How to optimize your content marketing workflow for better team collaboration

Content marketing is a constantly shifting landscape. Audience expectations change with the wind, with new trends rising and falling faster than PR and marketing agencies can keep up.

Optimizing content marketing workflow is essential to creating relevant, timely, and high-quality content. Content teams need direction, and optimizing workflow provides a foundation to build on.

Think of it like a roadmap. You wouldn’t set off on a long journey with a target destination without some kind of map. Creating a content marketing workflow is your roadmap to success.

In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of optimizing content marketing workflow and how you can streamline your content marketing strategy for better team collaboration.

The benefits of content workflow

Before we get into it, let’s look at why it’s so important to optimize your content marketing workflow.

Content marketing workflow is the journey your content team takes from ideas all the way to published content. To create a more cohesive, organized, and efficient journey, workflow optimization is a must.

The benefits of content workflow optimization include:

• Better organization of projects and teams
• Better team collaboration
• Less room for mistakes or delays
• Easier identification and resolution of roadblocks
• Streamlined content creation processes leading to better content quality and relevancy
• Better scheduling and deadline management

Like a sales team having the right sales tools for prospecting, marketing teams need optimized content workflow. Workflow encapsulates tasks, roles, timelines, collaboration, and outcomes for every piece of content and every marketing campaign.

Workflow optimization can improve every aspect of your content creation process.

How to boost team collaboration with content marketing workflow

Now that we understand the benefits of content workflow, let’s look at how you can optimize your content creation workflow.

Build the right tech stack

Every PR and marketing agency needs a tech stack. Content workflow software helps teams streamline, organize, communicate, and monitor operations. 

It’s crucial to remember that optimizing your content workflow isn’t just about the tools you use; it’s also about integrating various aspects of your marketing strategy. For instance, remember to include PR in your marketing plan to ensure a holistic approach to reaching your audience.

There are plenty of tools out there to fit any business size and budget. Here are a few essentials to consider:

• Customer relationship management – CRM software helps store and analyze customer data like contact details, purchase history, payment information, etc. 
• Content creation tools – from Canva to Grammarly, content creators need tools to inspire, develop, and edit their work. Movavi Video Editor can also be a valuable addition for video content creation, offering intuitive editing features for smoother workflow.
• Content management systems – a CMS helps you manage your website, landing page, blog posts, etc.
• Social media platforms – social media is an integral part of any content marketing strategy.
• Collaborative tools – every content team needs tools to facilitate leadership, communication, brainstorming, file sharing, scheduling, and shared editing. 
• Performance management tools – Including these in your tech stack can also significantly enhance team productivity by providing insights into individual and team performance, setting goals, and tracking progress.
• Data analysis – data collecting, storage, and analytics tools help teams gain valuable insights.

It seems like a lot, but many content workflow solutions offer all-in-one or modular options that fit your unique needs. 

When building your content marketing tech stack, consider:

• Your budget and specific requirements
• The skills needed to operate new tools
• Whether your new tools integrate well with your existing infrastructure or if you need an application modernization strategy to upgrade legacy tools
• If you’ve taken your team’s opinions into consideration
• If your tools are trustworthy and meet relevant security requirements like data regulation.

Buying tech just for the sake of having it isn’t useful. To build the best PR and marketing tech stack, ask your content team, talk to other professionals, and do plenty of research. 

Choose a type of workflow

Choosing the right kind of content workflow will help your team function as a unit rather than separate parts. Workflows keep things organized and moving.

There are a few workflow types to consider: task-based, status-based, and hybrid.

Task-based workflow is a rigid approach to creating content. It takes each stage of the content creation process and breaks them down into a checklist of tasks for your team to focus on.

Task-based workflow focuses on one task at a time. Teams must complete each task sequentially before moving on to the next. 

This kind of workflow is great for big marketing projects with lots of stages. It keeps things organized and teams on track. 

Status-based workflow focuses on the progress of different tasks as they move along the timeline. 

Tasks aren’t rigidly sequential – they can be completed in any order and alongside each other. So when a task goes from the to-do stage to the in-progress stage, it’s physically moved into the next column on the board.

