In today’s age of constant connectedness, producing content is no longer considered just a nice touch for brands. According to this 2021 Content Marketing Market Forecast and Analysis by Technavio, the content marketing industry is expected to increase by $417.85 billion in the period from 2021 to 2025. The majority of consumers expect brands to create content to gain their interest and nearly 50% of them view between three and five pieces of content before engaging with a sales agent.
So, if you want to stand out, you’ll need to step up your content production.
Of course, improving your content production doesn’t simply mean increasing the number of posts you create. It’s about producing quality content that better serves your target consumers by assisting, educating, and improving their lives.
As expected, it all comes down to good planning. In this post, we’re going to provide you with actional tips that will help you ramp up your content production.
1. Have a Content Planning Strategy in Place
Without a content strategy, you’ll end up producing ineffective content and, as a result, you will be wasting time and money. Having a content plan, on the other hand, will serve as a roadmap of what kind of content you need to create and who you create it for.
Before you get started with creating your content planning strategy, there are two basic things to figure out: First, you need to understand your brand, its values, and its tone of voice. Conducting a SWOT analysis of your competition can be helpful as it will give you an idea of how you can differentiate your brand. Second, you need to take some time to understand your audience. Social media and email surveys are a great way to identify who your readers are.
Finally, your content plan should be aligned with the rest of your marketing plan in order to ensure a consistent brand tone and message.
2. Create an Editorial Calendar
In the digital world of content marketing, consistency is key. However, it is very important to find the right balance. If you post constantly, your audience will get annoyed. On the other hand, if you don’t create and publish enough content, people might forget that you exist. This is where having an editorial calendar can be very handy.
An editorial calendar is actually a timeline of the content you plan to produce. Having one can do wonders for the efficiency of your content production by:
- Allowing your team to set realistic goals for the amount of content they can complete in a day
- Appropriately assigning pieces to creators
- Ensuring timely deliveries
- Making sure you avoid common pitfalls like “gaps” in certain topics or keyword cannibalism
Ideally, you should plan your content production over the long term (over the course of several months or even a year). This will provide focus to the team involved in the project and allow you to grow consistently.
3. Structure Your Content Marketing Team
The wrong team structure can have a serious impact on your ability to produce high-quality content that generates qualified leads and sales. The right structure, on the other hand, will make sure that everyone is performing the tasks they’re qualified for, that no one is stretched too thin, and that your content produces ROI.
According to HubSpot, the top three roles marketing leaders will prioritize hiring in 2022 are:
- Content marketing managers, who execute the planned content strategy by assigning tasks to the right content creators and implementers
- Content strategists, whose job is to drive strategy for SEO, audience targeting, and promotion
- Content creators, whose role is to create blog posts, social media content, video content, etc.
As long as the people who perform these crucial content production roles are adequate, the size of your team won’t matter. Having a small but dedicated team will make internal communication easier and help simplify your workflow.
4. Consider Outsourcing Your Content Marketing Strategy
Another option is to outsource your content production. Taking care of all the tasks that come with content production isn’t easy, and establishing an efficient team can take time and money. Maybe that’s the reason why 37% of small businesses, 54% of medium-sized businesses, and 75% of large businesses outsource at least a part of their content marketing efforts.
Outsourcing means transferring the responsibilities related to content production to a specialized content strategy agency. However, it doesn’t mean completely giving up control over your project.
By outsourcing your content production process, you’ll free your employees from the major tasks that constitute content marketing strategy while actively participating in each stage of the content production process, which includes planning and approving content pieces, managing the team responsible for the project, analyzing the results, and, if necessary, reviewing the strategy.
5. Invest in the Right Tools
Due to the fact that the process of content production can be harder than it seems, investing in the right tools can be a game-changer. There are many different content production tools out there and which ones you choose will depend on your team’s needs and brand objectives. Here are some types of tools to take into consideration.
- Tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs allow you to do in-depth SEO keyword research for your brand, products/services, or new content in order to figure out the exact areas that need to be altered for better results.
- Content marketing tools like BuzzSumo. Instead of juggling among several content marketing tools, consider choosing a single tool that will help facilitate collaboration among team members, create engaging SEO-optimized content, publish content to multiple social platforms in a single click, and track performance with dashboards.
- Video marketing tools. Considering the fact that video is the most-used content format, and that every fourth marketer who uses it says that it is the type of content that provides the biggest ROI, it pays to invest in video marketing tools like Animoto and Vyond.
- Communication tools. Using effective tools including Slack, Zoom, email, etc. allows you to maintain healthy communication with all your team members, offer constructive feedback, and provide the necessary support.
6. Repurpose Your Old Content
If your blog is already filled with content, you can increase the efficiency of your content production process by recycling old pieces of content.
The same content can be made available in several formats – video, image, text, or interactive material. For instance, if you already have large infographics or ebooks, you can turn them into smaller articles or images you can use for social media posts, or you can repurpose video content into podcasts and blog posts.
Repurposing your content also contributes to the UX since users will be able to consume your material in the format that is most convenient for them.
Final Thoughts
Being a content marketer, you constantly have to look for ways to improve. The trends indicate that content production will take the front seat in the near future, so working on boosting your content production is very likely to pay off in the long run. The most important thing to bear in mind when stepping up your content production is that your messaging must remain consistent and that quality will always be more important than quantity.
