collaboration and workflow tools, so teams can work together more efficiently, and it also integrates with a range of other systems and tools, including CRM, ERP, and document management systems.
One of the key benefits of IBM FileNet is its scalability and flexibility. The platform is designed to handle large volumes of content and can be easily configured to meet the unique needs of your business. Additionally, IBM FileNet provides advanced search and discovery capabilities, so you can quickly find the content you need, and it offers robust security features to ensure that your content is protected at all times.
Another strength of IBM FileNet is its enterprise-level capabilities. The platform provides a full range of content management features, including document management, records management, and imaging and capture, so you can manage all aspects of your content lifecycle from a single, centralized platform. Additionally, IBM FileNet provides robust user management and permission controls, so you can ensure that only authorized users have access to your content.
Overall, IBM FileNet is a powerful ECMS that is well-suited for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. Whether you’re looking to improve your content management processes, streamline your workflows, or simply store and manage your content more effectively, IBM FileNet is a solution that can help you achieve your goals.
Key features of IBM FileNet include:
Advanced document management and imaging capabilities
Robust business process management capabilities
Strong security and compliance features
Integration with other IBM products and solutions
OpenText Content Cloud
OpenText Content Cloud
OpenText Content Cloud offers a powerful suite of end-to-end enterprise content management solutions, from capture to full lifecycle management to archiving, and provides businesses with a centralized platform for storing, managing and sharing their content.
Content Cloud integrates with the systems that produce and consume information, extending enterprise-grade content management deeper into the organization and facilitating seamless access, distribution, and use of both structured and unstructured data.
With OpenText, your business can securely store all types of digital assets, including documents, images, videos, and audio files, and access them from anywhere, at any time. The platform is highly scalable and customizable, can be configured to meet unique business needs, and provides robust collaboration and workflow tools, so teams can work together more efficiently.
One of the key benefits of OpenText content services is its extensive set of features and functionalities, which allow businesses to manage and track all aspects of their content lifecycle, from creation to archiving. The platform also provides advanced search and discovery capabilities, so you can quickly find the content you need, and it integrates with a range of other systems and tools, including CRM, ERP, and document management systems.
Another strength of OpenText is its security features, which are designed to protect content and ensure that only authorized users have access to it. The platform provides a secure and scalable infrastructure, as well as robust user management and permission controls, ensuring that content is protected at all times.
Overall, OpenText provides a comprehensive ECMS that is well-suited for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises.
Key features of OpenText include:
Scalable and suitable for large enterprise environments
Advanced document management capabilities
Robust business process management and automation capabilities
Integration with other OpenText products and solutions
Alfresco
Alfresco
Alfresco is a leading open-source enterprise content management system known for its versatility and flexible architecture. It provides tools for managing and organizing content, documents, and records, and is widely used by organizations of all sizes.
One of the key benefits of Alfresco is its open-source nature, which gives you the freedom to modify the software and integrate it with other systems and tools as needed.
The platform also offers robust collaboration and workflow tools, so teams can work together on projects in real time, and it provides advanced search and discovery capabilities, so you can quickly find the content you need.
Additionally, Alfresco is built on a secure and scalable infrastructure, so you can be confident that your content is protected and easily accessible when you need it.
Key features of Alfresco include:
Open source and highly customizable platform
Robust document management capabilities
Advanced workflow and collaboration features
Strong integration with other systems and applications
Hyland OnBase
Hyland OnBase
Hyland OnBase is a single enterprise information platform designed to manage content, processes, and cases.
OnBase centralizes important business content in one secure location and then delivers relevant information to businesses when they need it, wherever they are, helping to increase productivity, deliver excellent customer service, and reduce risk across the entire enterprise.
Some of the key features of this ECMS include version control, metadata management, records management, and integration with a wide range of third-party applications and services.
Key features of Hyland OnBase ECMS include:
Advanced document management and imaging capabilities
Robust business process management and automation capabilities
Integration with other systems and applications
Strong security and compliance features
Nuxeo
Nuxeo
Nuxeo is an open-source cloud-based ECMS that is known for its advanced features, scalability, and integration with other tools and platforms. It provides tools for managing and organizing content, documents, and records, and is widely used by organizations of all sizes.
Nuxeo’s platform differs from other traditional Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMS) and ECMSs. Its Federation framework connects your enterprise information systems to provide a central hub for all business information, a single platform to build custom applications, and the ability to optimize and modernize your information management technology stack, delivering a 360° view of all the information within your organization and allowing you to connect with other ECM systems, core business applications, productivity tools, file sharing apps, and all content types to manage customers, cases, suppliers, invoices, etc.
Key features of Nuxeo include:
Open source and highly customizable platform
Robust document management capabilities
Advanced workflow and collaboration features
Strong integration with other systems and applications
Oracle WebCenter Content
Oracle WebCenter Content
Oracle WebCenter Content is an enterprise-level ECMS that provides advanced features for managing and organizing content, documents, and records. It is widely used by large organizations for managing critical business content, especially in the finance and healthcare industries.
Key features of Oracle WebCenter Content ECMS include:
Scalable and suitable for large enterprise environments
Advanced document management and imaging capabilities
Robust business process management and automation capabilities
Integration with other Oracle products and solutions
Box
Box Enterprise Content Management
Box is a cloud-based enterprise content management system that provides organizations with a secure and scalable platform for managing their content.
With Box, businesses can store, share, and collaborate on a wide range of digital assets, including documents, images, videos, and audio files.
Box’s ECMS is designed to be flexible and scalable, so it can grow with your organization as your content management needs change.
Some of the key features of Box’s ECMS include collaboration tools, version control, access controls, metadata management, and integration with a wide range of third-party applications and services.
Box also offers robust security features, including encryption, audit trails, and role-based access controls.
Key features of Box include:
Cloud-based platform with strong security features
Advanced collaboration and workflow capabilities
Integration with other systems and applications
Suitable for both small and large organizations.
Choosing The Right ECMS For Your Organization
An Enterprise Content Management System (ECMS) is a critical tool for organizations that want to effectively manage, store, and retrieve large amounts of critical business content.
By providing a centralized repository for all types of content, an ECMS can help your organization improve information management, enhance collaboration, improve security, and ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.
Each ECM system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the best choice will depend on the specific needs and requirements of your organization.
When choosing an ECMS, it is important to consider factors such as the size and complexity of the content, the types of content being managed, the need for collaboration and workflow tools, and the need for integration with other tools and systems.
Additionally, consider the costs associated with an ECMS, including both the initial investment and ongoing maintenance and support costs, and the desired level of customization.
For more lessons related to Content Management Systems (CMS), click on one of the links below:
This lesson provides an overview of the course modules, what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits of having a clear content strategy.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to this video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
My name is Martin Aranovitch. I’m a professional content writer and the blog editor of a global software company.
I also run a number of business training websites including ContentManagementCourse.com, where you can learn how to manage your content more effectively for free.
So, why a course on content strategy?
Well, in case you haven’t noticed,
Content is everywhere!
All businesses and websites need content, all content needs management, and all management needs a strategy.
So, whether you are a business or website owner, or someone who creates, promotes, or manages content for a business, or you work in any kind of business that wants to grow using content.
This course will show you how to create a content strategy that will help you produce more targeted content, drive more traffic to your website, generate more leads, and manage your content more effectively!
The aim of this course is to help you develop a sustainable way to grow your business by targeting the right audience, using the right content, at the right time, to get whatever outcome you set as a goal.
This could be buying your products, subscribing to your newsletter, or signing up for a membership.
I designed the lessons in this course to help you create a practical content strategy quickly and easily.
So, if the purpose of having a content strategy is to help your business grow using content, then the first thing we need to do is understand who our target audience is, and set goals for what we want to achieve with our content.
Once we have set our content goals, the next step is to decide which content types and formats will work best to deliver results that will help us achieve our goals.
After we have a clear picture of the content types and formats that our business will create, the next step is to do a content audit of our business.
This will help us assess if any existing content we have fits our strategy and if not, what do we do with it?
The content audit will also help us identify if there are any missing gaps that we need to fill and any content opportunities that we can take advantage of.
Once we have the full picture of the content we will need to create and the resources we have available to work with, the next step is to create a content plan.
We’ll then break down our overall content plan into three key areas and develop a content production plan, a content promotion plan, and a content management plan.
These plans will then be used to execute our content strategy, to put systems in place to measure how our content is performing and to assess and improve the results of our content strategy to make sure that we are meeting our business goals and objectives.
Finally, we will look at troubleshooting any content-related problems to make sure that our content strategy is delivering our expected results to our business.
So that’s the logic behind this video course.