To utilize status-based workflow, you’ll need something like a kanban board. This allows you to visually monitor the progress of each task.

A task-based workflow is a more flexible approach to content marketing. 

As its name suggests, a hybrid workflow takes aspects of both task and status-based workflows to create something more optimized for your team.

Defining a workflow is important, but it doesn’t have to be so uncompromising. You can play with the approach to mesh your favorite aspects of each type of workflow. 

Define roles within your team

Every content marketing team looks different. 

Your content marketing agency startup might be a team of two. You might be a global PR giant with a multinational team of hundreds. 

Either way, you need to define everyone’s roles to streamline workflow, assign tasks, and maintain leadership. 

Whilst every team does look different, there are some core roles that lay the foundation of your content marketing team:

• Chief content officer – the CCO is a C-suite position, responsible for creating the overall content strategy
• Content marketing manager – the CMM is like a project manager, responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the content marketing team
• Content strategist – the person responsible for developing a content marketing strategy, with a strong understanding of target audience, market, SEO, and business data
• Content creators – the content writers, artists, videographers, podcasters, and other creatives who make the magic happen
• Content editors – the ones who make the magic coherent and on-brand
• Analysts – data analysts look at the performance of content marketing strategies and gain actionable insights.

Now that looks like a lot of roles for a team of two. When assigning content team roles, it’s helpful to look at roles as activities. 

There is always overlap. The content marketing manager might also be a senior editor, for example. A content strategist is usually great at looking at audience data and creating strategies based on insights.

Content marketing teams are flexible, with one person wearing many hats or many people wearing the same hat. 

Assigning roles to the team members with the most experience and encouraging a free flow of ideas and innovation is the best way to manage your team’s responsibilities. 

Establish content marketing goals

Without a clear goal, your team’s focus risks becoming fractured. 

The fast-paced nature of content marketing means it’s easy to become distracted and veer off-course. Defining your goals up-front and setting clear targets is essential to progress.

Some examples of content marketing goals include:

• Increasing the size of your audience
• Targeting new audiences
• Growing your social media following
• Improving click-through rates across emails, blog posts, and social media posts
• Finding innovative sales opportunities like implementing meddic sales methodology

Content goals should align with brand goals. They should be achievable and measurable, with data available to track metrics. 

Manage content schedules

Every piece of content needs a schedule, and audience expectations are high, putting the burden of delivering regular and consistent content on brands.

To effectively manage content workflow and aid team collaboration, you’ll need a schedule. 

First, work out how often you need to release content – one blog post a week, a monthly email newsletter, two social media posts a day, etc. 

Then, make sure you’re hitting those deadlines. 

There are a few ways you can manage your content schedule:

• Email marketing platforms can help you deliver your newsletters and marketing content on time
• Social media platforms let you queue and schedule posts
• Content management systems manage and publish your blog posts
• Content calendars help you manage posting schedules across all platforms

Analyze

Optimizing workflow requires making continuous improvements to your content creation process. To improve, you need to take historical data and assess what worked and what didn’t.

By examining the insights gained from data analysis, such as audience engagement metrics and audience reactions, your team can harness valuable knowledge to refine content marketing efforts and make informed decisions for future content creation and strategy.

After every post and marketing campaign, it’s important to analyze the data.

Have you delivered on time? Have you hit your targets? What did engagement look like on your latest piece of content? What was the audience reaction?

This data will help you refine your content marketing efforts, as well as gain insight into other business operations like your BANT sales method.

If your team struggled to meet a deadline, for example, you can look at your scheduling process and find any roadblocks to delivery time. 

Optimizing content marketing workflow for better team collaboration

Marketing and PR agencies have their work cut out for them. 

Marketing has changed a lot over the past few years. Where traditional marketing focuses on spreading brand awareness, modern audiences expect a more personalized relationship with brands. 

Content marketing is the top dog when it comes to building those relationships. 

But in an ever-changing landscape of trends and expectations, keeping up with audiences can leave content marketers falling behind. 

Optimizing content marketing workflow is the key to keeping teams focused and content relevant. Utilize tools, develop a workflow strategy, define roles, and establish targets to create a more streamlined and collaborative content marketing strategy.