You have too many marketing tasks and responsibilities to do them the hard way. Your work is too critical to business success to let best practices slide and details fall through the cracks.
Since you can’t always trust AI tools to do the job right the first time, trust the wisdom of your industry peers who have found ways to make content and marketing more manageable.
I’ve gathered some of their best tips, templates, and cheat sheets to break complex tasks into simpler steps and avoid frustrating bottlenecks. And, if you’re in between jobs or looking to advance your role, knowing these tips can help you secure a position to put these approaches to good use.
Align strategic goals with audience needs
Brands often default to their stated mission or purpose when determining their strategic approach to content. But what your business wants to share doesn’t always align with what your audience wants to hear. It can also result in vague platitudes that fail to distinguish your brand’s unique content advantages.
To avoid those pitfalls, work through the five-whys exercise to pinpoint where (or if) your brand’s goals intersect with what your customers care about.
The 5 whys
CMI’s Robert Rose explains the first step is to generate a list of content marketing ideas. For example, your brand may want to educate prospects on using your products or curate industry news to position your business as a thought leader.
Next, write down why the first idea is important. Then, ask why that importance is important. Ask why about that answer. Ask why about the preceding explanation two more times. (Repeat this process for each idea.)
To illustrate how it works, I’ve filled in this template with a sample idea Robert offered in his article:
| Because developments in our industry are changing quickly, our customers need a trusted partner to keep them up to date. | |
| Why 1 | Answer |
| Why is curating news to position us as thought leaders important to our customers? | Because our customers will see that we have our finger on the pulse of the business and a point of view on the industry. |
| Why 2 | Answer |
| Why is it important that customers see that we have our finger on the pulse and a viewpoint on the industry? | Because our customers and prospects will have more trust in what we say. |
| Why 3 | Answer |
| Why is it important to our customers and prospects to have more trust in what we say? | Because developments in our industry are changing quickly, and our customers need a trusted partner to keep them up to date. |
| Why 4 | Answer |
| Why do customers need a trusted partner to keep them up to date with what’s going on in the industry? | Because they are busy trying to succeed, a trusted partner can help them be informed. |
| Why 5 | Answer |
| Why is it important for our customers’ success to be informed? | If our customers are properly informed about the industry, they will be more competitive and successful. |
The final answer should reveal a motivation for the idea that aligns with your audience’s purpose and clarifies how it fits into the brand’s overarching story.
Streamline your content operations
Your strategy dictates what you want to achieve through content. Thorough operational planning enables you to achieve it consistently. Think of it as the work to do, so everything else you do works.
Build and activate a content plan
With the matter of why settled, focus on the next big questions — what content will you create? How do you make that happen? A content plan will help determine the best answers.
A content plan comprises the policies, practices, resources, and task-related decisions to execute the strategy. This invaluable tool lets the team orchestrate operational workflows, implement efficient processes, and enable the transformation of creative ideas into high-value marketing assets.
To build your content plan, you need to consider these four components:
- Governance and guidelines: standards, practices, and guiding principles that define and distinguish your content’s unique value
- Processes and systems: tasks, workflows, techniques, and technologies to manage your content marketing operations
- Team resources: roles and skills required to perform the work and plans to fill gaps as they emerge
- Content creation and delivery: topics, generation process and prioritization of creative ideas, content types, formats, and platforms
Decision-making in each area can take time — and a lot of effort. But fear not: The tips in this content planning checklist below will help ease the burden. (You can get more details and resources to assist you in CMI’s 4-Part Guide To Crafting a Winning Content Plan.)
