A content pipeline protocol is key to all marketing campaigns.
As such, the efficiency of a campaign depends on the participants in the process and the workflow they follow. The target hits the bullseye when the contributors prepare sufficiently for the process, consciously streamlining their efforts, and vice versa — garbage in, garbage out.
Consequently, it’s vital that companies pay extra attention to this procedure to minimize resource wastage. Discover the essential elements of a content pipeline, ways to prepare effectively, and proven content streamlining strategies for optimal results. Let’s take a closer look!
A Little Background Check: What’s a Content Pipeline?
A content pipeline is an overarching circular flow of content preparation, production, and publication. Failure to optimize any part of this process decreases content quality. You may also regard content pipelines as organized cataloging of all pivotal information in a result-oriented content marketing strategy, which aids the frequent publication of high-quality content.
Related: B2B SaaS Content Marketing Strategy Guide
Ticking The Ps: What Are the Three Ps of the Content Pipeline Process?
You may infer from the above definition that a content pipeline consists of three stages, all of which are equally relevant to your final result. Therefore, it’s imperative to dedicate sufficient resources to all three phases.
- Preparation. Foundations play a vital role in the quality of content; therefore, you should prepare adequately for this step. Preparation represents the strategic decisions you make beforehand to determine your content’s direction and purpose. It consists of creating user personas, finding target SEO keywords, and brainstorming concepts for the blog.
- Production. A meal with excellent ingredients that you fail to cook properly won’t reflect the resources spent in making it. As such, failure to track and organize your content will put your previous preparation efforts to waste. During production, you have to clearly define who’s creating (writing and editing) the article, the blog’s title, and the deadlines, and you must be aware of the creation status at all times.
- Publication. The final phase includes a posting schedule, actual publishing, distribution, and review of finished pieces. You’ll have to feed the things you learn here into subsequent content pieces you create. Posting your masterpiece via the wrong channels or at an inappropriate time may negatively affect the impact of your campaign.
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Content creators should pay close attention to the three phases of a content pipeline for optimal results. Let’s look into the first!
Related: Ways To Repurpose Digital Content
Laying The Groundwork: How Can I Prepare For Content Production?
Laying the mattress for the production phase is quite straightforward. All you need is a willingness to commit to this cause. Keep in mind that neglecting preparation is akin to preparing to fail. Follow these instructions to make the most of this stage.
Define The Content Type To Create
- Selecting the ideal content to produce for maximum impact requires knowing your target audience beyond the surface. You’ll have to unravel their identities, pain points and desires, and the content types they prefer. You may start with an industry, niche, or competitor analysis, as that’ll help pinpoint relevant trends and stats, common pitfalls, and likely future alignments. Afterward, you’ll have to gather all requests for the various departments involved in the content pipeline to gain internal insight.
- This research starts by giving you an idea of the appropriate content type to create. Blogs and videos are the most common options these days. Fortunately, it’s relatively straightforward to produce and incorporate both types in a company’s marketing format. However, you may also settle for other content classes as long as they are currently popular. Producing the types of content trending in your niche or industry passes you off as an expert the audience can trust.
- Other types of content you may produce are:
- Social media content: to engage a relatively young audience (18 to 34 years) and drive traffic
- White papers: to present data or show expertise
- Case studies: to present data or show expertise in an entertaining manner
- Long reads: to provide readers with all there is to know about a topic
- E-books: to show capability due to its better structure
Related: What is Content Writing?
Determine The Content Goals
All content efforts are geared towards achieving your business objectives. Content is king, and its kingdom is equally expensive; creating them has to be purposeful. Put your marketing tools to good use!
- A clear definition of your content goals gives you better directions on tailoring the content towards their achievement. Importantly, it sets a benchmark for measuring the performance of the content.