Now, let’s take a brief look at what the lessons in this video series will actually cover:
So this is Module 1, and after this overview, we’ll look at what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits of having a clear content strategy.
In module 2, we look at what you need to know and do before you can create an effective content strategy for your business.
And we’ll look at ways and methods to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of our target audience, create user personas for our business, and understand the buyer’s journey and what type of content will be most relevant and valuable to our audience at each different stage.
In module 4, we’ll use our target audience information to set content goals.
First, we’ll define our business goals, then we’ll align our content strategy with our business goals, and determine what we want to achieve with our content. For example, drive traffic, generate leads, build brand awareness, etc.
We’ll then set SMART goals for our content that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
In module 5, we’ll decide which content types and formats will best help us reach our goals.
We’ll choose the types of content that will be most effective for achieving our goals and resonating with our audience, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, ebooks, podcasts, etc., and consider the format and delivery of our content. For example, digital content delivered online, in-person, in print format, and so on.
This will help us to identify the types of content that our business is currently producing, assess the performance of our existing content, and identify gaps in our current content offerings.
We’ll cover topics like planning out the frequency, topics, and distribution of our content, coordinating with other teams and stakeholders to ensure a consistent and cohesive content plan, deciding which content management tools to use, establishing a content publishing schedule, and assigning tasks and deadlines to team members.
We’ll look at using a variety of sources and methods to generate content ideas such as using keyword research, customer feedback, industry events, etc., developing a workflow process, and how to follow best practices for creating high-quality and engaging content.
We’ll look at ways to identify the channels to distribute our content and create a content distribution plan. Develop a plan to promote our content using a variety of tactics to get the content in front of our target audience. For example, social media, email marketing, paid advertising, and so on, and using analytics and metrics to track the performance of our content, to measure the effectiveness of our content distribution efforts, and determine what is working and what needs improvement.
Here we tie in our goals, audience information, content types, and resources with workflow processes, tools & technologies, content performance and measurement, content documentation, security & storage.
In module 11, we look at troubleshooting and fixing issues with our content, our content strategy, and our content plan.
And in module 12 we’ll bring everything we’ve discussed in the course to a conclusion and discuss the next steps, plus we’ll look at some useful tips and resources.
So, as you can see this is a fairly comprehensive video course.
Now, here’s what I suggest you do to get the most out of this course.
First, go through the entire course and make sure to watch all of the modules and video lessons.
After watching the videos, refer to the online tutorials on ContentManagementCourse.com for more details.
I have spent over a year writing these lessons and tutorials and they are very comprehensive.
I also recommend subscribing to the free email course on the site for additional information related to this course, plus tips, links to useful resources, and updates.
So, that’s an overview of what this course is all about.
A content strategy is a plan for creating, publishing, and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to achieve specific business goals and objectives.
A content strategy helps you define who your target audience is and understand their needs and interests, create the right content to address their needs and speak to their interests, determine the most effective channels for distributing your content — so this could be your website, social media, email marketing, or even offline channels like events or print materials, and track and measure performance so you can continue to improve your results.
So, basically, a content strategy provides an organized and sustainable plan to help your business reach its goals using content.
Now, there are many benefits to having a clear content strategy.
Let’s go through some of these.
So one of the main benefits is consistency. Ensuring consistency in the quality, tone, and style of your content helps to build trust with your audience and establish your brand as a reliable source of information.
Another benefit is improved audience targeting. A content strategy helps to identify your target audience and create content that’s tailored specifically to their needs and interests.
Also, increased brand awareness: Publishing content of a consistently high quality helps to increase awareness of your brand and establish your business as a thought leader in your industry.
Another benefit is greater customer engagement. By providing valuable and relevant content, you can better engage and build relationships with your customers, which can lead to increased loyalty and greater customer retention.
Also, higher search engine rankings. Optimizing your website’s content for search engines leads to higher search rankings and increased organic traffic.
Another benefit is enhanced reputation management. By proactively managing your brand’s reputation, you ensure that all content will align with your brand values and messaging.
Also, increased sales and conversions. By providing valuable and relevant content, you can drive more traffic to your website and convert more visitors into customers.
A content strategy also helps to improve internal communication. Aligning the goals and messaging of different teams within your organization helps to improve internal communication and collaboration.
Also streamlined content creation. A content strategy helps to streamline the content creation process by defining the types of content that will be created, who will create it, and how it will be distributed.
And finally, reduced costs. A content strategy helps you avoid wasting time and resources creating ineffective or redundant content and lets you focus on creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.
So, those are some of the key benefits of developing an effective content strategy.
Without a content strategy, your business will just drift aimlessly like a rudderless ship in a vast ocean of digital information.
A content strategy provides the map and the compass that helps you navigate this sea of information and reach your destination.
So, my aim for this course is not just to give you a map and a compass, but a complete GPS content navigation system for your business.
In the next video training module, we’ll look at what you need to know and do before you can create an effective content strategy for your business.
So, thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Learn how to create an effective content strategy for your business with this free 12-part video course.
How To Create An Effective Content Strategy For Your Business – Free Video Course
Learn how to create an effective content strategy for your business with this free 12-part video course.
Welcome to our free video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
In this course, you will learn the key principles and best practices for creating a successful content strategy that drives results for your business.
Whether you are a small business owner, marketer, or content creator, this course will provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to create and execute a content strategy that is tailored to your business goals.
Content is a critical component of any successful marketing strategy, and an effective content strategy is essential for building brand awareness, engaging your audience, and driving business results.
In this course, you will learn how to develop a content strategy that aligns with your business goals, resonates with your target audience, and drives results.
From defining your target audience and identifying your business goals to creating a content calendar and measuring your success, this course will walk you through the entire process of creating an effective content strategy. You will also learn about the different types of content, how to create and promote content, and how to measure your success.
So, whether you are just starting out or looking to improve your existing content strategy, this course is for you. By the end of this course, you will have the skills and knowledge you need to create an effective content strategy that drives results for your business.
This free and comprehensive video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business consists of 12 video lessons with links to detailed step-by-step online tutorials for all topics covered in the lessons.
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Video Course Description
Part 1 provides an overview of the course modules, what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits of having a clear content strategy.
Part 2 covers what you need to know and do before you can create an effective content strategy for your business. Learn about the challenges of managing content effectively and what you need to put in place first.
Part 3 looks at ways and methods to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience, create user personas for your business, and understand the buyer’s journey and what types of content will be most relevant and valuable to your audience at each different stage of their journey.
Part 4 covers how to use your target audience information to set SMART goals for your content, plus defining your business goals, aligning your content strategy with your business goals, and determining what you want to achieve with your content (e.g. drive traffic, generate leads, build brand awareness, etc.)
Part 5 covers deciding which content types and formats will best help your business reach its goals.
Part 6 discusses effective ways and tools to do a content audit to identify the types of content your business is currently producing, assess the performance of your existing content, and identify gaps and opportunities in your current content offerings.
Part 7 covers creating a content plan – what a content plan is, why your business needs one, and how to create a content plan for your business.
Part 8 covers creating a content production plan specifying the strategy and the schedule your business will use to create and publish its content.
Part 9 covers creating a content promotion plan specifying the strategy and tactics your business will use to distribute and promote its content.
Part 10 covers creating a content management plan specifying the processes your business will use to manage and maintain its content.
Part 11 covers troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content, your content strategy, and your content plan.
Part 12 provides a recap of the course, discusses the next steps for implementing a content strategy for your business, and provides useful tips and resources.
Click the links in the gallery below the video to visit lesson pages with the video and a full transcript with screenshots…
This lesson provides a recap of the course, discusses the next steps for implementing a content strategy for your business, and provides useful tips and resources.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 12 and it’s the last lesson in our video series.
In our previous lessons, we covered all the steps we need to develop a strategy that will allow us to create, promote, and manage our content effectively.
We also looked at how to troubleshoot any problems and issues that can affect our content’s performance and results.
In this final lesson, I want to recap what we have covered in this course, talk about the next steps to take after creating a content strategy and provide links to additional information and useful resources.
If your business has done everything that we’ve talked about in this course and put all of the right foundations in place, developed a content strategy, created a sound content plan, and implemented plans to create, promote, and manage your content effectively, then you can expect your content to perform well and deliver your business great results.
And here is why your business can expect this.
Your business is thinking about content strategically. Strategic thinking lets you adapt and respond quickly to changes. You don’t change your destination, you just change the methods and tactics you are using to get there.
You can also expect great results if your business has set clear goals and objectives and you understand your audience’s needs, interests, and pain points, then create the right content, delivered at the right stage of their buyer journey, in the right type and format, and distribute it using the right channels, so that your content production and promotion are fully aligned with your business goals and your audience’s needs.
