7 ways to optimise your content creation process

For most marketers, content marketing is a failsafe way to increase traffic and conversions. Yet many brands are still guilty of trying to create content across their marketing channels consistently. 'Good' content has a purpose.

From long-form blogs to videos, every piece of content needs to be planned, produced, and distributed with a specific audience(s) in mind. A content strategy is essential for any organisation looking to succeed with digital marketing because it provides a roadmap to ensure that your audience's needs drive all content created in your organisation.

Here’s how a structured approach to content creation can help you and your team produce more engaging and valuable content:

Know who you are creating the content for.

Before starting any project:

1. Go back to basics.
2. Have a clear idea of whom you are creating content for and what your audience(s) want to consume.
3. Use your knowledge of your customers to identify audience segments and carry out interviews, customer journey mapping and empathy mapping to find out what your audience wants to see from you.

The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to create content that resonates with them.

Use a content calendar or planner to plan your content output.

It helps to organise and streamline production, especially if you work with multiple teams or outsource tasks.

Rather than making last-minute choices, plan content ideas and base them on keyword research, search intent, and audience insights. You can also find out which channels your audience(s) are more likely to engage with and create content specifically with those platforms in mind.

Know which content formats resonate with your audience/s.

Choosing the right format for a content idea can sometimes be challenging. Look at search intent and use learnings from audience research to see which content formats would engage your audience most. Social media and video content are popular across many industries now - a recent study by HubSpot even found that 85% of companies now use video as a marketing tool. You can also think about how your original content can be repurposed across your marketing channels, for example, repurposing an explainer video into short clips for social media or into a blog.

Create content briefs to set the scene and guide the content creation process.

This is especially useful if the person who plans the content is not the person creating it – for instance, other team members or freelancers. Without a content brief, you risk content being produced that doesn’t meet expectations. You can set out the plan for the piece, the tone, what to cover and answer, which saves a lot of time overall if the content creator has a solid brief to follow.

Have a clear process internally for editing and sign off.

Editing will be more time-consuming for some forms of content or working with freelancers but allocate time for editing and getting feedback. In terms of signoff, it also helps to have a process in place to ensure that the relevant people are ready to give their final opinion rather than timely content sat waiting to be published.

Setup a measurement plan for each piece of content.

After producing your content, you need to find out how effective it was. It not only helps with reporting to internal teams and stakeholders but also informs future content planning.

Work out what success looks like for each piece of content and set objectives and KPIs. Is it to increase conversions, traffic to the site, build brand awareness or reach page one of the SERPs for your keywords? Also, set KPIs such as engagement or direct sales generated to ensure that you can measure success.

Know what channels you are going to share the content in.

Make sure your content reaches your target audience via their preferred channels, whether that's your website, social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook groups), paid advertising, email campaigns, etc. Don't forget, timing can play a part, especially on social channels.

Interact with your audience after publishing on social channels by replying to comments, shares, etc. You don't want your content to have a limited shelf-life as soon as it's published - keep the conversation going! Research popular posting times and your audience's online habits to find the optimum time for it to go live.