- Is your blog used to increase brand awareness, engage your clients, or attract new talent? If so, then the common goals for content creation are:
- Improving brand awareness
- Educating clients
- Recruiting new workforce and partners
- Finding your audience’s desires and pain points
- Improving SEO rankings
- Resolving brand rejections
- Increasing conversions
- This step helps structure your content so that your audience takes the exact action you want after reading. However, you’ll have to ensure that it’s an action that benefits your company.
Ascertain The Process And Assign Roles
- This final preparation step involves figuring out the workflow and who’ll be involved in it.
- You may start by determining the vital roles and entities of the content. Creative entities, like designers, writers, and editors, are the usual participants here. However, you’ll have to select the most appropriate hands for the project, too.
- Define the best communication channel through chats (Slack, Discord), web conferences (Google Meet, Zoom), productivity tools (Asana, ProofHub), or email programs (Mailbird, Thunderbird). Whichever you decide, it’s imperative to make sure all team members find it convenient. For example, a medium that collects all emails in one place may be ideal, as it saves everyone the stress of repetitive emails.
- It’s advisable to select a respected participant who’ll track team activities and enforce deadlines. It may be you if your schedule will allow it. You may then define how content ideas are obtained: does the whole team brainstorm, or do you leave it to a few trusted crew members?
- Sorting out these roles, responsibilities, and channels makes sure all activities are covered and avoids setbacks and miscommunications.
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After preparing your content, you’ll be ready to move into its production.
Improving Your Results: How Can You Streamline Your Content Pipeline?
Streamlining the content pipeline ensures that you and your team churn out high-quality content week in, week out with convenience. When combined with the effective use of good spend-management software, a streamlined content pipeline helps reduce marketing costs since it’s a circular process that doesn’t require new employee training schedules or other resources. So, it’s worth taking into account the following steps.
Design a Content Calendar
A content calendar is usually a spreadsheet that includes:
- content type
- topic
- actual date
- campaign owner
- content status
- deadlines
- other criteria you consider important
To create this template, you’ll have to rank your priorities and analyze available resources, including involved people and budgets. This helps you achieve efficient resource allocation by ensuring that you use resources for the most pressing orders. You may need a specialist who can professionally manage your documents (i.e., change margins in Google Docs) for optimal spreadsheet use.
You’ll also have to fix semi-deadlines for the main phases: briefing, first drafts, text ready, proofreading, and publication. When done, cross-check to ensure that your plans tally with the resources at your disposal and your deadlines. Proceed to include vital data that will help track workflow and evaluate performance. These data include the content’s owner, designer, writer, status, SEO keywords, and objectives.
Create a Standard Template
This is a brief you may always use for new tasks as they come. Such a document shows the essential information for any kind of project and therefore helps new team members ascertain the type of data to collect for content.
Your template should contain the target market (audience), vital company information, the article’s general direction, a detailed article’s outline, key points to highlight, SEO keywords, and basic writing guidelines. It’s recommended to create a well-structured brief that can always direct whoever you assign the writing to at all times.
Manage Production
A streamlined content pipeline demands capable supervision, which is often best done by the main person in charge. Therefore, you should keep track of the project progress regularly. Stay in touch with the participants you’ve assigned roles to remind them of deadlines and possible corrections after submission.
Should a particular shortcoming repeatedly appear in all submissions, you may consider improving the writing guidelines, training or retraining the creators or getting more skilled writers. This applies to all other parts of production, such as designing, editing, and proofreading.
Make The Process a Cycle
Avoid becoming a one-time wonder. Note all the steps you take in your first workflow process and repeat them for all subsequent publications. You already know the mistakes to avoid, and things should be simpler. Also, start brainstorming for new topics even while a previous article has not been completed. Make it a point to check old posts before creating new ones; some may only need to be improved and not entirely changed.
Final Thoughts
The quality of your content pipeline has a significant impact on the performance of the content you create. A pipeline that fails to commit enough resources to any of its three Ps will yield low-quality content. Conduct intensive preparation, supervise production and publish appropriately. Streamline this process to make sure your content creations consistently hit the target with more affordable resources.