And you can also expect great results if your business uses documented systems to create, promote, manage, track, measure, and improve its content, and has a methodical approach to troubleshoot and fix issues.
This is what an effective content strategy aims to do. It lets you examine every area of your business that involves using content and make sure that everyone involved is aligned with the right goals and objectives and is working toward achieving these.
Now, I admit that this is not easy to do, especially if your business is already going full steam ahead and hasn’t put in place the systems and processes that we’ve discussed in this course…
…but this is the map that will get your business there and deliver you success using content.
So, now that you know what the purpose of having a content strategy is and how to create one, where do you go from here?
Well, if you plan to start a business or a website and haven’t started yet, then the first thing you need to do is put all the right business foundations in place, develop a content strategy, and create and implement plans to produce, promote, and manage your content effectively, as shown in this course.
And if your business is already going full steam ahead and it hasn’t put in place the systems and processes that we’ve discussed in this course, then that’s what you need to do next.
However poorly you do it, any attempt to develop and implement a content strategy with plans, systems, and documented processes is better than none at all.
The worst thing that can happen if you attempt to develop a content strategy for a business that hasn’t got one is that it will show you why your business actually needs one.
So, once you have this awareness, you can begin to do something about it.
So, regardless of whether you are planning to start a business or trying to manage content for an existing business, here are the practical steps that I recommend taking next…
First, I suggest that you review all of the video course lessons and any accompanying notes that are included with this course.
Next, go through all of the detailed tutorials that expand on these lessons. They are all available for free on ContentManagementCourse.com.
If you haven’t already, I also suggest that you register for the content management course email lessons on the site. It’s also 100% free and it will take you step-by-step through everything you need to know to manage content for your business or website effectively.
I have created another comprehensive email course on how to generate new content ideas for your website, blog, or newsletter. It’s also completely free to subscribe and will help you create an endless content pipeline for your business.
If your business uses WordPress as its content management system, I have created detailed step-by-step tutorials on how to use WordPress that you can access for free at WPTrainingManual.com
And I also run a site that provides thousands of video lessons that will help you develop digital business skills and master using WordPress. This site is not free but there’s a very low subscription price, so it’s extremely affordable.
So, I hope that you have found this video course instructive, useful, and practical.
I’m Martin Aranovitch, thank you for watching, and make sure to review the accompanying notes for ways to stay connected and updated.
Also, make sure to visit ContentManagementCourse.com for additional information and comprehensive tutorials that expand on everything we’ve covered in his course.
This lesson covers troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content, your content strategy, and your content plan.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 11.
In the previous lessons, we looked at creating a content strategy and implementing plans for creating, promoting, and managing your content.
Now, what we want to do is look at what we can do if our content strategy isn’t working as expected, and how we can troubleshoot and find ways to fix any issues related to our content.
So, in this lesson, I’m going to introduce you to a systematic approach for troubleshooting content-related issues.
We’ll look at the general principles of this approach, and then look at how to troubleshoot issues with your content strategy and your content plan.
Everything covered in this lesson is documented in detail in a Content Troubleshooting Guide that you can refer to by visiting the link on your screen.
So here is the simple model we’ll use.
Basically, it’s a drill-down approach. So, when you run into a problem with your content, we start at the top to see if we can address, correct and eliminate the problem at that level, and if we can’t fix it at that level, we then drill down to the next level below it and start diagnosing the issue at that level, and so on.
Now, before we get into this, let me show you what I believe is the most important slide of this entire course.
Ok, this chart looks very simple, but if you really get it and understand what it means, you will realize that it is the key to fixing not only problems related to your content but also most of the problems in your business too!
And I’m not exaggerating here about the importance of understanding this chart. I showed this same chart to someone who was struggling to grow their business many years ago and it completely transformed their business.
Every business has three levels of decision-making and you can’t get away from this. So, even if you are just a one-person business, your business still has these three levels. You’ll just have to wear three different hats when making business decisions.
So let’s go through these.
The executive level is where strategic decisions get made, like defining your business vision and setting targets, goals and objectives.
The managerial level is where decisions get made that affect how your business will achieve the strategic goals and targets set by the executive level.
Now many people think that the managerial level is about managing people, but that’s the wrong approach.
Managerial-level decisions should be about implementing and managing the systems that the business will use to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.
So it’s about managing systems, not people.
And the tactical or technical level is where people do the actual work that will help the business realize its vision and achieve its goals and objectives.
At this level, people should be trained to follow the systems put in place by the management level, to hit the targets and goals set by the strategic level.
So, ideally, the way this works is that the executive level sets a strategic target, like for example “to increase annual sales by 20%”.
The managerial level then figures out which systems the business needs to put in place to achieve that 20% increase in sales.
The managerial level then also implements those systems and makes sure that the people hired to fill the tactical or technical roles have the skills and the training to operate those systems because when they do that, it will help to achieve the vision and goals set at the executive level.
Now, let me show you why understanding this is so important to fixing problems in your business like content-related issues.
So, let’s say that you have a small business and you want to grow your business with content marketing.
So you put together a content team with an editor, a couple of content writers, an illustrator with video-making skills, and a marketer who can do email marketing and social media marketing.
So everything is going well. Your team is publishing regular articles and blog posts, posting social media updates, uploading videos online, sending out newsletters, and so on.
A few months down the track, your manager informs you that the content is not really performing too well in terms of generating new leads, increasing engagement, and improving conversions.
And your content team also tells you that they’ve run out of content ideas and that the content pipeline has run dry.
So now we have a couple of serious problems on our hands.
We’re running out of new content ideas and our existing content isn’t delivering us the results that we need.
This is all costing us time and money so we need to find a solution.
At this point, many businesses kind of get stuck and start looking at short-term solutions.
So you can start running regular brainstorming sessions with your team each week to try and keep your content pipeline going, but if your content is not delivering the results you need, then just creating content for content’s sake isn’t going to fix anything.
It’s also kind of hard to know what to do to improve things like increase traffic from organic search or get more engagement on social media or convert traffic into sales if all you have is lots of data from analytics reports, but no systems or processes in place for turning this data into specific actions.
So what do you do to fix these problems?
Let’s go back to our chart with the three levels of decision-making and let’s map it on top of this scenario, and let’s see if it can help us troubleshoot and fix these problems.
First, if you really understand what this chart is about, you will see straight away why asking your writers to brainstorm new content ideas to create a content pipeline is not going to fix your issues and improve your results.
Why? Because you’re asking people at the tactical level to fix issues that should have been addressed at the strategic and managerial levels.
So you can come up with new content ideas all day long but if the content isn’t helping your business grow, then you’re just wasting valuable time, money, and resources.
But you can’t brainstorm new content ideas unless you first have a clear idea of what you are aiming to achieve, of who your target audience is, what kind of content you should be focusing on, and so on.
All of these questions need to be answered by the managerial level in the form of a content plan spelling out in nitty-gritty detail what kind of content needs to be written, how it should be delivered, and so on.
But the managerial level can’t create an effective content plan if the executive level hasn’t defined a content strategy with realistic and achievable goals and objectives, allocated sufficient budget for resources, tools, and training, and so on.
So the point here is, if your content pipeline runs dry, it’s not the responsibility of people at the tactical level to fix the issue. The responsibility is at the managerial level.
A business owner has the big picture of their business but everyone below that level doesn’t.
So, your editor and your content writers, they don’t have the big picture, which means that putting them in charge of your content strategy is only going to create more problems.
And if your content isn’t performing well, the problem may not even be at the managerial level. It could be at the strategic level, which is the responsibility of the business owners to fix.
This is where many businesses say “well… I’m too busy trying to run other parts of the business to fix content issues and come up with new content ideas – that’s why we hired all these content experts!”
Well, how can you blame the body for following a head that doesn’t know where it’s going?
So this is what this chart is telling you. That the executive level has to know where it’s going and the managerial level has to put the systems in place to help the business get there before your business can start putting people into tactical or technical roles and giving them responsibilities for getting the work done.
Without putting those foundations in place, your business will just keep running into problems.
This is why outsourcing areas of your business like content production, content promotion, or even content management to a digital agency or freelance writers without first putting systems in place to manage the outsourcing process can often lead to poor results.
The chart tells you that an external digital agency is not part of the executive level of the business and so they shouldn’t make executive-level decisions, and that freelance writers won’t build managerial-level systems that will help the business realize its vision, so a lot of the time, what businesses think is outsourcing is really just abdicating their responsibility for making executive and managerial-level decisions.
Once you know which level is responsible for doing what in the business, you can start troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content.
Until this happens, any short-term fixes are really just a game of “passing the buck” where nothing is really going to get fixed in the long run.