| Content Planning Checklist | ||
| Focal Areas | Actions to Take | Tips to Get Started |
| Establish content guidelines and governance | Define the unique value your content will deliver | Outline the qualities and characteristics that will make your content recognizable and distinct, including your brand’s signature voice and style. |
| Establish editorial quality and value standards | Outline the details of how your content will deliver against the five most critical benchmarks for audience value: Findability, readability, understandability, actionability, and shareability. |
|
| Build your systems, processes, and support mechanisms | Define the workflow and build critical processes | Build your workflow by identifying the tasks required to produce a content asset. Then, set those tasks sequentially and build agile processes that can be adapted to maintain optimal efficiency. |
| Promote smooth collaboration and communication | Create a detailed editorial calendar so all team members can see where assets are in the production process, what tasks still need to be done, and how to move them to completion. | |
| Determine how projects will be managed and prioritized | Implement transparent criteria, such as a scoring process, for ranking and prioritizing existing projects and new requests by their potential to perform. | |
| Build in quality assurance | Follow quality assurance best practices to keep typos, grammatical mistakes, and factual inaccuracies out of your published content and your brand’s reputation above reproach. | |
| Select and implement appropriate technologies | Ensure you have the tools to manage your content ecosystem and maintain optimal productivity. Consider where and how (or if) you’ll benefit from using AI tools in your operations. | |
| Structure your team and skill sets | Determine essential roles | Aim to cover the most critical content roles and consider whether your best option is to expand your resources or rebalance current responsibilities to fill any gaps. |
| Evaluate team skill sets and determine how to fill gaps | Ensure your team has competency in the most critical content marketing skills, and explore available resources for outsourcing, augmenting, or upskilling in areas where they are lacking. | |
| Make sound creative and distribution decisions | Identify critical topics | Explore marketplace, audience, and industry trends to identify topics and issues of emerging importance. Consider developing a content council or editorial board to help surface relevant areas where your content may offer the most value. |
| Plan big ideas to develop into assets | Focus on generating big ideas that are likely to activate your audience or can be repackaged for use on multiple platforms and channels. Creative brainstorming is a viable technique for initial ideation. | |
| Determine optimal story packaging and distribution options | Look for efficient, cost-effective ways to distribute content across multiple platforms. Consider content mapping techniques to determine which distribution formats and channels to use. | |
Map your standard workflow (and common variations)
To ensure high-quality assets are developed consistently, content teams need a system to track and manage the production and distribution tasks.
This five-step process can help you map the workflow for each content format (and variations). From there, you can build the processes to operationalize those workflows.
You can find the details in this guide, but this abbreviated description, along with the example templates, show what the information should look like at each step:
Step 1: Conduct a content audit. This high-level view of content deliverables and distribution is organized into four columns:
- Content format: Create a row for each format your team regularly produces.
- Primary delivery platform: Note where each format is published or shared first.
- Additional distribution targets: List additional channels and platforms where this content format may be used.
- Special circumstances and variations: Note any variations that require extra steps or a distinct production process.
| Content Format | Primary Distribution Platform | Additional Distribution Platforms | Special Circumstances and Variations |
| Editorial article | Website (blog) | · Newsletters · LinkedIn profile pages/groups · Social media |
· Sponsored posts · Crowdsourced posts · Example collections · Republished posts · Contributor submissions |
| Newsletter | None | None | |
| E-book | Website (resources page) | · Email campaigns · Editorial articles · Sponsored landing pages |
· Gated for lead gen · Sponsored e-books |
| Video (livestream) | · Facebook · TikTok |
· Co-created with influencers · Expert interviews |
|
| Video (scripted) | YouTube | · Website blog · Event microsite · Website video page |
· Sponsored webinars |
| Social media posts | · Facebook |
· Paid promotions · Co-created with influencers |
|
| Live presentations | In-person events | · Virtual events platforms · LinkedIn Live |
· Video snippets on social media · Distribution partner sites |
Step 2: List all tasks required for each format. Don’t worry about putting the tasks in order yet.
Step 3: Organize tasks by production stage. Group each format’s tasks sequentially based on pre-production, production, or post-production timing.
| Stage of Content Format (editorial article) |
Required Tasks |
| Pre-production stage | Determine the topic. |
| Brainstorm angle. | |
| Identify sources/subject matter experts. | |
| Request sales/marketing feedback on the topic and approach. | |
| Assign a writer. | |
| Facilitate governance requirements. | |
| Create/gather author bio info/assets. | |
| Production stage | Receive author submission. |
| Edit/revise copy for style and substance. | |
| Design/develop visuals. | |
| Send a final copy to the author and stakeholders for revisions/approval. | |
| Load/format copy and visuals for layout. | |
| Set metadata details for SEO. | |
| Proof and approve the final layout. | |
| Post-production stage | Schedule publication in the editorial calendar. |
| Publish content (including metadata) to its primary platform. | |
| Send content to [contact] for email alert/newsletter inclusion. | |
| Share links/assets with content partners for additional promotion, repurposing, and distribution efforts per the content plan. | |
| Collect metrics data and generate reports. | |
| Share performance data with stakeholders to inform potential adjustments or future content plans. |
Step 4: Add a column for each task’s roles and responsibilities. Map how production flows from one role to the next.
