Are you looking to create more impactful content and at the same time maximize efficiency?

Creating content in today’s overly-saturated online environment requires a delicate balance between creativity and logic.

The creative side includes building content that’s unique, useful, and appealing. The logical side of content includes focusing on how to engineer search engine optimization, how to reach the right audience, and how to maximize the efficiency of output.

But here’s the good news: You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. In other words, you don’t have to sacrifice your time and resources to create high-quality content.

How to Step up Your Content Creation

We’ve come up with five actionable tips for content creation to maximize efficiency and content appeal.

Let’s jump in!

1. Target High Priority Persons and Buy Stages

By targeting high priority personas and buying stages, you’ll increase your content’s impact. First, segment your customers based on information such as demographics, location, etc. Second, break up each persona into different stages of the buying journey.

As a result, you can more efficiently and effectively create content for every variety of customer.

Let’s pretend you work for a company that sells customer experience software, and you develop the following customer profile: Joann from Utah works as the CEO of finance, and she’s at the awareness stage of her buying journey. Based on this information, you can create content that speaks directly to Joann. For example, you might create an infographic titled “20 Customer Experience Statistics you Need to Know for 2018.” This content is designed for someone who’s considering purchasing customer experience software, but they have a busy job, and they like to know the facts quickly.

Actionable step: Take a look into implementing a social listening tool that will help to identify who’s saying what about your brand or industry. Look here for killer examples of content designed for each stage of the buying journey.

2. Create Derivative Content From Large Assets

Have you taken a look at your assets lately? What have you been developing with your team that differentiates your brand from the competition? Have you taken a look at old content that can be repurposed into something new and valuable?

Brainstorm new ways that you can create derivative content from your large assets.

Examples of assets that can be transformed into derivative content:

• Snowfall: Combine text with interactive visuals such as video, graphics, and even augmented reality or 360 images to create a story. Here’s an example from the New York Times.
• Cheat Sheets: Summarize information that your audience finds tedious to consume in large chunks. Here’s an example of a WordPress cheat sheet.
• eBooks: Package 15,000 words or more of practical information into a downloadable eBook. Not only is this good for creating appealing content but it’s also a useful brand promotion technique. Here’s an example of an eBook from Kapost.
• Infographics: Visuals are an excellent way to grab your reader’s attention and to get your information to stick. Here’s an example of one of our most recent infographics.

Actionable Step: Take a look at our Derivative Content Model white paper to help get you started.

3. Develop Workflows

Create repeatable and team-wide visible workflows to:

• Visualize exactly who has what deadlines
• Increase access to information
• Improve content completion estimates
• Identify bottlenecks
• Improve focus on other parts of the content creation process like strategy
• Create efficient best practices

Creating a workflow is a way to take a step back and ask yourself, “Which parts of my content creation process need improvement?”

Although creating a workflow takes time and effort, it’s a short-term pain for a long-term gain. Once completed, you’ll see efficiencies in many parts of your process that otherwise wouldn’t have been realized.

Actionable Step: To start your workflow, layout each step in your content creation process and arrange them in the order that they need to be completed. Choose a workflow diagram that works for you and your team. Find more tips here on how to tame content chaos with a workflow.

4. Carve Out Time For Brainstorming Ideas

Coming up with high-grade blog post ideas can often be the most challenging part of the content creation process. At the beginning of each content creation term, carve out time for brainstorming as many epic ideas as possible. This way, your writers will have a large pool of ideas to choose from when it’s time for them to get to writing.

Actionable Step: Create a spreadsheet divided into sections based on customer profiles from tip one. Brainstorm 10-20 ideas with your team members for each category. Use tools like Buzzsumo, see what your competitors are writing about, and take a look at industry news to give you some inspiration.

5. Use Your Resources

Don’t be afraid to take advantage of resources from marketers before you. This means research, research, and more research! Check out eBooks, infographics, models, and other resources form marketers that you know and trust to help you create better content.

Like creating a workflow chart, researching reputable resources will take time, but it will save you in the long run.

Actionable Step: Don’t be afraid to use the resources that you have right in front of you, too! Check out user-generated content, publish behind-the-scenes posts, and conduct interviews with industry experts that you have relationships with.

Key Takeaways

As a result of implementing these five tips, you’ll be able to create content that’s both relevant and interesting to your audience—and content that performs well on the technical side of things.

Remember, when it comes to developing your content creation process, you have to sacrifice short-term pain for long-term gain!