So, now that we understand this, let’s apply our content troubleshooting approach and see how we would solve the issues of getting our content pipeline running again and improve our content’s performance.
So we’ll use our simple content troubleshooting model and map our chart of decision-making levels on top of it.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a top-down approach, so we’ll start at the top by making sure that our basic business principles are in place.
This means looking at things like:
Has the business clearly defined its vision, mission, and core values?
Has the business set clear, realistic, and achievable goals and objectives?
Does it have a business plan, marketing strategy, and marketing plan that flow logically from its vision, mission, and core values?
Is there an allocated budget for resources and is it realistic?
Are the business and marketing plans aligned with the goals and objectives of the business?
And more importantly, is all of this documented and accessible to everyone in the business?
If all of the above are not in place, then the business is going to experience problems at the levels of implementation.
Let’s assume, then, that everything checks out at the foundational level, so the next level to look at is your content strategy.
As you can see from this chart, creating a content strategy is an executive-level responsibility.
The managerial and tactical levels can be involved and contribute to the content strategy, but the responsibility for setting the overall strategy for the long-term vision and direction of the content ultimately lies with the executive level.
So let’s look at some of the key areas to assess and review when troubleshooting our content strategy.
I’ve listed here a number of areas that can lead to content issues when certain things aren’t addressed at the content strategy level.
You will notice that many of these areas will also show up at the managerial level, i.e. the content plan, but for different reasons.
For example, if poor search engine optimization is identified as an issue that’s affecting your content performance, the strategic level is responsible for outlining in its content strategy that all content must follow SEO best practices.
The managerial level then has to figure out what these SEO best practices are and put together the SEO systems, guides, and guidelines that the content team should follow to make sure that SEO best practices are being implemented.
Another example is the allocation of resources.
Your content strategy might allocate a budget for content marketing based on their total budget for all business areas, but when the managerial level tries to implement their plans, they might find that their allocated budget is insufficient to cover all of the costs needed to meet the content strategy’s specifications, like hiring or training new content team members, investing in tools and technologies, and covering production costs like creating high-quality videos, and so on.
In this case, either the executive level needs to find and allocated additional funds or re-evaluate their specifications.
So as before, let’s assume that our content strategy has all of these areas covered, but that our content team still has no content pipeline and that our content isn’t performing as well as expected.
So, we have to go down one more level and see if we can try to locate the issues at the level of the content plan.
Here are some of the key areas to look at when troubleshooting your content plan.
What you will find with most of the areas listed here, is that the real time-consuming work of building systems, processes, and procedures to make the content strategy work is the managerial level’s responsibility. The executive and tactical levels can be involved in helping to document the content plan, but it’s not the responsibility of the content team to create it.
So, with areas like no content measuring or evaluating, a content strategy will tell us which metrics are important to track, but setting up the systems, processes, and tools to measure and report on those metrics is a managerial-level responsibility.
A content manager might choose to create and run those systems themselves, or assign it to someone else in the team, or even to outsource the task to experts, but it is their responsibility to create a content plan first that addresses all of these areas.
So the point here is that these are all managerial-level decisions and responsibilities. And if any of these areas is deficient, then your content team will struggle to have an ongoing pipeline and your business will struggle to improve its content performance.
Your business will keep running into problems if managers are trying to manage people instead of putting systems and processes in place for tactical and technical-level roles to follow.
So if the strategic level has clearly outlined the metrics that are important to track in its content strategy and the managerial level has implemented an effective content tracking system as per their content plan, and the same thing has been done for all of the other important areas like understanding the target market, defining content types, setting guidelines for your content, branding, SEO, etc. then you should be able to identify and pinpoint exactly what’s causing the issue with a content pipeline or with your content performance.
You would have all the systems in place for creating, promoting, and managing your content effectively and your content team would know what content topics and themes they should be focusing on.
This is where and when they can help brainstorm new content ideas to keep the content pipeline running.
If everything at the content plan level is fine and there are still issues, then the next step is to drill further down into your content plan and look at the specific components like your content production plan, your content promotion plan, and your content management plan.
Once again, creating these is the responsibility of the managerial level.
So, for example, if having no content pipeline is still an issue, you would look at your content production plan and see if there are any issues or problems like poorly-defined production workflow processes, or a lack of documented procedures, or are people just not following the documented processes and guidelines, or is there no content calendar, or are there unclear roles and responsibilities, or lack of skills or training in using the right tools, and so on.
Now, if your content performance hasn’t improved after reviewing your content plan, then you would look at your content promotion plan and see if there are any issues or problems like whether your team is following the marketing plan, if they have access to analytics data and reports and can understand the metrics, if they are using the right distribution channels and the right tools to track content performance, improve SEO, and so on.
Similarly, if after drilling all the way down there are still issues, then you would go through your content management plan and review whether any areas here are causing issues.
For example, issues at this level may be related to poor organization, poor time management, work overload, blurry roles and responsibilities, or a lack of documentation, or even issues with content tracking and content protection, poor content linking practices, failures to backup content, a lack of knowledge of using management tools, and so on.
So, in summary,
Understanding the three levels of decision-making in a business is very important, as it helps to work out who is responsible for doing what in your business.
Use a top-down approach to diagnose and troubleshoot issues with your content. This is an effective approach because as you address and eliminate issues at the higher levels, your business will experience fewer problems and get better results as time goes on.
Also, keep in mind that most content-related issues are caused by the lack of a well-defined content strategy, so the more you focus on getting your content strategy clear from the outset, the fewer problems you will experience later in other areas of your business.
And finally, keep in mind that your content strategy is really an outline of the work that needs to be done but most of the time-consuming work of implementing the strategy is done at the managerial level, such as documenting system, processes, and guidelines, making sure that the content team is trained to follow systems, guidelines, and procedures, and troubleshooting and fixing issues with your content systems.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, you can refer to the comprehensive Content Troubleshooting Guide and tutorials on ContentManagementCourse.com if you need help with any of these areas.
So, that’s all for this video.
In the next and final lesson, we’ll wrap up this course with a recap and useful tips and suggestions for taking the next steps.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers creating a content management plan specifying the processes your business will use to manage and maintain its content.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 10.
In the previous lesson, we looked at creating a content promotion plan for your business.
In this lesson, we’ll look at creating and implementing a content management plan.
This is the part of the content plan that determines how we’ll manage and maintain all of the content that we create, publish, and promote.
In this lesson, we’ll cover what a content management plan is, why your business needs it, and how to create one for your business.
So, what is a content management plan?
A content management plan is a document that outlines the processes your business will use to manage and maintain all of its content.
It includes your content management goals and objectives, information about your target audience, the types of content and distribution channels that you will manage, and the KPIs that will be used to measure the success of your content management practices.
Now, why does your business need a content management plan?
It needs a content management plan because it helps your business to…
Manage all the content it produces, from initial idea to final publication.
Also, to make roles and responsibilities of team members and stakeholders clear.
Establish a consistent workflow to ensure content is accurate, on-brand, and on time.
It helps you track your content performance over time, ensuring that content goals are being met and that your target audience is being reached.
It also helps to ensure that your content is organized, easily searchable, and retrievable, saving your business time and resources and providing a consistent customer experience.
Also, it helps to avoid duplication of effort and ensures compliance with legal or regulatory requirements.
And it also helps your business to stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
So, 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 the people who need it.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what a content management plan is and why your business needs it, let’s look at how to create one.
I’ve outlined here the main steps and suggestions for creating a content management plan.
Like in our previous lessons, I’m only going to touch briefly on these points, because we’ve already covered many of the steps listed here in our Content Plan lesson in module 7.
If you need help with these steps, visit the link on the screen for a detailed tutorial.
So, how do we create a content management plan?
First, we need to define our content management goals. For example, it may be improving your website traffic or increasing customer engagement.
Next, we make an inventory of all of our existing content, including formats, topics, and target audience, and we covered this in Module 6.
To manage your content effectively, you’ll need to develop a content strategy and this is the central focus of our video course. Creating a content strategy includes outlining your content goals, defining your target audience, your content topics, content types and formats, and a whole lot more.
Next, establish a content workflow and document the processes your business will use to create, review, edit, and publish content.
Set up a content calendar with your content publishing schedule.
Document the roles and responsibilities involved in creating, editing, publishing, and promoting your content.
Use a content management system to organize, store, and distribute your content.
Document your SEO Guidelines. Include best SEO practices, links to SEO courses, resources, tutorials, etc.
Use analytics tools to track and analyze your content performance and gather insights for future content.
Review and update to make sure your content stays fresh and relevant.
Collaborate and communicate with your team members and stakeholders to ensure that your content stays aligned with your overall goals and objectives.
