Content is the gasoline to the marketing engine. As marketers, we never seem to have enough content and, just like gas, it can get expensive quickly. That said, the last thing we want is for the engine to hit “empty”, so we need to maintain a consistent stream of content creation.
Though many companies choose to rely primarily on external content creation, at some point, assets will need to be created in-house – whether it’s due to budget or internal expertise. When this time comes, it’s up the marketing team to take this content from idea to finished product.
Unfortunately, the process isn’t as intuitive as you might think. A quality asset requires careful conceptualization, planning, research, and development. It has to balance being interesting and valuable with furthering organization objectives. It’s something that can be very difficult to achieve, especially on the first attempt.
Luckily, this week’s infographic is designed to guide marketers through a step-by-step process for creating quality content. The infographic was produced by Visual.ly using information from Ann Handley’s best-selling book, Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content. The infographic offers twelve steps to take content from a goal to a published piece.
Some key steps from the infographic include:
- Step #1: Goal – This is where it all starts. You should have a micro-goal (driving awareness of a particular product) that connects to a macro-goal of your content strategy (brand awareness, lead generation, etc.)
- Step #2: Reframe – Distill the problem to its simplest elements. You resonate with an audience when you understand the what and why of a pain point.
- Step #5: Write to One Person – Choose a single buyer persona and pretend that you are writing directly to that person. Often, giving your persona a name and background makes this easier.
- Step #10: Have Someone Edit – Content, especially substantial assets, must have (at least) two sets of eyes on it. Even the most detail-oriented writers can miss things when proofreading their own work.
Let us know what you think:
- What’s your process for developing content?
- Which steps are most crucial?
- Which steps are most challenging?