| Stage of Content Format (editorial article) | Task To Do | Roles |
| Pre-production stage | Determine the topic. | · Team leader |
| Brainstorm angle. | · Team leader · Managing editor |
|
| Identify sources/subject matter experts. | · Managing editor · Story editor · Staff writers |
|
| Request sales/marketing feedback on the topic and approach. | · Managing editor | |
| Assign a writer. | · Managing editor | |
| Facilitate governance requirements. | · Managing editor | |
| Create/gather author bio info/assets. | · Copy editor |
Step 5: Operationalize and iterate. Create a mechanism to track tasks as they’re completed and notify the next party in the chain when the asset is ready for them. If you don’t have dedicated software tools for this, a simple spreadsheet can work.
Systematize content requests and assignments
Requests to create content for other organizational teams is a common pain point for marketing creatives. These unexpected tasks can tax schedules and disrupt productivity; at worst, they conflict with your brand’s strategic purpose and distinct content mission.
You may not have the power to refuse, but you can systematize these requests so everyone stays focused on content with the best potential impact.
Requiring requesters to submit a content brief is a great place to start. Documenting the necessary information and instructions gets everyone on the same page, minimizing time spent on rewrites and edits. A brief also helps when outsourcing creation to freelance writers, guest authors, and other external collaborators.
Dan Hatch says a good content brief establishes clear expectations. It covers details like the working title, project deadline, and what the story is about. It should also outline why the story is valuable, the key messages, the intended audience, and how your brand typically communicates with them.
You can start with this content brief template I use when assigning stories and customize it by adding fields for relevant contextual details, such as the target format or platform, desired responses, links to reference materials, or subject matter experts for source interviews.
| Content Brief Template | ||||
| Working Title | ||||
| Word Count | Deadline | |||
| Insight or problem (Why it matters) | ||||
| What is it about? (Brief overview of the idea) | ||||
| What to include (Key messages; potential support points) | ||||
| Conclusion (Key takeaways) | ||||
| Desired response (Next steps or calls to action) | ||||
| Source materials (Links to reference materials, research data, SME contact info, etc.) | ||||
| Intended audience/ target persona |
||||
| Copy notes (Tone, style, language, etc.) | ||||
Rehabilitate bad content ideas
What if you receive a brief that’s way off track or too challenging to execute? Guide the requester in a more manageable direction with this step-by-step approach suggested by Cloudflare’s Amy Higgins and Nextiva’s Monica Norton.
In their post, Bad Content Ideas: What To Do When You Can’t Say No, they share all the details and explanations. To start, use this checklist to prepare for the tough conversations to determine the best way forward:
| How To Rehab Bad Content Ideas | ||
| Prepare an informed response to the idea | ||
| Purpose | Actions To Take | |
| Step 1: Understand the ask. | Determine what success looks like to the requester. | Ask: Why is this idea top of mind? How did this idea originate? What do you like most about the idea? Have you done it or seen another company do it? |
| Step 2: Determine the intent behind the request. | Find the disconnect between the requester’s view of success and your team’s KPIs. | How does its objective align with existing goals? Where are they off? Why? |
| Step 3: Focus on the actual audience. | Discover opportunities to realign the requester’s idea against known customer needs. | Use the “yes and” method to clarify the value for your audience. Example: “Yes. I love your idea of a blog post about the product features. And let’s start by explaining how they help our customers solve their pain points.” |
| Step 4: Identify where the idea fits in the content journey. | Determine if content gaps along the journey could be filled with this idea or if existing assets can be optimized to meet this request. | Audit your published content to understand what content ideas resonate. Apply that data to provide a rationale for moving to a more impactful idea. |
| Step 5: Look at your resources. | Assess team needs so you can facilitate a conversation about what to do next. | Do you need more budget or resources? Do you have the right tools to measure the impact of the request? Do you have the time to do it correctly? |
Craft resonant, accessible stories
Aligning topics, ideas, and formats sets your creative team up for success. However, working with a proven storytelling structure can ensure the resulting content resonates with the audience.