Document all of your processes to ensure that anyone can manage your content to the highest quality standards set by your business.
Make regular content backups to keep your content safe and protected and to ensure business continuity, and
Continuously monitor and improve your content management processes.
In terms of choosing a content management system for your business, I recommend that you consider using a platform like WordPress.
WordPress is the most popular content management system platform in the world,
Over one-third of all websites in fact run on WordPress.
WordPress is a free, open-source CMS, which means it’s infinitely expandable with add-ons, which WordPress calls plugins.
WordPress is also actively supported by a community of thousands of web developers, so it’s always being updated with new features and bug fixes, which means that it’s secure.
And you can build any kind of website you can imagine with WordPress. From company websites and blogs to full-featured e-commerce stores, private membership sites, business directories, and so much more!
Plus, WordPress is easy-to-use and requires no coding skills.
You can learn more about using content management systems by following the link on the screen.
More importantly, if your website runs on WordPress, I have created comprehensive and detailed step-by-step tutorials on how to use WordPress.
You can access these tutorials for free at WPTrainingManual.com. Just visit the link on the slide for more details.
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Also, in terms of content organization, you’ll want to implement systems that will improve your efficiency and user experience, that will save you time and money, and that will help your business maximize its resources.
So, see the link on your screen for a detailed tutorial on ways to organize your content.
And regarding documenting, backing up, and protecting your content, I have also written comprehensive tutorials covering each of these areas, so if you need help with any of these areas visit the links on the screen.
So, in summary,
A content management plan specifies the processes for managing and maintaining your content.
It also includes your goals and objectives for managing your content, information about your target audience, the content types and the distribution channels that you will manage, and the KPIs you will use to measure your content.
Follow the steps discussed in this lesson to create and implement a content management plan for your business and if you need help or want to see an example of a content management plan, check out the tutorials listed on the screen.
So, that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to troubleshoot and fix issues with your content strategy.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers creating a content promotion plan specifying the strategy and tactics your business will use to distribute and promote its content.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
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Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 9.
In the previous lesson, we looked at creating a content production plan for your business.
In this lesson, we’ll look at creating and implementing a content promotion plan.
This is the part of the content plan that determines how we’ll promote and get our content in front of our target audiences.
So in this lesson, we’ll cover what a content promotion plan is, why your business needs it, and how to create one for your business.
So, what is a content promotion plan?
A content promotion plan is a document that outlines the strategy and tactics your business will use to distribute and promote its content.
It includes your content promotion goals and objectives, information about your target audience, the types of content you will produce, the distribution channels that you will use to get your content out there, and the KPIs or key performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of your content promotion activities.
Now, why does your business need a content promotion plan?
Your business needs a content promotion plan because it helps your business to:
Reach and engage your target audience more effectively.
Helps to maximize the impact of the content you produce.
It helps to allocate resources and budgets more efficiently toward content promotion.
It helps to track your content’s performance over time.
It helps to identify & leverage the most effective distribution channels to reach your target audience.
And it helps you to stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
So in short, your content promotion plan tells you how to get the word out about your content, increase its visibility and drive engagement and conversions.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what a content promotion plan is and why your business needs it, let’s look at how to create one.
I’ve outlined here the main steps and suggestions for creating a content promotion plan.
Like in our previous lessons, I’m only going to touch briefly on these points, because many of these steps have already been covered in our Content Plan lesson in module 7.
If you need help with these steps, visit the link on the screen for a detailed tutorial.
So, to create a content production plan we’ll need to…
Define our goals for promoting our content, for example, increase website traffic, generate leads, etc.
Identify our target audience: Where are they are most likely to be found?
Create a plan for distributing our content through various channels, for example, social media, email, videos, paid advertising, etc.
Use a promotion calendar or scheduling tool to plan out when and how to promote each published piece of content.
Optimize content for search engines
Share the content on social media platforms and encourage followers to share it.
And you may also want to reach out to influencers in your industry and ask them to share your content with their audience.
Also, you can leverage email and video marketing, so include the content in your email newsletter and send it to your email subscribers.
And upload and share your videos on video-sharing platforms
And also you can consider using paid promotions like Google Ads or Facebook ads, to reach a larger audience.
Additionally, set metrics and use analytics tools to track and analyze your promotions and gather insights for future campaigns.
Repurpose and refresh your content with new information and insights to reach new audiences and keep your existing audiences engaged.
And continuously monitor and improve your promotion strategy based on your results and feedback.
So, in summary…
Your content promotion plan specifies the strategy and schedule for promoting and distributing your content, and it includes your goals and objectives for promoting your content, information about your target audience, the content types that you will create, your distribution channels, and the key performance indicators you will use to measure the success of your content promotion efforts.
Follow the steps presented in this lesson to create and implement a content promotion plan for your business and if you need help or want to see an example of a content promotion plan, check out the tutorials listed on the screen.
So that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to create a content management plan for your business.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers creating a content production plan specifying the strategy and the schedule your business will use to create and publish its content.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 8.
In the previous lesson, we looked at creating a content plan so we can start implementing our content strategy.
In this lesson, we’ll look at creating and implementing a content production plan.
This is the part of the content plan that determines how we’ll create and produce all the content in our business.
So in this lesson, we’ll cover what a content production plan is, why your business needs it, and how to create one for your business.
So, what is a content production plan?
A content production plan is a document that outlines the strategy and schedule your business will use to create and publish its content.
It includes your content production goals and objectives, information about your target audience, the types of content you will produce, the distribution channels that you will use, and the KPIs or key performance indicators that will be used to measure the success of your content production efforts.
Ok. Now that we know what a content production plan is, why does your business need one?
Your business needs one because it helps your business to:
Align its content efforts with its overall marketing and business goals.
It also ensures the creation of relevant, valuable, and engaging content for your target audience.
It helps you allocate resources and budget more efficiently towards content creation.
Helps you track content performance over time.
Helps you to identify and fill gaps in your content offerings.
And it helps you stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
So 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 content.
So now that we have a basic understanding of what a content production plan is and why your business needs it, let’s look at how to create one.
I’ve outlined here the main steps to creating a content production plan.
I’m only going to touch briefly on these points here, because many of these steps have already been covered in the Content Plan lesson in module 7.
If you need help, I’ve also written a detailed tutorial covering these steps, just visit the link on the screen.
So to create a content production plan, we need to…
Review our content plan and make sure that we have a clear understanding of our audience, goals, topics, and distribution channels.
We also have to assign roles and responsibilities, which means deciding who will be responsible for each aspect of the content creation process, like who will do the research, writing, editing, design, etc.
We also need a calendar or a scheduling tool to plan out when each piece of content will be created, reviewed, and published.
Another important step is to 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. We’ll cover this in the next slide.
Also, outline the process for creating each type of content. Identify the tools, resources, and steps required to create different types of content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.
And, finally, review and optimize. Review the content production plan regularly and make adjustments when needed. Use the metrics defined in your content plan to measure the success of your content and to make changes that will help to improve your results over time.
In terms of defining our workflow, we want to outline the processes for creating, reviewing, editing, and publishing content for each different type of content that we will create.
Obviously creating an article for a blog requires a different process than creating a video, so when we outline the workflow for each content type, we need to define things like:
The steps involved
Who is responsible for doing each step and 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, and so on.
For more information about outlining and documenting workflow processes visit the links on the screen.
Another thing to keep in mind when creating your content production plan is to include different methods like content repurposing.
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, or republishing an article on a different website or creating an infographic from a research report, and many other forms, such as the examples listed here.
Repurposing content helps you get the most out of the content you have already created, maximizing your resources, and helping you reach new audiences.
The link on this screen has more information about repurposing content.
Coming up with ideas for your content can be a challenging part of the content creation process. But with the right sources, resources, and methods, you can generate a steady stream of ideas to keep your content fresh and engaging.
I recommend visiting ContentManagementCourse.com and signing up for my free and comprehensive email course on how to keep coming up with endless new content ideas for your website articles, blog posts, and newsletters.
So, in summary…
A content production plan specifies the strategy and schedule for creating and publishing your content, and it typically includes the goals and objectives for your content, information about your target audience, the content types that you will create, your distribution channels, and the KPIs that will be used to measure the success of your content production efforts.
Follow the steps discussed in this lesson to create and implement a content production plan for your business and if you need help or want to see an example of a content production plan, check out the tutorials listed on the screen.
Also, make sure to sign up for the free content ideas creation email course so you’ll never run out of content ideas.
So, that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at creating a content promotion plan for your business.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers creating a content plan – what a content plan is, why your business needs one, and how to create a content plan for your business.
***
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 7.
In the previous lesson, we looked at doing a content audit, which is taking an inventory of all of our existing content.
