What You Need for an Efficient Content Creation Process

Rebecca Bakken is a freelance writer and content strategist for MarketMuse. She has 10 years of experience as a journalist and marketer, doing everything from managing large teams to going it alone as a solopreneur.

Writers and editors know that the road to great content isn’t always a direct path. But if you’re running a content marketing department, you have objective business goals to hit and deadlines to meet, leaving not a lot of time for writer hijinks or other process inefficiencies.

Whether you’re just starting to build a team or your current department could use an overhaul, there are four things you need to execute the most efficient content creation process possible:

• Specific Goals
• Evolving Plan
• Right People, Right Spots
• Tested Tools

This post will guide you on how to develop your internal strategy, as well as recruit and manage your writers and designers. First, let’s think about what you want to achieve:

The Goals

It’s hard to have an efficient process if you don’t have a target. Talk to your managers and sales team about your company’s quarterly and annual goals, and then determine how you can assist in achieving those. For example, if you’ve got a new product and your team has sales benchmarks for it, you might set a goal for the quarter to bring in X amount of leads with an email campaign that builds awareness for the new product.

Whatever your goals are, make sure they’re:

• Business focused. This means no vanity metrics like boosting traffic or gaining followers on social. Your efforts must support business goals in some way, so instead of gaining followers, your goal might be to gain leads from social channels.

• Specific and actionable. Vague goals lead to vague results, so get laser focused on what you want to achieve. You’ll find that the more specific your targets are, the easier it is to take action on them because a clearly defined goal can be broken down into steps.

• Attainable. Setting yourself up for success means being realistic about what you can achieve with your time and resources. Stay ambitious, but be honest about what it would require to reach your goals, and whether success relies too much on factors outside of your control.

• Attributable. You want to be able to connect your actions to achieve goals, both to show ROI and so you know what’s working and what isn’t. Consider how you’ll track and measure the results of your content marketing efforts, whether you use UTM codes or features within your CMS or email platform.

When you set your quarterly and annual content marketing goals, don’t neglect areas where you’re already performing well. There’s always room for improvement, and you don’t want to let your progress slip. It’s perfectly fine for some of your goals to be to maintain a certain metric or make modest improvements if it’s an area where you’re already killing it.

Once you have your goals identified, you can start to work on strategy.  

The Plan

Having a plan is integral to an efficient process. A thoughtfully developed plan removes the guesswork when it’s time for action, and makes it clear who is responsible for what.

If you have a content team, this can be a great opportunity to work together and brainstorm. Get the pertinent parties in a room, display your goal on a whiteboard, and start tossing out ideas for content types, distribution channels, ways to track performance, and innovative ways to hit your targets. If you don’t have a team, the process will be less boisterous, but you can still brainstorm on your own. The point is to think strategically and creatively about how to reach your goals.

Here’s what your plan should define:

1. What content is needed. Be specific here, identifying all copy and articles that needs to be created. Include outlines that specify target audiences, word counts, focus topics, and related topics to cover in each piece of content.

2. How you will measure performance. Each goal may have different metrics for success, so decide which attribution model is appropriate for your objectives, and set your tracking system before you start distributing.

3. How you will distribute the content. Email is a great way to engage your contacts, while third-party platforms like Medium or even LinkedIn can attract new leads. And don’t neglect the power of ads. Decide the appropriate channels for distribution, and conduct tests to see if new platforms are worth the effort.

4. When and where to optimize. Once you post your first blog or send your first email, you’ll immediately have some metrics to work with. For longer campaigns, you may want to wait a few weeks before you take those metrics seriously and start to make tweaks, while a dismal open rate on your first email may warrant immediate action.

If your plan doesn’t seem to be working toward your goal, find ways to tweak it. Flexibility is a main attribute of a good plan, because content, as with life, isn’t always predictable. This is another reason why brainstorming is a smart way to start, because you can derive your Plan B (as well as C and D) at the outset.

Your plan should also identify who will be taking on each task, making for an efficient workflow. But since the human element is also the most unpredictable, it gets its own section.

