A Content Creation Checklist
BY Scribewise
May 28, 2014

When you’re ready to produce some amazing content, what’s your approach? Do you follow a detailed process, or do you create it and publish it whenever you have the time?

Although some would agree that it’s better to have some content than none at all, there is a disadvantage to not paying attention to the other elements of content marketing—content that is disorganized and infrequent is simply not going to be effective or successful.

Content marketing is more than just writing a blog post. It’s a multifaceted strategy that requires all of its moving parts to work together. In order to maximize the potential of a content marketing strategy, you must make sure you address each of those elements.

To ensure your content marketing strategy runs smoothly, here’s a checklist to help guide you:

Create a Publishing Schedule.

Creating consistent content is difficult and most organizations engaging in content marketing struggle to keep up with it—but it needs to be done to satisfy your audience. To achieve consistency, create an editorial calendar with regular publication dates (that your team agrees on) and content topics. 

Identify the Buyer Persona(s).

The buyer persona is what your ideal customer looks like; his/her values, challenges, beliefs, and demographics. By gaining a thorough understanding of your audience, you can create targeted content that they’ll both enjoy and benefit from. 

Set Content Goals.

What do you want your content to achieve? This may change depending on the type of content you create (the goal of an infographic might be different from a video, for example). Whether its brand awareness, education, or social shares, your content should align with your goal(s).

Research Topics.

Once you’ve set your strategy in place, it’s time to start researching. Identify industry-relevant subject matter, as well as popular and current topics. Additionally, check out your competitors to see what kind of content they’re creating, and what works/doesn’t work for their audience.

Strategize Your Ideas.

Writing about the same topic over and over can get redundant. To work around this, find new ways to present stories that are old or have already been covered by others. Is there a new angle for an old concept? Can you create something new? You should also determine the best way to present your content, whether it’s a blog post, video, infographic, podcast, etc. Once you’ve brainstormed a list of items, plot them into your editorial calendar.

Create Content.

Depending on the project, you’ll need varying amounts of time to actually create the content—so allot yourself enough time to create your content. Check out these tips on how to create compelling content your readers will eat up.

Related: The Art and Science of Content Creation

Determine Placement.

Although every piece of content you create should go on your website, the type of content will also determine where else it should go. Does it need to go on YouTube? Should you add it to a microsite? 

Publish & Promote.

Once your content is complete (and edited!), it’s time to post it. Afterwards, distribute it to your audience through email, social media, aggregator sites, and any other place where it might be successful. 

Track & Measure.

Be sure to check the analytics on your website and social platforms to review the performance of every piece of content. This will allow you to determine what topics, formats, etc. gets the most eyeballs. But don’t only check this once—the beauty about putting content out on the Internet is that it lives forever, which means people can engage with your content at any time; a post you wrote a year ago might suddenly get rediscovered and thousands of new views today. And wouldn’t that be nice? 

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