In this lesson, we’ll look at how to create a content plan so we can start implementing our content strategy in our business.
So, this is where we take all of the information we’ve been compiling about our audience, setting content goals, choosing content types, and doing a content audit, and we put it all together into a cohesive and actionable plan.
In this lesson, we are going to cover what a content plan is, why your business needs one, and how to create a content plan that will deliver your business results.
So, what is a content plan?
A content plan is a document that specifies what content your business will create to target your audience at all stages of their buyer journey, and how this content will be created, distributed, and managed.
A content plan also outlines…
who is responsible for creating the content,
what the purpose of the content is, and
how the content impacts your content strategy
The difference between a content plan and a content strategy, is that a content strategy is the overarching plan for creating, publishing, and managing content that aligns with the goals and objectives of your organization.
A content strategy 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.
A content plan 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 your content. It also includes tasks and responsibilities for creating, editing, and publishing your content.
So, in short, a content strategy tells us the why and what, and a content plan tells us the how and when.
Now, why does your business need a content plan?
Your business needs a content plan to ensure that the right systems and workflow processes are put in place to create the right content, for the right audience, at the right time, using the right distribution channels, to help your business achieve its strategic goals.
So essentially, the goal of the content plan is to deliver the goals of the content strategy.
Now that we have a basic understanding of what a content plan is and why our business needs one, let’s look at how to create a content plan.
Here I’ve outlined 12 steps to creating a content plan and I’m just going to touch on these briefly in this lesson because I’ve written a comprehensive tutorial that covers all of these steps in detail and you can go through each of these at your own pace by visiting the link on the screen.
So in Step 1, we ask the question “what do we want our content to achieve?” Are we looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? We covered this step in module 4 of this course.
We also covered Step 3 which content types to focus on in module 5, so if you need help in those areas, just go back and review those modules.
So let’s take a brief look, then, at Steps 2, 4, and 5, which is setting the frequency, topics, and distribution of our content.
And these are the questions that we need to ask
How often should we be publishing new content?” This will tell us the frequency.
What content should we be writing or talking about?” This will tell us the topics to write about, and
How should we be getting our content out into the world?” This will tell us the distribution methods.
So let’s look at frequency first.
It’s important to find a sustainable balance between producing enough content to keep your audience engaged, but not so much that it becomes overwhelming or low quality.
It also depends on the type of business you’re in. For example, if you run a news website, you’ll probably 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.
So, it’s important to consider our audience, our resources, and our goals when determining the frequency of our content. In general, it’s a good idea to find a frequency that we can sustain 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.
Next up, are the topics you should 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.
Finally, there’s distribution. There are many options to choose from when it comes to getting your content out, including social media, email newsletters, press releases, guest blogging on other websites, and so on.
So 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. And if you’re targeting a more professional audience, you may want to target channels like LinkedIn.
Another important area of distribution is understanding that there are different types of distribution channels, like owned media, paid media, and earned media.
Owned media is content that you create, own, and have full and complete control over. Like blog posts and articles that you write and publish on your website.
Paid media is where you pay to promote your content. Like taking ads on Google and social media.
And then there’s earned media, which is content that someone else creates, and you don’t pay for it but it benefits your business. Like when someone posts a great review about your business.
You can read more about these distribution channels by visiting the link on the screen.
Our content plan needs to align with our content strategy, so if our content strategy includes paid media, this brings up the next step, which is how to allocate our resources.
So the two main areas we need to focus on here are financial and personnel resources.
Financial resources mostly come down to the budget allocated to create and distribute content and to invest in the right tools.
So, if our content strategy specifies using paid media to distribute our content and there’s no budget for paid media, we’re going to have a problem.
We either have to try and find the budget, or rework our content strategy and content plan to focus more on owned media like blog posts and articles.
Which brings up the issue of personnel resources.
So, what kind of content team can your business afford to put together?
Creating and promoting content involves many different skills and responsibilities.
Whatever talent you have available to create and promote content is going to have a tremendous impact on your content plan.
For example, I run a number of websites on my own and I also work with a team in my full-time job, and both of these have pros and cons.
Working with a content team, for example, requires having really effective communication.
So, to implement a content plan effectively with a team means that we need to establish a central point of contact. This can be a content manager or a designated member of the team.
We also need to set up regular meetings or check-ins with all relevant teams and stakeholders and establish clear guidelines and processes for creating and approving content.
We’ll cover some parts of this step in this lesson, like setting up a content calendar. But in the next lesson, we’ll talk about editorial guidelines and workflow processes for reviewing and approving content.
It’s also very important to choose the right tools to ensure that everyone has access to the latest version of the content plan.
So, this would be like a document management system and also setting up team communication channels so everyone can communicate effectively, especially if your team comprises of people working remotely.
This can be done using tools like Slack and email, plus tools for live meetings, conference calls, and online presentations, like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Skype, etc.
And we also need to choose our content management tools. These include Project Management Software like for example, Monday.com, or Asana, Jira, or Trello, and a Content Management System like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla.
Once again, the tools you choose will depend on your budget, your needs, and how you’ve designed your workflow processes.
If you need more information about these tools, visit the links on the screen.
After choosing the tools your team will use to collaborate, communicate, and manage your content, the next step is to set up a content publishing schedule to organize and schedule your content creation and promotion activities.
Typically, this will be a tool that lets you set up and manage a content calendar or an editorial calendar.
Now, these terms are often used interchangeably, but an editorial calendar generally outlines each step of the process, while a content calendar usually covers one aspect, such as when posts are published or shared to social media.
If you’re just starting out, you can use a spreadsheet to track your content publishing schedule, but if keeping track of things starts to become too hard, you might want to use a calendar tool.
Some project management tools and content management systems also include scheduling features, so whichever method you choose, just make sure that everyone in your team can access the tool and that they know how to use it.
For a detailed tutorial on how to set up a content scheduling calendar, visit the link shown on the screen.
Now, we’re almost done setting up our content plan.
We just need to work out how to assign tasks and set deadlines for everyone who is involved in creating and promoting our content.
And here are some things to keep in mind.
First, we want to provide clear and detailed descriptions of the task and ensure that everyone on the team understands the expected outcomes.
So include any necessary resources or instructions.
Also, we want to take each team member’s skills and workload into consideration and make sure that we assign the task to the right person.
It’s also important to set realistic deadlines by learning to estimate accurately how long tasks will take to complete and how complex they are.
We also want to clearly communicate tasks and deadlines to assigned team members.
To do this, we can use team meetings, email, or a project management tool to follow up with team members and make sure they understand the task and have what they need to complete it.
And we also want to check in with our team members periodically to keep track of their progress, offer assistance and support, provide additional resources, and answer any questions they may have.
Finally, it’s important to create guidelines for assigning tasks to members that include all the points we’ve just discussed and add these guidelines to your workflow documentation.
The next step in creating your content plan is to include ways to measure content performance and content ROI, so you can see which parts of the plan are working and which areas will need improvement.
With content performance, we want to set up metrics to measure and analyze our content’s performance in areas like engagement, traffic, lead generation, conversions, bounce rates, and so.
We also want to set up ways to track revenue generated from our content and compare this to the costs of creating and promoting our content to work out our return on investment.
The links on the slide will take you to tutorials on how to set up content metrics, content tracking and a content measurement plan, and lists of tools you can use to measure your content performance.
Now the last step in creating our content plan is to schedule a periodic review of the plan itself 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 the goals are not being met.
So, in summary, a content plan tells us how and when to execute our content strategy.
Follow the steps we’ve covered in this lesson to create and implement a content plan for your business, and if you need help in any of these areas refer to the tutorials listed on the screen.
So, that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to break our content plan into a content production plan, a content promotion plan, and a content management plan, so we can create, promote and manage our content more effectively.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson discusses effective ways and tools to do a content audit to identify the types of content your business is currently producing, assess the performance of your existing content, and identify gaps and opportunities in your current content offerings.
***
Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is Module 6.
In the previous lesson, we looked at the types of content we’ll need to produce to meet our audience’s needs and the goals we have set.
In this lesson, we’ll look at doing a content audit, which is taking an inventory of our existing content to see how it’s performing and to identify any gaps or opportunities that we may be missing.
Up to this point, the focus has been to get our thinking organized so we know who we are going to be creating content for, what types of content we’ll be creating, and what we want to achieve with our content.
Now, it’s time to take stock of where we are currently at, so we can plan where to go from here.
So.. how do we go about identifying the types of content that our business is currently producing?
The best way is by doing a content audit.
So in this lesson, we are going to look at what a content audit is and why your business needs one.
And we’ll also look at how to perform a content audit and tools that will help make this easier and faster.
So, what is a content audit?