The People

Your writers, editors, and designers are essential components of a well-oiled content marketing machine, but only if everyone is doing their part and working collaboratively. Whether you have an in-house staff or a roster of freelancers, your team members are the engine behind an efficient content creation process.  

Schedule regular one-to-one meetings with each person on your staff so that you get consistent updates on what they’re doing, any problems they may be having, and how you can help them. This also leads to better working relationships between you and your direct reports, and lets you learn their career goals, preferred learning style, and any weaknesses that can be strengthened. It also gives them a good opportunity to broach any issues they may be uncomfortable bringing up on their own.

As a manager, something you should ask yourself regularly is, “Do I have the right people in the right spots?” Be open to letting someone shift their responsibilities onto something at which they’re more naturally adept, and be proactive in suggesting changes.

If you have a writer or designer who is consistently underperforming, either in terms of quality or efficiency, consider the following actions:

• Have a frank discussion about the problem. In a one-to-one meeting, discuss specific examples of sub-par performance, and ask about the reasons why the work suffered. Avoid making assumptions or blanket statements, and stick to the facts. Hear them out, and give sympathetic responses without excusing poor work.

• Devise an improvement plan. Be clear about the areas in need of improvement, and offer help and resources that can assist them. Then, set a timeline to meet again to review performance. This lets them know that you’re willing to work with them, but sets clear expectations.

• Consider a change in roles. If someone can’t keep up in your environment, think about whether there are any less intense roles for which they would be better suited, or if a part-time or contract position makes sense.

There may come a time when you decide that a member of your team isn’t working out. It’s not a fun situation for anyone involved, but it’s a necessary part of running a team. If this happens, remember to keep all justifications purely performance-based and specific, and be sensitive to their feelings.

If you’re building a team and want to vet writers and designers before bringing them on full time, you can hire them as freelancers first to get a good idea of how they operate and whether they can consistently (and efficiently) produce solid work. You may even find that working with freelancers instead of hiring a staff is your best move, as it’s a lower cost option that gives you tons of flexibility.

So, you’ve got your goals set, your plan devised, and your team assembled. Now you just need the right tools to get the job done.

The Tools

The content marketing tools and software you use can save you loads of time, as they perform tasks that would take hours, if not days, to complete manually. But learning how to use tools and software takes time, so decide which ones are most useful to you and your staff, and provide the training and resources to use them to their fullest extent.

Here’s a keyword research guide that breaks down all of MarketMuse’s favorite tools and platforms. Depending on your strategy, you’ll want to have tools and software that perform the following:

• Rank tracking
• Keyword research
• Traffic and backlink analysis
• Content optimization

Be aware that you usually get what you pay for with these solutions, and that there’s a vast difference between a tool and a software platform. Keyword research tools can give you a quick estimation of related keywords based on words that appear together in posts ranking for a given term. However, they can’t quantify co-occurrences or other on-page factors to rank those that are the most important related keywords (i.e. the lowest hanging fruit) like a software platform like MarketMuse can.

If you want to maximize efficiency and have the budget, software like MarketMuse, HubSpot, and SEMrush are worth the money because they’re all multi-use platforms that give you most, if not all, the information you need.

You can also help your team use the tools and software you choose effectively by having a shared folder that contains:

1. A spreadsheet with the usernames and passwords of everything you use

2. Training documents and links to resources on how to use each one

3. Examples and templates of any reports they’ll need to produce

Of course, a folder can’t replace in-person training. When you adopt a new tool or platform (or have someone new starting), have a training session so they know all the functions and capabilities. Ask your team about what they find helpful and what’s confusing so that you can evaluate and change your arsenal if necessary.

Once you’ve established your department’s goals, plan, roles, and tools, you’re going to need to update and improve upon them to keep up with trends and evolving company objectives. Here’s a blog post that can help you organize, optimize, automate, and collaborate for a streamlined content creation process. A content marketer’s work is never done, it’s a whole lot easier with an efficient process.

 Thumbnail image courtesy of Unsplash.

