Content Marketing: 6 Steps to Maximize Efficiency
Content marketing represents a crucial component of any successful business strategy. However, the dual demands of time and money make content creation challenging. The long-term benefits of content marketing are undeniable, yet the immediate time investment required can be overwhelming. This often leads to neglected content strategies, which can have significant repercussions, such as diminished audience and engagement and an underdeveloped email list. Ultimately, this leads to chasing your next client rather than building a brand with predictable yearly growth.
Abandoning content creation isn't a viable solution, but neither is dedicating endless hours to it without seeing immediate returns. The solution lies in creating an efficient system. Below are six steps we used to reduce our content creation time across all of our client’s work by 70%. Implement these in your business, and you’ll produce more content in a fraction of the time without compromising quality.
One: Define Your Content Pillars
Content pillars (topics, buckets, etc. - whatever you'd like to call them) are the foundation of your content strategy. They help categorize the ideas and concepts you wish to be recognized for in your industry. Ask yourself: "What am I an expert in, and what do I wish to become known for?" Mix tactical (how-to guides, practical advice) and philosophical (industry insights, thought leadership) topics to provide actionable value and big-picture thinking. One of these pillars should naturally lead to discussions about your services, allowing you to add value while subtly promoting your offerings. Take the time to define at most four content pillars that will drive all the content you create in the future.
Two: Repurpose Content Across Platforms
Adopt a One-One-One content system, where one blog post generates one email and one day of social media content, yielding posts for multiple weeks. This approach maximizes the utility of each piece of content, ensuring a unified message across all channels and reducing the need to generate new ideas constantly. Here's how I'd recommend tackling this:
One blog: Written in line with one of your content pillars
One email: Pair a personal story or message per the blog theme. Drive readers to learn more by checking out your blog.
One day of social media: Take your blog and generate at least four social media posts. These could be a carousel, infographic, quote, fact, Q&A video, etc. Pick a day of the week you'll share these posts, say Tuesday. Now, post one post a week for four weeks on Tuesday. Once your posts expire, you can backfill them with the next blog's posts.
In this model, the more blogs you write, the more emails and days of social media you'll fill, giving you a seamless flow of content derived from your base, long-form content - your blog.
Three: Implement a Structured Content Calendar
Creating a structured calendar for your blogs, social media, and email marketing campaigns is essential. This step involves mapping out the type and quantity of content you'd like to publish each month on your blog, email, and social media, simplifying the entire process.
You'll start by mapping out your One-One-One strategy based on a monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly blogging strategy. I'd highly recommend weekly, but if you're just starting or haven't been consistent, start with monthly and build on it.
Once you lay out that foundation, you can fill it in with other social media posts. Some ideas could be sharing testimonials, shared articles, industry tips, etc. Check out this image of a social media posting strategy if you were to create a monthly blog.
Now, you have a system for your content that allows you to break it into more manageable chunks. You can look at it like, "I just need one shared article, one testimonial, etc." not, holy cow, what do I talk about for 12 posts? Rinse and repeat this structure every single month. If something spontaneous pops up, throw it in there, but this gives you a base to fall back on.
Four: Batch Your Content Creation in 3 Ways
I'm sure this one is familiar. We all know that you can get into a flow state by grouping tasks together and doing them faster. But we take batching to a whole new level, and I recommend you do the same.
Monthly Content Creation: This is what you're likely thinking when I say batch content creation. Start by creating a month's worth of content in one sitting. Although it might seem overwhelming at first, this approach can save you considerable time in the long run. Plus, it helps you get ahead, which takes the intensity and stress out of the whole thing.
Group Like Work Together: Group similar tasks together, even within the content development process. Plan all your content at once so you know exactly what you are creating across your blog, email, and social channels. Next, I like to do my longer-form copywriting for my email and blog. After that, I take a mental break and shift to design work in Canva, creating all the social media graphics at once. Finally, I write all the shorter captions for social media at once. This is MUCH faster than if you went from concept-copywriting-design-more to copywriting for every piece of content individually. As an aside, sometimes I break up my "monthly content creation" into separate time blocks by like tasks if I can't do it all in one sitting.
Idea Batching is one of my new favorites. Go back to your structured content calendar with your standard post and content rotation month over month. Say 'Shared Article' is on your monthly rotation. When you sit down to grab an article to share, don't just grab one; grab a few while you're at it! Keep a running list of ideas somewhere; we use a Notion database. That way, you don't have to start the idea generation process over every month - you have a steady stream of ideas ready to go.
Five: Embrace AI and Software Tools
Would this be an efficiency article if I didn't mention AI? Obviously not. Incorporating AI, such as ChatGPT, can significantly accelerate the creative process. AI can help generate ideas, draft content, and even fine-tune copy, reducing the manual effort required. One of my favorite hacks is to talk out my blogs into a voice recorder that will transcribe to text, then drop that text into ChatGPT to clean it up into something coherent - then make edits from there.
Additionally, I utilize software tools like Loomly for scheduling, Grammarly for editing, and email service providers for campaign management. These tools streamline your workflow, allowing you to focus more on strategy and less on manual tasks.
Six: Leverage Templates for Consistency and Speed
Designing a series of templates for your core content types can dramatically reduce the time needed for content creation. Carve out a few hours to jump into Canva and create two templates for every kind of post you plan to produce based on your structured content calendar. Then, copy these templates again but flip the color scheme from dark to light or vice versa in your branded colors, creating four templates for every post type. This ensures consistency across your content and speeds up the design process, as you won't need to start from scratch each time.
Let’s Maximize Your Content Creation Efficiency
Implementing these strategies can streamline your content marketing efforts, making the process more efficient and manageable. If you're looking for further guidance, Weatherby Media can create this entire system for you and deliver detailed content calendars, templates, training, ChatGPT prompts, and more every quarter. Or, our Simple Marketing Systems Framework will provide all the tools and guide you through creating this system on your own.
I'd love to chat more about your marketing systems so we can create a well-oiled machine that makes content creation fun and effortless again. Grab time on my calendar for us to connect.
Let’s Meet Up!
Our Simple Marketing Systems will streamline your content marketing to be more effective and efficient. You can engage with this framework with two different levels of support:
Custom Content Strategies: Custom annual editorial calendars and 90-day detailed content calendars tailored to your brand complete with trainings, ChatGPT prompts and Canva templates.
Creative Agency OS: End-to-end operating system for your creative agency to guarantee profitability and scalability. Includes project management, time & people management, client boarding, quoting, job costing, staff training & onboarding, and more.