A content audit is the process of systematically analyzing and evaluating our existing content’s performance and effectiveness.
It involves identifying and cataloging all of our content, evaluating its quality and relevance, and determining which content should be kept, updated, consolidated, or removed.
The goal of a content audit is to ensure that our content is aligned with our business goals and objectives and is providing value to our target audience.
So, why does your business need to perform a content audit? What are the benefits?
Well, there are a number of reasons for performing a content audit.
The first reason is to make sure that the content is aligned with your business goals.
By evaluating the relevance and effectiveness of your existing content, we can then identify areas that need to improve to better support the goals of the business.
Another reason is to improve user experience.
A content audit can help to identify content that is confusing, outdated, or irrelevant to users, which can negatively impact their experience.
By removing or updating this content, we can improve the overall experience of our visitors.
Another benefit is that it helps to identify gaps in our content and inform our future content strategy and planning activities.
A content audit also helps to improve SEO: By identifying and removing duplicate or low-quality content, we can improve our content’s search engine rankings and visibility.
And a content audit also provides insights to help evaluate our content performance in terms of engagement and conversions, and identify which content is resonating with our audience and which content isn’t.
So those are some of the reasons for performing a content audit.
Now, how do we actually perform one?
Well, the first step is to set some goals.
So, here are some general goals we’ll want to set.
First, we’ll want to start by identifying the purpose and the main objectives of the audit.
This could be to improve the user experience, increase conversions, or to align our content with the overall goals of our business.
Once we have identified the main objectives of our content audit, the next step is to define the specific goals and steps that will help us achieve those objectives.
For example, if our goal is to improve user experience, a specific goal could be to reduce the bounce rate on our website.
We’ll also want to set measurable targets to track our progress and evaluate the success of our audit.
For example, if our goal is to reduce the bounce rate on our website, then we’ll want to set a target percentage to achieve.
It’s also important to establish a timeline and set a deadline for achieving our goals.
It’s easy to get lost in all the little details and become overwhelmed once we start, so defining a time frame will help us to stay focused and motivated throughout the audit process.
We’ll also want to review and revise our results once the content audit is completed and evaluate whether the goals were met.
If they weren’t, we’ll need to revise our goals and identify any areas that need improvement.
Once we have set goals for our content audit, the next step is to perform an inventory of our existing content.
The aim of the content inventory is to basically take stock of all of our existing content … so, that means making a list of all of our blog posts and articles, videos, podcasts, social media posts, email newsletters, infographics, and any other types of content that we are currently outputting.
There are a number of tools that can help make this process easier and faster, and I’ve listed these in the URL shown on the screen.
After gathering and making an inventory of all our content, the next step is to organize and categorize it.
You can use a spreadsheet to document everything. You can create this spreadsheet from scratch or use a template.
There are content audit templates that you can download and I’ve added links to useful content audit templates in the slide.
In our spreadsheet, we simply create a column for every new category of data that we want to analyze, add each new content item from our inventory into a new row, and then just go across and fill in the information.
The table on the slide lists some of the items that you may want to include in your spreadsheet to categorize content-related, SEO, and performance elements.
And how you choose to organize and categorize your content and how much detail you want to record about each item is completely up to you.
At a minimum, you’ll want to list your content URLs, and add various useful categories, some metadata, and important metrics to track.
It’s also a good idea to categorize the content into different types. For example, written content, video content, social media posts, etc.
Also, if you review your content calendar – which we’ll talk about in another lesson, it will help you identify the types of content that your business is currently producing and planning to create in the near future.
After categorizing our content, we can then start to analyze our data.
Analyzing our content gives us a better understanding of the types of content our business is currently producing.
So we can begin by asking questions like:
Which topics or themes are we mostly focused on writing about?
Which content types are we mostly focused on creating?
How often are we producing this type of content?
What is the purpose of the content (is it to educate, entertain, generate leads, etc.)?
Who is its intended audience?
Which stage of the buyer journey is this content aimed at?
Which types of content perform the best?
Which types of content are most popular with our audience?
Are there any obvious gaps in the content that stand out, which we should be addressing and taking advantage of?
Do this for your web content, your social media channels, your email marketing, etc.
As you analyze your content, you can also record notes about each item to help your team decide what to do with it later on.
For example, you can mark items as having
Missing content. So, are there any topics that the content hasn’t covered which would be of interest to the audience?
Underperforming content. Looking at the numbers, are there any items that aren’t performing as well as they should?
Outdated content. Can the information be refined (or updated or reworked) to remain optimized and relevant to our audience?
Hit Content. This is content that’s performing well, and its metrics and results are meeting or exceeding all targets and expectations. So it can be left alone, as it’s already doing well.
A really useful tip is to use color coding where assigning colors to different categories in your analysis, then highlight the rows with these colors as you work through the spreadsheet.
So, for example, you can highlight items with missing content in a light red color, underperforming content in yellow, or outdated content in blue, and hit content in green.
This way, anyone looking at the spreadsheet will quickly be able to tell which items need attention and filter these for actioning later.
You can also use tools like Google Analytics and social media analytics tools to gather data on how your content is performing.
After analyzing the content, the next step is to classify it.
This step is important if you plan to rank content by priorities or include a timeline for your audit.
So, the goals that we defined earlier will help to prioritize what needs to be executed first.
For example, you may want to prioritize content from 1 to 5, and then define what happens to content assigned to each of these levels.
So, we would first classify all items as 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.
Then, let’s say that all items ranked 1 are top-converting content and should be given top-priority treatment.
So, we analyze all priority treatment items, that is all items marked 1, further to find ways to do things like
Improve the content, for example, make sections clearer or more detailed, add supporting media like explainer videos, downloadable reports, etc.
Or improve search ranking through different SEO methods, for example, internal linking, more helpful content, etc.
Or improve traffic through social media, email newsletters, paid ads, content repurposing, etc.
So using this process, we can then specify that all items with a score lower than 3 should be transferred to a separate spreadsheet, analyzed in more detail, and assigned different highlight colors to determine whether the content should be updated, rewritten, or trashed.
Now. depending on how much content there is, you may also want to schedule it using a content production tool or your editorial calendar.
And the last step of the content audit process is to take action.
Here we evaluate our content and note what’s working and what isn’t.
Are you seeing desired results from your content like increased website traffic, leads, etc.? If not, what can be improved?
Look for opportunities for improvement and document your findings in your content strategy.
Ultimately, the objective of the content audit is to help you decide whether to keep, discard, refine, or develop content after analyzing each content item that you have inventoried.
So with each item of content, we would use our analysis data and notes to decide if we are going to keep or trash the item.
If we decide to trash the item, there are some things to consider, like whether the item has any kind of traffic or SEO value.
If so, we may want to redirect visitors to another content item before trashing it.
And if we decide to keep the item, does it need to be refined with a quick fix, a longer update, or even a complete rewrite?
Also, the audit may reveal missing gaps and opportunities to develop new content, repurpose existing content, like turning an article into a video or even consolidate a number of articles or blog posts on a similar topic into one authoritative long-form article or guide.
For more information on how to make the most from each of these options, please visit the tutorial listed on the screen.
Let me give you just a couple more tips before we move on…
After performing a content audit, list 5-10 immediate action steps and start getting to work on those right away.
Also, keep in mind that some actions that require little effort can deliver big results (like improving page structure or adding internal links to other content on your site), while other actions need a lot of effort but could deliver poor results (like spending weeks creating a downloadable guide or an eBook).
It’s also important to keep things manageable. As you can imagine, a content audit can turn into a huge and overwhelming task, especially if your business has already published lots of existing content already.
Ideally, performing a complete and thorough audit of your content is best. However, it’s completely up to you to decide which content you will audit, how you will do it, and what goals you are trying to achieve.
So for example if time is a limiting factor, you can break things down into smaller goals and audit only content that falls within a certain period of time (e.g. the previous 6-12 months), or content that meets only certain metrics (like your 50 most popular articles ranked by traffic or conversions), or audit only your website’s blog posts, etc.
Finally, after performing an initial content audit, you will want to schedule regular content reviews (e.g. perform an annual review), as this will continue delivering valuable insights on ways to improve not just your content strategy, but your website and your business too.
Now, let’s talk briefly about taking our content audit further.
A content audit doesn’t have to be limited only to content on your website.
You can also perform audits in areas like…
Offsite content assets. So if you’ve published content on external sites like infographics or slide decks, it’s a good idea to include as much data as you can gather on any external content pieces to help you assess how effective your content marketing efforts are.
There’s also other marketing channels you can look at. As mentioned earlier, you are not restricted only to your web content, you can also look at your social media channels, email marketing, and so on.