Base stories on familiar archetypes
Seven classic archetypes work for memorable storytelling. You’ll find detailed explanations and examples in my post on storytelling archetypes. Here’s a handy rundown for writers to use the next time they’re stuck staring at a blank page:
| Storytelling Archetypes | ||
| Archetype | Classic Definition | Ideal for |
| The Quest | A protagonist must overcome a series of obstacles to acquire an important object or reach a desired destination. | Educating and assisting consumers about approaches that enable them to achieve critical goals |
| Overcoming the Monster | An unlikely hero is challenged by a formidable foe and gradually gains the courage, knowledge, or strength to defeat it. | Casting your brand — and your customers — as conquering heroes |
| Rags to Riches | A protagonist from humble beginnings acquires great power, knowledge, or riches and becomes changed for the better after initial struggles. | Illustrating how your thought leaders and team members have overcome relatable challenges |
| Rebirth | An adversarial person or event drives a flawed main character to reflect on their actions and compels them to achieve a more positive outcome by embracing redemptive change. | Resetting expectations around your business by speaking out about known issues and the steps you’re taking to combat them |
| Voyage and Return | A protagonist travels to a strange land and encounters unexpected oppositional forces. Upon returning home, the protagonist has been changed for the better by the experience. | Highlighting the transformational effects of your product and service offerings |
| Comedy | Thrust into surreal or unlikely scenarios, a protagonist triumphs over adversity by going to absurdly extreme lengths. | Helping small or newer brands draw attention, bringing legacy brands back into the consideration mix, and fanning the flames of passion-driven loyalty |
| Tragedy | A flawed hero makes a choice or takes an action that ultimately leads to their undoing. | Sharing vital information, such as guidance that helps protect consumers from harm |
Write to be read and understood
Even the most powerful ideas won’t help your brand gain traction if the audience struggles to engage, and the writing is unclear.
You’ll find dozens of tips for writing concisely in Ann Gynn’s post, 31 Great Content Writing Examples, Tips, and Tools. Quickly conveying your point is among them. For example, Ann suggests a few replacements for wordy phrases:
- “Show,” not “indicate”
- “Use,” not “utilize”
- “To,” not “in order to”
- “Help,” not “facilitate”
- “Get,” not “obtain”
To help express your ideas more succinctly, work with a tool like Web FX’s Readability Test.
Make content easy for everyone to access
No matter how well written, your content won’t influence anyone who can’t access it. That includes consumers who use voice commands and screen readers to navigate websites or prefer reading transcripts to engaging with videos and audio stories.
Refer to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to ensure your content is fully accessible. This checklist covers the basics in Irina Weber’s eight practical accessibility tips:
| Content Accessibility | ||
| Action | Why | Tips |
| Optimize title tags and headings. | Helps users quickly find the information they need. | Use clear and unique page titles and headings. Use only one H1 tag. Keep your subheadings in sequential order. Precisely describe the content. |
| Create accessible tables. | Tables inside text can be difficult for screen readers to interpret. | Build tables using cascading style sheets. |
| Use descriptive anchor text for links. | Users want to know what they can expect to find when clicking the link. | Avoid generic phrases. Consider using a target keyword. Be concise. |
| Include descriptive alt text for images. | Enables search engines and the visually impaired to interpret visual content accurately and may boost Google’s visibility and rankings. | Write alt text for every image and video. Add captions for content on sites that do not have an alt-text option. |
| Add a public sitemap. | Allows visitors to find what they need quickly and helps search engines index pages. | Ensure that your site includes both an XML and an HTML sitemap. |
| Make social media content accessible. | Social media can affect buying choices, particularly for younger consumers like Gen-Z. | Add captions and transcripts for video and alt text to images. Have a sign language interpreter for videos and at events. Capitalize each word in hashtags. Avoid overuse of emojis. |
| Use accessible language. | Exacting language and a well-structured format make content easy to understand. | Use clear and simple language or provide a simplified version. Explain uncommon words, idioms, phrases, and abbreviations. Use bullet points for emphasis. Indicate the content’s language with the “lang” attribute in HTML. |
| Create accessible calls to action. | Encourages and enables consumers to take the next step. | Write descriptive and action-oriented text. Use this contrast checker to determine whether the CTA button meets accessibility guidelines. Place the primary CTA above the fold so users can see it without scrolling down the page. Adjust the size and placement of the CTA in mobile versions to ensure its effectiveness. |
Plan for impactful distribution
Your marketing team doesn’t have bandwidth to spare. Don’t squander precious resources on channels and platforms unlikely to drive the right impact. With some extra legwork, you can make more informed decisions about where to share and promote the content.
