5 Steps to Build a Streamlined Content Operation Workflow

You’ve heard the expression, “Work smarter, not more durable.”

Content marketing groups would do nicely to undertake that philosophy. Exhausting work alone can’t resolve the wrestle to satisfy the calls for for extra (and higher) content material. Smarter work, although, can take away the friction, confusion, and manufacturing inefficiencies that may hinder their success.

Smarter work requires clear operational workflows and well-defined processes. In case your workforce lacks these foundational parts, necessary duties fall via the cracks, and nobody is aware of the subsequent steps or who’s answerable for seeing them via. Finally, chaos reigns, content material high quality suffers, and the workforce wastes time fixing manufacturing issues whereas your opponents resolve your viewers’s challenges.

With this streamlined, five-step course of, you possibly can map workflows for every content material format and variation your workforce produces usually. Then, you possibly can construct executable processes that make manufacturing extra manageable. The templates and examples can information you thru every step.

Step 1: Audit your content material codecs

First, you want a high-level view of all of the content material deliverables and distribution for every format.

Create a template with these columns — content material format, main distribution platform, further distribution platforms, and particular circumstances and variation.

• Content material format: Do you create articles? E-books? Stay shows? Webinars? Visible content material? Create a row for every format your workforce usually produces.
• Major supply platform: The place is every format revealed or shared first? Ideally, it’s an owned-media platform, like your weblog or through e mail. Nonetheless, if it’s an exterior platform like social media, be aware the vacation spot.
• Further distribution platforms. Do you employ this content material format on different channels? Listing them. This step helps floor missed duties within the course of, similar to importing belongings to your model’s social pages via an admin account or resizing photos to platform specs. It additionally accounts for post-publishing steps to offer a constant multiplatform expertise.
• Particular circumstances and variations. Do you gate some e-books as lead-gen magnets whereas different e-books stay ungated? Are movies added to your newsletters solely whenever you’re selling an occasion or particular provide? Word any variations that require further steps or a definite manufacturing course of.

TIP: If a content material format is used considerably in a number of methods, checklist these makes use of in separate rows. For instance, movies might need two rows, Video — YouTube and Video — Instagram Tales.

At this level, focus solely on the high-level duties in your operations workflow. Finer particulars like design wants, who creates the content material, and who must approve it’ll come later (step three).

Right here’s an instance of how an audit would possibly look:

Step 2: Listing all duties required for every format

Subsequent, element all of the editorial, collaborative, and technical manufacturing duties to provide every content material format for its main platform.

Chances are you’ll need to begin with essentially the most incessantly produced or essentially the most crucial to your content material targets. Alternatively, start with essentially the most advanced asset, which includes a number of groups or many steps to provide and distribute. You’ll see why in a minute.

Don’t fear about placing the duties so as. Simply checklist them as they arrive to thoughts. For instance, an editorial article in your web site’s weblog would possibly embrace this job checklist:

• Decide subject.
• Schedule publication within the editorial calendar.
• Edit submitted copy.
• Load copy and pictures to the content material administration system.
• Format content material for structure.
• Ship edited copy to writer and stakeholders for revisions/approval.
• Request gross sales/advertising and marketing suggestions on the subject.
• Set metadata particulars for search engine marketing.
• Ship hyperlinks/belongings to the contact particular person for the each day e mail e-newsletter.
• Design and develop visible photos.
• Collect writer bio data/belongings.
• Brainstorm particular story angles.
• Establish and interview subject material professional(s).
• Acquire metrics/generate efficiency studies.
• Assign writer to jot down copy.
• Proof and approve the ultimate structure.
• Share efficiency knowledge with stakeholders.
• Publish content material to its main platform.
• Share hyperlinks/belongings with content material companions for his or her utilization.

A few of these duties could have a number of sub-steps. For instance, formatting the article may contain importing and resizing photos, including hyperlinks, setting class tags, and many others. However for this train, stick with broad job classes.

Step 3: Manage duties by manufacturing stage

Subsequent, for every format, group the duties in sequential order into pre-production, manufacturing, and post-production phases, as proven within the template beneath.

Be at liberty so as to add clarifying particulars to your job descriptions. They might assist workforce members distinguish generally confused actions, like enhancing for substance vs. closing proofreading.

To assist manage your duties in logical order, additionally reply these questions:

• Which duties should occur earlier than others can begin?
• Which duties can occur concurrently?
• What duties denote a stage is full and the subsequent can start?

Your processes should account for requirements and necessities set on the enterprise degree or that contribute to different organizational capabilities. For instance, you could have to set metadata particulars in line with your enterprise SEO strategy or adjust to organizational procedures, like securing signed contributor agreements.

If these steps didn’t make it onto your preliminary job checklist, add them. (Within the instance above, I added “facilitate governance necessities” that wasn’t on the unique job checklist. In case you’re uncertain what these duties contain — or learn how to fulfill them — discover out. It’ll solely make your work more durable if that you must plug in or reorder steps after you’ve mapped the operational workflow.

Step 4: Assign roles and map how work will movement

From right here, you add a column to set roles and tasks for every job. With this data, you possibly can create a map displaying how manufacturing efforts movement from one position to the subsequent.

The primary half is comparatively simple, particularly if in case you have a small, centralized content material advertising and marketing workforce and clearly outlined roles. For collaborative duties, embrace all folks (or the departments they symbolize) who should act earlier than that job is full. On this instance, I slotted in some pre-production roles as a information:

Figuring out roles might be extra difficult for bigger enterprises or these with shared content material tasks throughout departments. Nonetheless, as soon as you fit your content material advertising and marketing workforce members into their customary areas of duty, you possibly can see the place gaps exist. That may assist establish the interior groups to strategy for collaborative help.

Moreover, it helps pinpoint areas the place you lack sufficient capabilities or protection so you possibly can proactively fill them by outsourcing expertise or incorporating generative AI instruments. Chances are you’ll uncover pointless redundancies that may be eradicated.

The chart now supplies all the data wanted to grasp the editorial article format workflow. Nonetheless, remodeling it right into a shareable graphic or map might help stakeholders visualize how they match within the manufacturing continuum and what nonetheless must occur.

Step 5: Operationalize and iterate

You listed the duties and mapped the order of operations for a content material format. Now, implement it as a repeatable course of. Create a mechanism to trace and handle the duties as they get completed and guarantee everybody has what they should do their half.

You need to use the detailed dashboards supplied in undertaking administration instruments like Asana or Jira to construct a classy system. Another choice is to create custom-made trackers and checklists utilizing cloud-based work instruments like Airtable, Trello, or Notion. Nonetheless, essentially the most simple strategy could also be to repeat the data from the templated chart right into a shareable Google spreadsheet or Excel doc.

Now, you possibly can adapt the method for variations of the content material format. Right here’s how that works:

• Revisit the unique desk that notes distinctive circumstances and variations that require a unique set of steps.
• Stroll via the duties on the chart (step two). Delete pointless duties for the variation and establish any to be added. For instance, with a sponsored weblog submit (a variation of a weblog article), you could have to combine the shopper’s emblem and boilerplate copy or facilitate their copy overview and approval course of.
• Assign roles for newly added duties.

With this mannequin, you possibly can repeat this course of for every usually used content material format, so you could have a complete content material operations tracker.

Construct, revise, repeat, and obtain

Content material advertising and marketing groups juggle many tasks. Why not make their jobs simpler by working smarter? Map the operational workflows and construct dependable processes that empower their efficiency.

In case you resolve to do that shortcut, I’d love to listen to the way it labored — or the way you tailored it to work higher in your workforce.