Event Recap: Boston Content Went Inbound

Boston-based Chuck Leddy has been crafting engaging content since 1995, as a journalist and B2B brand storyteller. He's written for B2B brands such as General Electric, ADP, Office Depot, Cintas, the National Center for the Middle Market, and many more. He's also been published in print publications such as the Boston Globe, Forbes, the Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. His website and blog are at www.ChuckLeddy.com.

Boston Content organized a Tuesday night of learning, networking and community-building on September 26, downstairs at LogMeIn. Co-Executive Directors Katie Martell and Katelyn Holbrook welcomed a packed house of marketing professionals, reviewing some of the group’s recent achievements. Martell and Holbrook first took turns highlighting a few well-attended events over the summer, such as “Mornings Are for Marketing” at GA Boston, a pre-Content Marketing World get-together in Boston, as well as plans to revive the Boston Content awards later this year. They then introduced the three speakers for the evening.

Anuj Adhita talks community.

Anuj Adhiya, Director of Engagement and Analytics at GrowthHackers, kicked off by explaining how building community offers a high return on investment (ROI). While discussing how to build trust, a key component of community, Anuj showed a photo of a man sitting serenely between two large mountain lions. “Think of how long it must have taken this man to gain the trust of these two lions,” said Adhiya, chuckling. “If I tried to sit between them, they would eat me like a snack.”

Adhiya offered some key behaviors for building community, including offering great content and insights. Most importantly of all, he noted, would-be community-builders need to understand that putting others first matters most. “It’s not about you, your products, and what you need to sell,” he said. “Nobody cares about you -- you have to make it about them.”

Dan Waas on the challenges of the German language.

Next up was Daniel Waas, Marketing Director of GoToWebinar, who began with a humorous overview of the maddening challenges of the German language (Waas is German), asking the audience to collectively utter German words like “rechtschreibung” that were nearly unpronounceable. Waas then made a powerful business case for repurposing (or recycling) content, creating webinars that engage target audiences in new and different ways, and then transforming the webinars into repurposed content like blog posts, all at relatively low costs.

In a talk entitled “The Lazy Marketer’s Guide to Content Repurposing,” the energetic and affable Waas recommended that “lazy” content producers (we’re all guilty as charged, of course) give webinars a try, serving the needs of target audiences, while they learn and improve as they go.

Arestia Rosenberg on core values and not backing down.

The evening’s final speaker was Arestia Rosenberg, co-founder of Boston Content, who spoke about how she moved from filmmaking to building content teams at The Daily Beast, to her current role as a freelance storyteller and strategist. Rosenberg’s message was to stick with your gut, creatively and in everything else. She recalled having a difference of opinion with a boss about hiring a new member of her content team. The boss favored an experienced professional, while Rosenberg wanted to hire a less experienced person whom she considered highly coachable. In the end, she said, she backed down and the more experienced person was hired. “This person quit after a week,” she said, “and I asked my boss how he liked his new hire now.” Rosenberg urged the audience never to back down on their core beliefs.

Rosenberg then explained what she looks for in a content professional. “You have to hire people you’d like to hang out with all day, because that’s just what you’ll be doing.” This likeability factor can even outweigh a lack of experience, she told the audience: “If you’re 25 years old and don’t know anything, that’s okay, but I better like you enough to teach you what you need to know.” The ability to learn and adapt are key drivers of success, said Rosenberg.

Dan Waas and Arestia Rosenberg.

After Rosenberg’s talk ended, the group had an hour to network, talk with the speakers and have a drink. If you weren’t able to attend, be sure also to check out our photo gallery here.

What I Wish My Younger Content Professional Self Knew

Shelby Hill is Associate Director of Editorial Services at Skyword.

This industry of ours is so new that it might just be able to drink legally. Seriously, Wikipedia -- yes, I used it as a source, and my college professors just rolled their eyes -- claims the phrase “content marketing” was first used in 1996.

Although the practice of using content to market a business goes back much further than the ‘90s (check out this cool infographic), content marketing as we know it is always changing and growing. There’s so much a seasoned content professional has learned in just a few years; and with a decade under your belt, you’re practically an expert.

