As 2024 starts, marketing teams shift their focus to year-end analysis, audience research, and planning what’s coming for this new year. It’s a well-known fact that success is the result of 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Having worked with small businesses for over a decade, I’ve encountered visionary entrepreneurs who lack the time and resources to maximize their content marketing potential. It’s understandable that businesses prioritize their day-to-day operations over content creation, but neglecting content can hamper their marketing strategy.
It’s time to change the game. From my personal experience, I can attest that having the right platform is a game-changer.
The technologies you choose play a crucial role in your success
Leading the experts who run the content marketing operation for 8+ accounts each, I can confidently say that technology is one of our top allies.
Our marketing suite consists of three robust platforms: Google Suite, HubSpot, and WriterAccess.
WriterAccess has two methods of use: you can simply utilize the platform and depend on our freelance experts to deliver content within your strategy, or you can opt for managed services to assist you with both strategy and operations.
I’ll delve deeper into that, showcasing how two experts manage to implement a minimum of 28 distinct marketing strategies for different products, goals, and personas.
Topic Pitches: skip brainstorming and simply approve pitches provided by talented writers
Pitching topics for content production typically consumes around 15 minutes per piece (at the very least). Considering only one strategy with 10 contents per month, that’s almost three hours saved to focus on other tasks.
Our experts simply place an order, select the topic pitches, and our freelance writers provide ideas for the content.
To get even better pitches, we provide them with specific details, like references to explore, direct instructions regarding the persona’s needs, and the structure we want pitches to be created with, such as the goal, title, and headings suggestions.
Clients approve the best topics according to their preferences, and it automatically proceeds to content production.
Recurring Orders: automating the workflow
Another time-saving feature is the recurring order. After determining the number of content orders required for the quarter, we set up recurring orders with topic pitches to continuously receive new ideas automatically. This eliminates the need to place orders repeatedly.
We prefer working with quarterly timeframes, but it could be automated for the whole year even, or just one month depending on the strategy.
Recurrent orders are mostly helpful for clients or projects that don’t have detailed content planning guidelines, otherwise the bulk order would be the one to save lots of time.
Bulk Import: Efficiency at its Best
Bulk importing saves at least five minutes per content placement.
We have three standardized ways to start content production in the managed services operations, and the following is our preferred.
We first place a strategy order for a certain number of contents linked with the strategic assets and guidelines on the Tools Portal, covering important branding and SEO instructions.
A freelance strategist works on the order for an average of five days, and we manage the back-and-forth of questions to make the most of it. A simple alert system and the platform’s communication feature facilitate our lives.
Next, the customer approves the contents in the mapping, and we bulk import all the approved contents at once, to place them into production. By the end of the month, we saved more than 12 hours in order placement.
Templates: the best way to save time with quality and editing
It’s hard to achieve quality when you rely on each team member’s own conception of what that would be. That’s why to streamline content production with quality and consistency, we use templates extensively.
When we start planning the client’s workflow, our experts create templates based on the most important guidelines and preferences for the client’s workflow.
Instead of spending time on every order set-up, our experts spend their time revising and improving templates, as they receive feedback, the client’s strategy is updated and they get insights into content quality.
I can assure you that multiple copy-and-paste clicks are dismissed throughout the day. A couple of hours saved here too. Not bad at all, right? But there’s even more time to be saved with templates.
The secret for templates is that the more direct guidelines and resources for producing the content you have, the less time for reviews and edits is needed, as content tends to be delivered much more aligned with our expectations.
This means that the content will have fewer rounds of reviews and edits and that the freelancer will find it easier to achieve the expectations.
There are 7 add-ons that I highly recommend for even more efficiency
In my team’s operations, we’re always testing ways to scale good processes, and add-ons are a smart part of it. To further enhance efficiency, we add to the order: image research, meta title, meta description, and social media copies to spread the content to the world.
We just select the ones required, and the writer provides us with those extra services for a very fair price.
This is also helpful for templates, I might remind you. One time select the add-ons and they’ll be saved for all next orders.
More time saved on content production! This way, when the content is ready and approved to be published to the client’s blog, we don’t need to create SEO copies or search for cover images.
Talented professionals available one message away
Running a content marketing machine can be easier when connected to a vast network to work with you on demand.
I estimate we save at least 40 entire working days by producing content externally and still if done internally, we would not be able to cover all content needs, such as industry-specialized content, video, and design.
Looking for talented professionals for content production can be really overwhelming. I remember when I started my own content agency back in 2016, I had to hire freelancers for different skills from web development to writers to work on demand for short projects.
Besides the time spent searching for the right profile, I still couldn’t be sure that everything would run well. I can’t imagine how happy 25-year Carol would be to rely on a platform that had safe payment systems, quality standards, reliable profile checking, and support for matters on the way. Without mentioning contracts and terms that must be agreed between parts, managing communication, and so much more.
This all looks like it’s far from saving time, but working with the right platform enables us to skip all of that and connect with the right talent, quickly and easily.
Having access to an amazing talent network through the WriterAccess marketplace, I use the advanced search to search for specific expertise or publish casting calls pitching for the project to receive talent applications to work on it, the easy breeze as a good inbound machine that generates plenty of good leads.
Next, we message the freelancer to explain more about the project requirements and invite them to the client’s list with expectations already aligned. If you’re thinking about whether or not we have templates for that too, the answer is yes.
Love List: Building a Strong Creative Team
Building a reliable creative team is another key time-saving strategy.
While the initial onboarding phase may require time and effort to test freelancers and provide feedback, once we’ve assembled the client’s dream team, content production becomes smoother with fewer revisions and adjustments.
Putting effort into the first month allows us to build the team for the whole year, making only a few adjustments as the project evolves.
Saving time, energy, and resources: looks like magic, but it’s just technology
See how working with the right platform is key for Rock Content operations?
These are only some of the ways we use WriterAccess to manage the content marketing production of hundreds of pieces a month with a very small team of 2 experts, enhanced by the power of collaboration and the right systems.
That’s how WriterAccess facilitates content marketing management and saves time to focus on what matters the most.
Wanna know more about it?
WriterAccess is a content platform with over 15,000 expert talents available for brands to create high-quality content, regardless of their niche and specialty.
Utilizing AI tools, integrations with various platforms, and smart dashboards, WriterAccess not only aids in the creation of unique content but also facilitates the tracking of the entire end-to-end strategy – from developing your persona to publishing the content.
Try it free for 14 days to see if it makes sense to include it in your marketing routine—as it has proven, it can really save precious strategic time.
