Scaling up production can be one of the greatest struggles of marketing content management. Poorly managed marketing agencies and departments will find it difficult, if not impossible, to increase the quantity of content generation without sacrificing quality, and ineffective content is in many ways worse than no content at all.
Content marketing is a vital strategy because it’s affordable and powerful, costing 62% less than traditional marketing while tripling lead generation per dollar. This is an opportunity that few businesses can afford to pass up, but before you can maximize the potential of content creation, you should first consider some key factors to fine-tune the management of your content marketing team.
Develop a Strategy
Your content marketing strategy is the foundation on which all of your future management decisions will be built. In order to properly build and oversee a content marketing team, you can begin by answering some important questions:
- What kinds of content will your team generate?
- How frequently will content be released?
- How many writers will it take to keep this level of production going?
- Do you plan to rely on internal or freelance creators?
- Do your content creators need to have any special expertise?
The answers to these questions will allow you to move forward with clarity and purpose. They will also act as guidelines to ensure that you are managing your team effectively and meeting your content marketing goals.
Establish Clear Structure
Teams prosper under the guidance of strong leadership, which makes it possible to scale up production on an established timetable. The people in these roles will guide the major decisions and output of your content creators, so it’s important to choose them carefully and define their responsibilities.
One of the most crucial positions you will need to fill is managing editor. This individual will keep the team current on best practices in current marketing, offer feedback on work, and strike a balance between reader experience and business objectives.
Build a Talented Team
When managing your content marketing team, search proactively for content creators and seek out the best possible talent. This may seem like a simple and straightforward task, but in reality, it’s complex and requires balancing simultaneous needs.
Find Well-Qualified Creators
One of the first decisions to make is what combination of internal and freelance contributors to have on your team. Hiring freelancers can help your company reduce costs, select from a wide array of content creators, and more quickly scale up production.
Meanwhile, internal employees, particularly those in leadership positions, have deep insights into the overall marketing strategy and aspirations of the company. While the makeup of your content marketing team is largely dependent on the structure and goals of your business, a combination of freelance and internal team members seems to be most effective.
A study by the Content Marketing Institute showed that 50% of the most successful organizations choose to outsource content marketing activities and 57% have more than two internal employees dedicated to content marketing. In contrast, among the least successful businesses, only 17% have more than two internal employees and just 36% outsource content creation.
This demonstrates the value of diversifying your team with a mix of internal and freelance employees who bring a variety of backgrounds to the table. For example, you might want to seek out writers who have backgrounds in journalism, marketing, or a particular niche.
Ultimately, the strength of your content will rest on the talent of your team. It’s nearly impossible to scale production if your team cannot quickly turn around high-quality content.
Value Team Members
Valuing your employees is a critical component of marketing content management. Undervalued team members are typically less motivated to perform at their highest capacity and are unlikely to stay with a company long-term.
However, recognizing the importance of your employees goes beyond upbeat emails and occasional expressions of gratitude. To truly show your team that you appreciate them, you should make their lives easier and their jobs more engaging. There are several ways you can accomplish this goal:
- Simplify the onboarding process so that the expectations, standards, and requirements of the position are clear from the beginning.
- Interact and engage with employees on a regular basis for reasons that go beyond offering critical feedback and asking for changes.
- Build a path to promotion or growth for employees who want it.
- Seek input from the team and respond to it thoughtfully.
In order to scale the production of content marketing, your employees should feel invested in the success of the business. This generally only happens if they feel that they are respected and recognized for their contributions to a company’s achievements in marketing.
Create a Consistent System
One last key to scaling production while keeping marketing content management strong is consistency in your messaging, style, and work methods. If you don’t lay out a set of guidelines, strategies, and techniques to ensure that all creators are on the same page, it’s difficult to ensure that all content matches the values of your business.
Creating a style guide is a central step toward achieving that consistency. It will save your writers and editors time, give your brand a more defined voice, and make it possible to create content that not only draws in readers but also holds their interest.
It’s equally important to streamline and standardize workflows and processes so that every employee is operating efficiently within the same parameters. Likewise, it’s helpful to provide a repertoire of tools that your team can use to simplify crucial tasks, including analyzing search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that content reaches the largest audience possible.
One last essential element to consistency is a content calendar, which helps avoid content production gaps, allows team members to plan ahead, and creates a steady flow of material to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more. Content calendars also make it easier to scale content production because they allow you to delegate and assign tasks in a logical and measured way.
Get Started Today
There are many pieces to consider in the grand scheme of marketing content management, but developing sound strategies makes increased content production a far more realistic and attainable goal. With a team of well-qualified, clearly organized, and properly trained employees, you can continue to grow your content marketing indefinitely.
To learn more about how WriterAccess can help you build a diverse team of freelancers, take advantage of the free 14-day free trial. It will give you a firsthand opportunity to explore the pool of talent that can help maximize the potential of your content marketing team and build a strong foundation for scalability.
