Having a content creation workflow is often overlooked, but you’ll need to develop one if you’re serious about content marketing.
But since I’ve been a content creator since 2004, you’re in good hands here.
The two main purposes of a content workflow are to make the process more routine and systematic, which can help you be more productive.
A content workflow also sets expectations for your team members to know what needs to happen, when, and how they need to contribute. In this blog post, I will discuss how to create an effective content workflow that works for your business.
What is a content creation workflow?
A content workflow is a step-by-step process that outlines the various tasks involved in your content creation process.
It’s a key component in any content strategy. It can also help you identify what roles and responsibilities each person on the team will have to produce quality content within a set time frame.
This is important because it’s common for people who are new to content marketing or don’t understand the process of creating content on their own.
To do this, they will try and work in a vacuum without understanding the process or best practices needed to produce quality content.
This can result in low-quality content (due to not following guidelines), which may negatively impact your business’s credibility with clients.
It is important that whoever writes and creates your company’s blog posts, such as the content team, understand how to take an idea from conception all the way through publishing it – so people who aren’t writers should be supervised by someone more experienced at these tasks.
Additionally, when you have multiple team members working together on creating new blog posts, there needs to be some form of workflow established to get things done efficiently and effectively.
What is content creation?
Content creation is the process of developing content to be shared on a blog or website, a podcast, or a Youtube video.
When creating quality, engaging content for your business, you must follow guidelines and have the necessary resources available in order to take an idea from conception all the way through to publishing it.
Content creation combines a mix of techniques, such as keyword research, search engine optimization, and a variety of other techniques.
The content creation process can be broken down into four general stages: idea generation, writing and editing, publishing to various channels, and analytics to measure the impact of your efforts.
Set Your Content Goals
Before you create content, you must decide what your goals are.
The obvious goal would be to increase conversions. But what is a conversion to you? Is it to get more leads, sell more, or increase brand awareness?
Defining your goals will help you determine which type of content to create and where to publish it.
Different types of content exist for different stages of an inbound marketing funnel.
For example, a blog post might be most effective for top-of-funnel content, and social media adverts might work best at the bottom.
Choose which part of your funnel you want to target with specific types of content – from long-form articles to video tutorials, infographics, or product demos.
The better defined these goals are, the more successful you will be in achieving them.
Content Idea Generation
Idea Generation – Before you start creating anything for your blog post or website, it’s important that you brainstorm some ideas first with what type of information will help inform or educate readers about an issue they might have in their life.
Finding relevant social media content can assist with this, as can forums and online communities.
This stage requires taking time out from busy schedules in order to focus on topics related to what would make people want to read more if they see them online.
The goal is always going back at the end of this phase with multiple topic options, so there are plenty available when it comes time for choosing.
Keyword research plays a massive role in the content idea generation stage. You need to know if people are searching for your idea, and if so, how many. You also need to understand the competition surrounding your keyword selection.
You can gather this information using the Google Keyword Planner or a few other tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs.
Writing Editing
Writing and Editing – Once you have chosen the perfect topic, it’s time to start writing. For the first draft, try not to worry too much about structure or length since this will come later on in the editing stages.
But you do need some loose structure to work with. The best way to create an outline is by looking at your competitors.
By examining the structure of their content, you can see similarities and patterns across all of them. Follow these patterns; Google probably recognizes the same ones you are.
That means you should have a similar outline for your content if you want Google to rank it.
This will help you create a creative brief.
But it’s important that your blog post be compelling enough for human readers. Having a good balance of information mixed with personal opinions will help you achieve that.
Now take some time away from your work so when you return tomorrow, all fresh eyes can look at the content before sending it out into the world to share opinions with others who might also find it valuable.
Publishing and promotion
The key to getting your content read is publishing it in several places. While a marketing team is advantageous, it’s not always necessary.
But remember that it can take several months for Google to rank your articles; even great content can take a while, so we need to promote it in the meantime actively.
Publishing on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter will get you started with social media promotion. However, there are many other sites that can drive traffic to your blog post, including industry blogs or news aggregators.
Promoting your content through an email list is a smart move too. Email marketing is a whole other topic in its own right, but it goes hand in hand with content marketing.
Sticking with social media, Pinterest pins can help spread the word about what you’re writing about without being spammy.
Having these strategies in place for every piece of content will assist in producing an effective content creation workflow.
Metrics and Analytics
The secret to a successful digital marketing strategy is simple; find out what works and do more of it.
Measuring what is working and what isn’t can be tricky, though.
Getting to grips with your key metrics will help you measure your marketing efforts so that you can get the best results from your content.
The metrics to focus on are traffic sources, social media followers/likes/shares, conversions (leads or sales), authority rank, organic search ranking position, and email list growth.
It is also crucial to monitor your website analytics to track how visitors are using the site.
Google Analytics can help you understand where people come from, what they do on your site and why they leave.
This information can be used as feedback and to help guide your decision-making.
Have promotion built-in to your content
What does it mean to have promotion built into your content? As you’re creating your content, you need to be mindful of a few things that will assist with the promotion.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Who will find your content beneficial?
Where do those people congregate online?
Which keywords they’re using on Google?
Why will they find your content beneficial?
What problem does it solve?
What are the benefits of solving it?
What’s stopping them from solving it?
What if they don’t solve the problem? How bad can things get?
What type of emotional triggers do they respond to?
Answering these questions will help you to determine where your content will be promoted.
You’ll have a better idea of how to communicate with the people who need it. And you’ll be able to overcome any objections they might have.
By understanding their language, and what motivates them emotionally, you’ll know what type of posts perform well for that group.
This is important because not all audiences respond best to sensational headlines or cheesy stock photos. But by knowing which groups do prefer those types of posts, then when crafting future content pieces, we should keep in mind you’ll be able to establish a content creation workflow that works for your company.
Things to consider
A few things you should keep in mind when establishing a workflow for your company blog are:
Who is responsible for what?
How will we research the content?
What types of tools need to be used while writing and publishing these posts, like voice dictation software or image editing apps?
By answering questions like these before starting any blogging project, an organization’s employees can have a clearer path for creating quality content on time and without hassle.
Conclusion
Developing a content creation workflow will help you maintain the same standards across all your blog posts, podcasts, or Youtube videos.
And consistent is often the key to success in digital marketing. By following the steps I’ve outlined, combined with consistency, you should improve as a content marketer in time.