You have a list of blog ideas and white paper topics. You’ve identified opportunities for case studies, repurposing content, and announcing company updates. You know which ideas are top-of-funnel demand generation pieces of content. That’s an excellent start, but it’s just that, a start. Scaling your content marketing involves more than generating ideas and running with them.
Content at scale is when your brand consistently produces high volumes of high-quality content while keeping a close eye on the content’s quality rather than quantity. It’s a balancing act that challenges many content marketers. They know content is king and their best mechanism for growing their brand’s awareness and, ultimately, their bottom line.
This guide talks about how to scale your content marketing successfully and why nDash is a good solution for helping you achieve that goal.
Challenges with Scaling Content Marketing
Reading Altimeter’s report, The 2021 State of Digital Content, teaches us that it’s an immense challenge for brands to produce relevant and credible content quickly and at scale. The challenge doesn’t lie solely in creating a massive amount of content – producing high volumes of content at scale without sacrificing quality is a pain point many brands face. Remember, you’re not just focusing on blogs – content includes social posts, ebooks, infographics, case studies, and the like.
Here are some strategies for overcoming challenges when scaling your content marketing:
- Create a content strategy
- Develop a brand style guide for writers to follow
- Partner with a content creation platform (like nDash!)
- Identify the tools you’ll need to scale your content marketing
Tools Needed to Scale Content Marketing
And, speaking of tools, we’re covering that for you, too. We learn from HubSpot’s report, “Not Another State of Marketing Report 2021,” that over 80% of brands currently run content marketing campaigns. That means increases in competition and scaling up – that’s where having the right tools to scale your content marketing efforts come into play.
Content Calendars
Content calendars serve as your brand’s hub for content creation and other marketing efforts. Use this tool to organize your content plan visually while simultaneously communicating deadlines, schedules, and other editorial planning.
These calendars include the following element examples:
- Assignment title
- Due date
- Content’s Status (like in-progress, proofreading, submitted for review, edits required, and complete)
- Content types (like a blog post, case study, website copy, white paper, and more)
- Themes (identified during the content strategy stage)
- Persona (identified during the content strategy stage)
- Links to documents
- Production notes
Content Automation Tools
Content automation involves using tools to automate manual processes and keep your brand’s content up-to-date. For example, you might consider using Buffer to automate your social media posting strategy. Or, you could opt for nDash’s HubSpot integration to push content from the platform to your HubSpot account. There’s also a WordPress integration available to help brands seamlessly push content to WordPress blogs.
Content Collaboration Tools
These collaboration tools boost productivity and ensure content teams are on the same page. Here are some examples of the content collaboration tools you can use at nDash to help scale your content marketing.
Ideas & Pitching
Brands can choose to send idea requests to specific writers or post an open call with specific writing communities. These targeted pitches contain:
- Title: A proposed title if there isn’t already one listed
- Abstract: A summary describing the writer’s approach to the idea or topic
- Date: When the writer can deliver the content
- Price: The writer’s proposed rate
- Note: A personalized note from the writer outlining their background and relevant samples
Collaborative Calendars
In addition to being an organizational tool, collaborative calendars help every member of your content team stay on-task and see what’s next. Brands can see what’s in production for in-house and freelance writing teams using nDash’s content calendar – specifically, due dates and publishing dates. There’s also room for creating notes. You’ll also find specific labels, including:
- In progress: The work is currently with a writer
- Submitted for approval: The work is currently with an editor or a member of your team
- Complete: The assignment is complete, and the writer received payment
- Past due: The writer didn’t submit the work before its due date
Project Management
Project managers serve as your brand’s point of contact – they’re responsible for assigning work, editing content, communicating with writing teams, and maintaining your content’s schedule. You can turn to your project manager to recruit new writers, manage workflows, and ensure writers adhere to deadlines. Working directly with a project manager provides your brand with a more flexible approach to scaling your content marketing and production efforts.
How nDash Can Help You Scale Your Content Marketing
The managed content services at nDash provide brands with access to a world-class team of content creators. Whether you need writers, designers, editors, or strategists – nDash takes the guesswork out and manages everything for you. Flexibility and stability are the pillars of scaling your content marketing – dedicated project managers help you save time, and having access to on-demand freelance writing talent means high-quality content production.
Content Strategies
If you don’t already have one, a content strategy serves as your guiding star. It provides the roadmap you and your team need to follow. These strategies outline specific goals, identify content gaps, lay out the framework for SEO best practices, and the like. Here are examples of a few questions to ask when beginning your content strategy:
- Does your content address your target audience’s pain points, guide them through the funnel, and encourage leads and prospects to move on to the next steps?
- Does your brand have a style guide for writers, designers, and other content creators?
- Is your content evergreen, relevant, and ranking high in search engines?
- What are your brand’s personas?
- Are there high-performing keywords, topics, and themes from which you can create content?
To find out more about nDash’s content strategy services, click here.
Establishing Processes (source writers, identify content needs, establish deadlines, and the like)
Having a content strategy is one thing – it all comes together when you establish a content production process. That means plotting deadlines on an editorial calendar, determining which writer (or writers) is responsible for which content, and where this content is going to land.
Here are examples of what establishing a process looks like:
- Content creators: Identify writers, designers, editors, and more.
- Outline content types: Determine the content you need – including articles, blog posts, case studies, infographics, and other assets.
- Publishing cadence: Do you need to publish on your blog twice weekly, update social media four times weekly, and send weekly email updates? Identify that cadence here.
You’ll also need management software to help maintain organization when scaling your content marketing. Examples of nDash’s tools include a content calendar, Kanban, content ideation, and more.
Access to Elite Writers and SMEs
You know you need high-quality content to scale your content marketing efforts. Your content strategy outlines who your target audience is – now, it’s time to find the best content creators to reach these prospects.
It’s easier to achieve that goal when you can access elite writers and subject matter experts. These content creators know how to keep your brand relevant, but they also boost its credibility. When working with nDash, we help you save time by not having to go through resumes, read samples, or negotiate rates – we handle those steps for you.
Click here to learn more about how nDash matches your brand up with great writers that meet your criteria.
Editorial Meetings
No matter if it’s weekly or bi-weekly, team communication is critical for scaling content marketing. Some items on the agenda during editorial meetings include (but are not limited to) the following examples:
- Content briefs: Here is where teams discuss topics, keywords, linking strategies, social media requirements, outlines, and other pertinent information
- Assigning and editing: Managing editors talk about assignments in the pipeline, target publish dates, the editing process, revisions, and other details
- Upcoming deadlines: Discussions surrounding which content pieces brands can expect and when
- Approval stages: Teams discuss who is responsible for approving content following submission
- Upcoming needs: If brands can forecast upcoming needs, the team discusses which assets they’ll need (like webinar recordings to repurpose into blogs, for example)
Ideally, meetings run for approximately thirty minutes to ensure brands follow their content strategy and use their editorial calendars effectively.