So whether you’re just starting out in this field, or you’ve been around the block a time or two, take a look at what 10 accomplished industry pros (and I) have to say:

On Career

“Get over your imposter syndrome. Everyone – from that senior executive to those so-called gurus – is still figuring this whole ‘content’ thing out because the space is evolving so incredibly fast. So, be more confident, take more risks, trust your gut, and know that the creative ideas you were terrified to share in a meeting or present to a big client are actually the ones that will be most successful for the company and rewarding for yourself.”

— Katelyn Holbrook, Co-Executive Director of Boston Content and SVP of Version 2.0 Communications

“Be less concerned with money and promotion, and more concerned with becoming an expert in your field. Don’t learn enough just to get by, get promoted, or earn a raise…Become an expert in your craft. Soak in every learning opportunity like a sponge. Knowledge is power. The money will follow.”

— Kate Westervelt, Director of Content Strategy at Purple Carrot

“Be curious. Ask questions and don’t limit yourself to what you think is required of you based on your job description. Also, don’t be afraid to challenge or push back on the way something’s always been done…Challenge yourself to get out of that ‘day to day’ mindset and consider how your contribution is impacting not only your team or department, but the organization as a whole, and what small adjustments could have a major impact. ”

— Mary Austin Williams, Editor-in-Chief of the Boston Content blog and Managing Editor at CommunityCo

“I wish my younger content professional self knew the importance of measurement. Content is one of the hardest budget lines to measure ROI. By learning that struggle early and finding clever ways to justify the spend to management, you’ll have more success (and more money).”

— Jessica Marble, Marketing Manager at Care@Work, a division of Care.com

“Never stop networking; never quit your side hustle; never stop take your finger off the pulse of the industry. It’s easy to get tunnel vision in a single job and forget the bigger picture: your career. But by doing those three things you’ll become a better content professional for your current company and for your future. It’s a win-win.”

— Shelby Hill, Associate Director of Editorial Services at Skyword and contributor to the Boston Content blog

“When starting out in this industry, the easiest way to wrap my head around ‘content’ was to think of it like a personal relationship. You don’t meet someone you like and immediately ask them to be your BFF, which is what some advertisers tend to do. You get to know each other and eventually connect on a deeper level. That’s what relevant and interesting content can do for a brand and its audience. You might not see results right away, but in the end, you’ve nurtured a loyal customer and that’s sometimes even more valuable than the immediate sell.”

— Megan Birch, Content Strategist at Small Army

On Writing

“Good storytelling will always win out…Storytelling is what connects us: brands to people; people to products; people to, well, more people. The thing I wish I understood earlier on was that the way in which we tell stories will evolve rapidly, and the earlier on I accepted that truth, the faster I could get around to learning the new and evolving tools of the trade. I would have jumped feet-first into learning Photoshop, video editing, social monitoring tools, and SEO tools. Roll with the tide and learn the new tools of the trade.”

— Kate Westervelt, Director of Content Strategy at Purple Carrot

“You can’t schedule inspiration in 30- or 60-minute intervals. Often enough, brainstorming meetings just fall flat, leading to clichés or topic traps…Instead, always be open and seeking out new blog ideas in your daily activities, and just let creativity find you. ”

— Julia Dunlea, Senior Manager of Media and Analyst Relations at Applause

“The hardest part about being a writer is removing your own words, editing yourself. As a young journalist, I got hung up on length: The longer the story must mean the better the story. It took a while, but over time I came to realize the opposite: The shorter the story, the better the story. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for the 3,000-word narrative. But it does mean if a story can be told in 1,200 words, it can often be told better in 700 words. And if a story can be told in 700 words, it might be amazing in 300 words. Never has this been more true than today, when holding a reader’s attention is harder than ever. Shorter stories with more visuals — photos, video, graphics — can be 10 times more powerful than longer stories. But you have to be willing to sacrifice words and reporting, and that’s never easy.”

— Doug Most, Head of BG BrandLab Studio at The Boston Globe

“When I was in my 20s, a writer friend wrote a poem about me called “Foreclosure.” She got it published. That’s poetic irony, because the poem was about how I used to get paralyzed by my internal editor whenever I wrote…If I could send a message to younger self it would be this: Lighten up on the super ego, kid. We’re all winging it out here. Even those of us who’ve been doing it for decades. But you get better with every word you write. And you’ll never write anything wonderful, if you never write anything at all.”

