head of content marketing

What do you think of your team’s size? Have you ever wished you had extra staff to help with content planning, development, distribution, promotion, and analysis?

If so, you probably aren’t the only one. According to CMI data, less than five full-time team members make up the majority of content teams.

But like many marketers, it’s unlikely that you’ll suddenly have more money to add staff. Because of this, everything your team produces for your content marketing strategy needs to be significant.

Put these three concepts into action to achieve results, regardless of the size (or lack thereof) of your content marketing staff.

1.Summarize your content marketing plan on one page.

Too frequently, teams begin producing, sharing, and (sometimes) promoting information without first developing (and documenting) a strategy. Additionally, some small teams believe that because they already know their plan, it is not necessary to write it down.

These ideas lead to time-consuming, unsuccessful content marketing. Imagine doing it while travelling without a map or GPS to an unknown location. You might succeed in getting there, but you’ll almost certainly squander time on pointless detours, halts to acquire directions, and return.

Therefore, your content marketing strategy must be documented. However, you don’t need to invest a lot of effort in producing a long, complicated presentation that nobody will have the time to read.

Instead, write down the responses to the following questions and create a one-page content marketing plan document (and, yes, you may use the front and back of a page):

• What are the aims and purposes of your company?
• Whom are you trying to reach? What requirements and interests do they have?
• What are your goals for content marketing? What do you hope your audience will understand, believe, or do?
• What are the main subjects of your content? Your industry and business topics here coincide with the demands and interests of your audience.
• What kind of material do you produce? Determine the formats that can be used for your content marketing strategy, including blogs, videos, infographics, social media, etc.
• Where will this content be published?
• How often will you produce and release this content? (Be practical. It is preferable to raise frequency now rather than to decrease it later.)
• What quantifiable objectives does your content marketing programme have? Transform your content marketing goals into measurable success indicators. Don’t forget to include a deadline for completing each goal.

Do more than just record your content marketing strategy.

Post it somewhere you’ll see it frequently. Send it to all interested parties. Then, add check-in times to your calendar so you can evaluate what is (and isn’t) functioning. Reevaluate your goals and objectives in light of both internal and external factors, such as a new corporate direction (e.g., a global pandemic, etc.).

2.Maximize the material you produce.

For the content, your staff puts in a lot of effort. How to make that content work harder for you is provided here.

The following 10 pieces of content were created from an exclusive e-newsletter article by her content team, as shown in the graphic:

• 3 blog entries
• Three podcast instalments
• a single presentation
• one game of chance
• One test
• Infographic one

Some parts needed no further work, while others required more. However, it still required less time and resources than if they had started from scratch and produced 10 content items.

Can your little team accomplish something comparable? Absolutely.

Consider your audience’s needs while planning your content, and consider how to break up that large notion into smaller, more manageable chunks. To do it, respond to the following inquiries:

• What subject would be most appealing to our intended audience?
• What distinctive stance could we adopt?
• The sources would be, who?
• What would be the main idea presented?
• What further content could be produced with it?
• What extra effort would be required to produce the other pieces?

Use your best work again

According to the Pareto principle, 80% of your outcomes come from 20% of your content. Although your percentages might not precisely match those, I think the idea still holds true for your content marketing: While most of your stuff fails to deliver, some of it does.

Use the stuff that performs well more often. To help you decide what to do and how to do it, consider these questions:

• Which content was successful?
• How is it formatted?
• Should it simply be republished?
• How could it be changed or improved to be relevant and up to date?
• How may it be changed to fit other channels?

In various aspects, the Content Marketing Institute blog adheres to this repurposing strategy.

The small editorial staff revises popular and still-relevant articles to include more recent facts, update dated links, fix source titles, and add fresh perspectives.

Additionally, CMI is aware that its audience enjoys “best-of” content. The team creates a fresh article containing quotes from recently popular ones at least once a year.

The CMI team searches for strategies to broaden the audience for event content. The content team produces blog pieces from livestream interviews, Twitter discussions, in-person and online events, and more. Writers observe the sessions, go through the transcripts, or comb through Tweets and comments before adding context and their own viewpoints.

3.Compile it all.

Workflows and processes rarely inspire inventive content marketers. But creating processes should free up more time for you to work on your creativity.

Establish a master tracker

It’s a terrific step if you have an editorial calendar. Even better if you develop a master tracker, which is essentially an editorial calendar on steroids.

Time is saved by centralising all documentation of your process, from content ideas to publication, and making it available to all stakeholders. In order to determine what has been done, what has to be done, and how effective it is, you won’t need to sift through emails or other messages.

Your master tracker has to contain:

• production method (assignments, reviews, approvals, deadlines)
• components of related content (keywords, headlines, metadata, etc.)
• Objects and measures (dated and updated regularly)
• Immediately produce all pertinent content

The article, infographic, or video is complete. But you can still create more material after that. A headline, meta description, calls to action, etc., are still required. So while you’re writing the original piece, include all those content accoutrements.

Your pertinent content components might include:

• SEO-friendly URL (keywords)
• Headline
• Meta information
• Click-to-tweets
• choices for social media headlines
• Demand for action
• Text that is displayed as a preview in emails
• newsletter excerpt

Making all of this right away makes sense. You’re already thinking about that content’s subject, goal, engaging words, etc. If you put off completing the related content, you’ll probably have to go back and read or watch the original article.

Time and sanity savings

Making a maximised foundation is necessary to make your small content marketing team even more powerful. You’ll save time, maintain your sanity, and produce greater outcomes for your company by designing a one-page plan, doing more with the material you’re already producing, and developing one-stop implementation resources.