Evaluate your social platform options
Like the content plan that guides your team’s creative and operational efforts, a robust distribution plan takes effort. Each media platform offers a unique experience with its pros and cons. You need to weigh them carefully.
Though that task can get complicated with social media platforms, the planning process boils down to four steps:
- Investigate your options
- Audit existing assets
- Identify top opportunities
- Establish procedures and guidelines
I outline details for each step in How To Build a Winning Content Plan for Social Media, but this checklist will help you know what information to gather and what questions to ask:
| Evaluate Social Media Distribution Options | |||
| Who uses this channel, and how do they use it? | What content topics and formats get the most traction? | How do brands engage and market here? | Can we gain a competitive advantage? |
| Is it an essential channel for the target personas? How much time, on average, do users spend here? What are conversations and interactions like? | Do we already produce these types of conversations? Do we have enough assets/resources to maintain a consistent presence? Does the platform offer integrated creative tools to scale production? | Do brands have different profile page options than other users? Is there a verification system? What options exist for boosting organic reach? How does the platform treat backlinks and referral traffic? What metrics does the platform provide? | Are our competitors active in this space? What kinds of content/conversations do they share here? |
Measure and compare content performance
Thorough planning can increase the chances of success, but you also must consistently measure the content’s performance to prove the plan works correctly (or that it doesn’t.)
A content scorecard can help you understand the effectiveness of your content and the corrective actions to optimize its impact. In How To Set Up a Content Scoring Process for Better Decisions, Tendo Communications vice president Lindy Roux outlines a process for quantitative and qualitative assessment. Though each analysis uses different criteria, both rate content performance on a one-to-five-point scale.
In Lindy’s approach, quantitative scores gauge asset performance against the content’s goals, such as:
- Exposure: views, impressions, backlinks
- Engagement: time on page, clicks, ratings, comments
- Conversion: purchases, registrations for gated content, return visits, clicks
- Redistribution: shares, pins
Qualitative scores gauge the relative value of the asset regardless of its performance analytics. Lindy shares some of the criteria she’s used in her scorecards:
- Consistency: Is the content consistent with the brand voice and style?
- Clarity and accuracy: Is the content understandable, accurate, and current?
- Discoverability: Does the layout of the information support key information flows?
- Engagement: Does the content use the appropriate techniques to influence or engage visitors?
- Relevance: Does the content meet the needs of all intended user types?
- Authenticity: Is the content authentic and original?
In her article, Lindy explains how to set benchmarks and make your calculations. Then, you can create a scorecard like this one:
| Qualitative Scores | |||||
| Content A | Content B | Content C | Content D | Content E | |
| Consistency | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Clarity and accuracy | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Discoverability | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Engagement | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Relevance | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Average Qualitative Score | 3.8 | 2.2 | 3.4 | 2.6 | 2.2 |
| Quantitative Scores | |||||
| Exposure | 3.2 | 1.2 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 2.8 |
| Engagement | 1.8 | 2.2 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 2.0 |
| Conversion | 2.2 | 3.2 | 2.8 | 1.5 | 3.0 |
| Average Quantitative Score | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.6 | 2.4 | 2.6 |
| Average Qualitative Score | 3.8 | 2.2 | 3.4 | 2.6 | 2.2 |
| Recommended Action | Review and improve | Remove and avoid | Reconsider distribution plan | Reconsider distribution plan | Review and improve |
By comparing each asset’s scores side-by-side, you can more easily determine the best course of action to take. For example:
- Quantitative scores higher than qualitative: Review the content, looking for ways to optimize it and enhance performance.
- Qualitative scores higher than quantitative: Consider alternative ways to distribute the asset for better performance.
- Low performers: Remove them from your content platforms and avoid creating similar types of content.
- High performers: Promote and reuse these assets regularly. Update your content plan to create more of this type of content.
Get the help you need to get the job done
As you head into a year bound to bring new changes and challenges, use this guidance and tools to enhance your productivity, uphold the quality and value of your content, and enjoy greater success in your content marketing career.
All tools mentioned in this article were suggested by the author. If you’d like to suggest a tool, share the article on social media with a comment.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