For example, if you run email marketing campaigns, is the content in your autoresponders up-to-date? Are there messages with higher open rates than others? Many email services provide analytics and reports that can help you improve the performance of your emails.
You can also audit your social shares. If your site displays share counters on pages, you can measure social shares by looking at the post itself, or by entering the URL of the page or post into various online services. This should provide plenty of actionable data about areas where your competition is outperforming your site.
Also, think about approaching sites that are linking to your competitors with a better piece of content or a guest post idea on the same topic and see if you can persuade them to link to your site instead.
And finally, you can also audit your competitor’s websites. You can use many of the same tools that you used to analyze your own site to perform competitive analysis on your competitors’ sites.
This can help to improve your content performance, especially in areas like SEO or driving more traffic to your site.
While you won’t be able to access certain metrics about their website (such as bounce rate, average time on page, and conversion rate), there are things you can track, like who is ranking higher for the keywords you are targeting, number of backlinks, etc.
So in summary,
If your business has existing content, performing a content audit is key to an effective content strategy.
Taking stock of what we have helps us know how we are doing and where we are going.
A content audit can benefit your business in many ways. It helps to align your content with your goals, improve user experience, identify missing gaps and new opportunities, make better data-driven decisions, and improve your content strategy’s overall performance and results.
And depending on how much content you have, a content audit can be a major task, so use tools to help you. Keep it manageable, but take action. Don’t just let the information sit in a spreadsheet.
After performing an initial content audit, schedule regular content reviews to make sure that there’s continuous improvement and better results in your business and your website.
And finally, remember that you can perform content audits in other areas of your business too, such as external content, other marketing channels, social shares, even audit your competition!
For more detailed information about what we’ve covered in this video, visit the tutorials and lessons listed on your screen.
So that’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at how to start implementing our content strategy by creating a content plan for our business.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers deciding which content types and formats will best help your business reach its goals.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 5.
In the previous lesson, we looked at setting goals for our content.
In this lesson, we’ll look at the different types of content that we’ll include in our content strategy.
You can read about each of these content types, including the challenges of creating each of these types, recommended best practices, and links to useful tutorials, tools, and other helpful resources by visiting the URL on your screen.
I’ve listed them here, but I won’t go into each specific type in this lesson.
Content formats include not only common formats like text, images, video, and audio but also interactive formats, virtual and augmented reality, and live streaming.
What I do want to cover in this lesson are the key things to consider when making decisions about which content types you will use.
So, the first thing to consider is your target audience’s needs.
There are many different kinds of business models and what type of business you’re in will affect which types of content you should create to keep your audience engaged.
For example, if we look at these side-by-side charts of content types for B2B and B2C businesses, we can see that while both types of businesses use articles and videos, with B2B businesses, there’s more emphasis on using content types like webinars, case studies, and whitepapers, whereas B2C businesses focus more on using infographics, charts, and long articles.
So what kind of business are you in? What type of audience will you be creating content for?
The next area is knowing what types of content our audience wants to consume, do they prefer their information delivered in the form of blog posts, webinars, case studies, eBooks, etc.?
As we will see in the next lesson, knowing which types of content we will need to create for different stages of our audience’s buying journey is also important.
Resources are the other important area to consider when choosing content types.
These resources mostly have to do with our budget and what kind of team we have available to work on our content.
For example, if our content strategy requires the regular production of high-quality videos, then we obviously need to make sure that we have the budget to cover this and access to people with video production skills, plus the tools to create and edit video content, and so on.
That’s one of the challenges we talked about in module 2.
An important part of creating our content strategy, then, is working with budgets and knowing what percentage of our total marketing budget will be allocated to areas like content production and marketing activities.
So, to summarize what we have covered in this lesson…
To create an effective content strategy, we not only need to understand our target audience and set content goals, we also need to familiarize ourselves with different content types and formats,
We need to know what kind of business we are in, as different business models need different content types.
We need to understand our audience’s content preferences and which content types work best for different stages of the buyer journey,
We need to assess our resources in terms of the budget and team we have to work with, and then we have to decide which content types we’ll create to meet our audience’s needs within our available resources.
For more information about all of these areas, see the tutorials and lessons listed on the screen.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at doing a content audit, which is taking an inventory of our existing content to see how it’s performing and identify any gaps or opportunities that we may be missing out on.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers how to use your target audience information to set SMART goals for your content, plus defining your business goals, aligning your content strategy with your business goals, and determining what you want to achieve with your content (e.g. drive traffic, generate leads, build brand awareness, etc.).
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 4.
In the previous lesson, we looked at understanding our target audience.
In this lesson, we’ll look at setting content goals for our content strategy.
Setting content goals involves identifying what we want to achieve with our content, and then developing specific, measurable, and actionable targets to help us achieve these objectives.
Here are the general steps to follow when setting content goals:
First, identify our target audience. Understanding their demographics, interests, and pain points will inform the types of content that we should be creating.
Next, define our business objectives. We need to determine how our content will support our overall business objectives, such as driving website traffic, increasing conversions, building brand awareness, and so on.
Next, establish specific, measurable, and actionable goals: For each objective we set, we’ll need to create specific, measurable, and actionable goals that align with our objective. For example, “Increase website traffic by 30% within the next six months.”
Also, we need to prioritize our goals based on importance and feasibility. This will help us focus our resources on the content that creates the most impact.
We also need to regularly review and adjust our goals, because the digital landscape is always changing, and so what worked well before may not work as well now.
So, we need to make sure that our goals are current and feasible.
Another important area is to measure and analyze our content’s performance. Here, we can use analytics tools to track performance and measure the success of our content against our goals. This will then help us identify areas for improvement and allow us to make data-driven decisions instead of guessing.
By following these steps, we can set clear and measurable content goals that will align with our business objectives and that will help us achieve our desired outcomes.
So, let’s explore each of these areas now in a little more detail.
The first step is to identify our target audience.
We’ve already covered this in module 3, so if you need help identifying your target audience, just go back and review that module.
The next step is to identify our business objectives.
Before we can identify our business objectives, however, we should have a clear idea of our business vision, mission, and core values.
If you need help with any of these areas, then visit the URL on this screen for an in-depth tutorial.
The next step is to establish specific, measurable, and actionable goals. For each objective or goal that we specify, we need to create specific, measurable, and actionable goals that will align with our objectives.
For example, our goal might be to increase website traffic by 30% within the next six months.
We can use SMART goals to set specific, measurable, and actionable goals to help us achieve this objective.
At this point, we will also want to define the metrics that we will use to measure our results.
If you need help or more information on content metrics, visit the URL on the screen.
The next step is to prioritize our goals based on importance and feasibility.
This will help focus our resources on the content that will create the most impact.
When prioritizing content goals, it’s important to consider both the importance and the feasibility of each goal.
Importance refers to how closely the goal aligns with our overall objectives, while feasibility takes into account the resources, time, and any other constraints that can impact our ability to achieve the goal.
One way to prioritize content goals is to use a method like the Eisenhower Matrix, which separates goals into four categories based on their importance and feasibility:
So…
Important and feasible are goals that should be prioritized and tackled first, as they will have the greatest impact and can be completed with the resources that we have available.
For example, creating product announcement blog posts when new products are released or existing products are updated would likely fall into this category.
The next category is important but not feasible. These goals are important, but can’t be completed given current constraints, so we might need to put these on hold or reevaluate them later to determine if they can be made more feasible.
An example of a goal that might fall in this category is producing a high-budget video ad campaign when we’ve only been given a very low budget to create our content.
Not important but feasible goals are not critical to our objectives, but could still be achieved within our available resources.
These goals can be completed if time allows but should be given lower priority than more important goals.
For example, translating website pages into another language that isn’t critical for our target audience would probably fall into this category.
And the last category is not important and not feasible, If goals are neither important nor feasible, then just drop them. They are not important and they are not feasible.
When using a method like the Eisenhower Matrix, it’s important to list all of our goals, then evaluate each one, add them into one of these four categories, and make a decision based on the category we’ve selected.
The next step is to continually review and adjust our goals.
As mentioned earlier, the digital landscape is always changing, so what worked well before may not work as well now.
The last step is to track our goals and measure and analyze our content performance using analytics tools. This will help us identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions.
So, to summarize what we have covered in this lesson, setting content goals involves steps like:
Identifying our target audience
Defining our business objectives
Establishing SMART goals
Prioritizing our goals according to importance and feasibility
Regularly reviewing and adjusting our goals to make sure they remain aligned with our objectives, and
Measuring and analyzing our content performance against the goals that we have set.
For more information about each of these areas, see the tutorials and lessons that are listed on the screen.
That’s all for this lesson.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at the different types of content to include in our content strategy.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
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