Many online marketers are burdened with work every day. From gathering analytics to auditing the website, it seems like the problem of time management is getting worse even during this global pandemic. Just like other online marketers, content marketers also go through the same problem of workload. Unfortunately, company culture does not prioritize mental health so we have to improvise ourselves to save time and reduce stress during content marketing projects.
To streamline, organize, and optimize your marketing processes enough to get the same results; you must plan, ideate, and increase efficiency.
Here are 9 productivity tips to save time in content marketing:
Plan Content More Productively
- Brainstorm Content Ideas in Groups
When you sit down for dedicated brainstorming or idea sessions, make the most of that focus on creative thinking. Once you start brainstorming, don’t stop at one idea. Gather as many ideas until you are sure you have done enough. The first idea is the hardest one to come up, if you got the basic idea of your content strategy, continue down the path, and see where it takes you. This will help you plan and come up with content ideas for your whole a whole campaign, instead of planning one by one.
- Learn to Capture Ideas as You Have Them
Even without dedicated brainstorming sessions, you are likely to get many content marketing ideas on your daily work schedule. When these ideas come, don’t skip; instead, keep a note of those ideas so that you can use them later in your campaign. When your brand receives a social media mention do the same thing, capture it. All the day-to-day customer feedback and insights need to be captured in an idea file to reference when it’s time for your next dedicated brainstorm.
- Plan out Promotion before You Create
Planning should not end even after you have planned your blog posts and email campaigns. Plan in advance how you’re going to promote and repurpose those, too. To avoid confusion after you hit the publish button, plan out where you are going to promote your content, what format to use in your promotion, and how you are going to repurpose your content when it does not work the way you wanted. Also, make both short-term and long-term plans to have an idea of what to do next.
Create Content More Productively
- Use an Outline as a Skeleton
Creating an outline is essential to content marketing. Building a road map helps you figure out where you are going and where you want to stay. By spending 5 minutes outlining your content, you are likely to save 10 to 15 minutes during the writing process.
- Separate Research from Writing
Another way to save time is to perform all research and collect any links you need before you start forming full sentences. Collect the links to all the blog posts you want to reference while writing, find examples that prove your points, and take the help of your seniors or experts before you move on to writing content.
- Create Long-Form Content in Short Sessions
When it is time to start writing, don’t spend long hours writing random sentences. If your content is going to take more than a few hours to produce, break it up into shorter sessions with breaks in between. If you are focused on what you are doing and you are getting valuable ideas, feel free to extend your writing session.
Distribute Content More Productively
- Create a Repeatable Process
First, you need to get the overall content distribution and promotion process organized. Create an overall system and use it as a starting point on all pieces of content. Some of the checklists you can include are:
- When to post on social media?
- Where to schedule those social media posts?
- Listings of communities or forums
- Relevant influencers
- How to email your newsletter subscribers?
- Reuse Copy from Base Content
Don’t try to write all your social and promotional copy from scratch, instead, make use of copy from other posts. Though you will need to customize the copy a bit, you will save a lot of time. Grasp words and quotes from other platforms when drafting promos for your campaign.
- Build-in Future Buffer Time
Use your buffer time after a piece of content has gone live. This gives you time to re-promote, repurpose, and update or optimize things to keep them fresh. Optimizing and repurposing can be done during this buffer time as many content marketers do not plan these.
While you might not see a massive difference immediately, you will definitely see a difference in your work habits and your stress levels in the future.