— Darcy Jacobsen, Co-Founder of The Wednesday Group

“You don’t need to win a content marketing award with every blog post! When I first started writing blogs professionally, there were times I would just stare at a blank Google Doc for hours, trying to think of the perfect opening line as if my career depended on it. Now, I just start writing, build the foundation, and then worry about the finishing touches that bring it to life.”

— Chris Kiertz, Marketing Manager at Salsify

Thumbnail image courtesy of Unsplash.

Content Comes Home: What We Learned from #CMWorld 2017

Katelyn Holbrook is Senior Vice President at Version 2.0 Communications. Follow her on Twitter, @KatelynEHenry.

There are two things we know well at Boston Content: a good time and good content.

So when Content Marketing World, the world’s biggest content marketing event, hit Cleveland last week, it was no surprise that the Boston Content community was well represented among the 4,000 marketers, writers, designers, SEO experts, producers and executives, among others, in attendance.

Though the star-studded lineup of speakers included actor-turned-producer/writer/creator Joseph Gordon-Levitt, GE CMO Linda Boff and Boston Content’s own founding father Jay Acunzo, we looked to the members of our community — the people who may work around the corner from you and struggle with the same issues — to give us the their key takeaway from the event.

Here’s what we learned:

• "The good news is that content marketing is really hot. The bad news is that everyone is doing it. Amid all the advice about SEO, catchy titles, social media promotion, and attribution, too many people are missing what it really takes to stand out: an original point of view, and actual knowledge of the topic. What I learned from CM World is that it's not enough to write what you know -- you need to do the work to make sure what you know, and what you write, is based on unique experiences." – Josh Bernoff, Author, "Writing Without Bullshit” (@jbernoff)

• “It’s no longer a question of whether to do content marketing, it is now about how to do it better. Establishing a platform to measure the performance of content through data and analytics is the next challenge. Whether it’s driving revenue, building brand awareness or creating customer loyalty, the ability to define and measure success will solidify the role of content marketing in any organization.” – Jessica Rose, Marketing Communications Manager, Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. (@Jalee27)   

• "I'm coming back from Content Marketing World with a renewed motivation to build our editorial strategy not around what has worked for other brands but around makes our brand and our publication unique. I was really taken by both Jay Acunzo and Caroline Nuttall's sessions — they both spoke about our reflexive tendency to accept so-called "best practices" and crowd into the same real estate with our content without questioning why we're doing it. There's so much more room to be creative with our content, and when the barriers to entry are low, we have space to experiment and see what engages our audience. Why are we trying to occupy the same crowded spaces as our competitors when there's a whole world of original content to explore?" – Rachel Haberman, Content Marketing Manager, Skyword and Managing Editor, The Content Standard (@RachelHHaberman)

• “My biggest takeaway is video, Video, VIDEO! I realized that I should just do more video and not worry about it being perfect. I also realized that webinars can be considered videos and are only second to direct sales engagement and that I should be doing more of them. And that one's YouTube channel should be optimized for SEO with more relevant and frequent videos. – Charu Gupta, Director, Content Strategy & Marketing at In Crowd, Inc. (@charugupta)

• “The biggest thing I took away from content marketing world was that people are still talking about millennials as a huge shift in the workforce. Sure, millennials want immediate feedback, career flexibility, and care about social issues, but who doesn’t? It’s not a separate generation that is changing how we work, it’s everyone’s expectations shifting with the advancement of technology. Whatever thinking you are applying to this generation you should apply to all your employees.” – Mike Wood, Social Marketing Manager, Globoforce (@mikewoodtweets)

• Content Marketing World introduced me to different metrics I can use at each stage of my buyer’s journey to prove Content ROI. The ‘ROI question’ is a tough one to answer, but if you outline engagement metrics that make sense for your audience at each stage of their journey – then the picture starts to become clearer. – Jess Marble, Marketing Manager, Care@Work by Care.com (@Jess_Marble)

Did you attend Content Marketing World this year? Let us know your favorite takeaway in the comments below!