Initial Guide To Content Marketing – The Tools And Techniques of Content Creation

Now that you know all the background information of content writing, things like strategy and ideation are clear to you and the only thing remaining is the content creation. To help you learn, I’ve put together all the right tools and techniques of content creation into this initial guide to content marketing.

Dive in to burst your curiosity!

The Tools and Techniques of Content Creation

Editorial Calendars.

You may find them overwhelming. Especially when things are pretty much to handle and you are told to arrange them in a calendar alongside working to them. Take a deep breath. Start creating the editorial calendar. This part of content creation might seem intimidating at first but later you will begin feeling the ease of working with an organized editorial calendar. There are tons of such templates available on the internet. You can choose whichever suits the best.

In case you don’t like any of them, you can also make your calendar. In case you and your team have to deal with multiple brands at a time, the best way is to curate separate calendars for each different brand. However, if you feel comfortable with a single outlook, always make portions for each different brand and that too as highlighted and prominent. This will keep everything aligned and prevent being messed up with each other.

Content Governance.

Whatever the department may be, there’s always a need for governance. As long as content creation is concerned, governance possesses an unavoidable significance. There has to be an individual to play the role of an eye bird in your team. It can be the project coordinator, your team lead, or maybe a senior writer who has command over what and why your brand writes and what audience that is focused at. They shall be responsible for keeping overall control of whatever the content is being produced.

What type of content is required at what time and how is it performing among the audience? What type of content shall be revamped and what old dimes can be recycled to bring additional traffic? And everything that comes in between ideation and the successful creation of content shall come under the governance of an assigned individual from your team.

Authors and Writers.

Now that you have an editorial calendar in hand and there’s a person assigned for its governance as well. You need authors and writers who will produce the content. A lot of organizations do not spend so much effort and budget on content production.

However, this is the foremost thing they shall look upon when curating strategies for content marketing. No great content marketing strategy can be successful without the efforts of a great writer. That’s the main thing. Your audience cannot read your insider strategies; instead, the content you publish can give them a hint about that. So, make sure that you hire great in-house or freelance writers and authors in your team who understand your business, knows your audience, and can produce the content you dream for.

What If You Cannot Afford an Expanded Content Team?

Not all of you can afford a team that expands up to writers, authors, editors, and coordinators. That does not mean you cannot enter this realm. You surely can. Remember that most widely known marketers started individually. Who knows you have that potential hidden inside? Even if you don’t, there isn’t any loss in trying the luck. The great thing about content marketing is you don’t have to spend a lot of budgets. Just a handful of bills, tons of tireless nights, and a will to do something big. That’s all folks. Coming back to the topic, if you are the only member of your content team, don’t stress yourself with everything at a time. Divide your work into smaller chunks and do a little bit of everything side by side. For instance, you want to write a blog. Don’t go for all of it at once. Keep research and outline for one day, the next day you compose a draft, and finalize the blog on the third day.

There are two things you should follow;

Less is more and quality over quantity.

The point is that the first impression matters and in terms of content marketing, only a well-researched, fluent, and adaptive production can make a nice first impression on the audience. So, don’t compromise on your first impression by hurrying your production. Take time, conduct thorough research, write when you find yourself the freshest, and close with an incredible copy capable of attracting a big audience. However, taking your time doesn’t mean producing one blog a month. There should be a frequency set, a calendar maintained and you shall work accordingly.

ReadMore: An Initial Guide to Content Marketing – From Where Do We Get Content Ideation?

Always consider getting your content edited and proofread.

If you cannot afford to hire an editor, try peer to peer editing or if you are the one and only writer in your team, slip your final copies to a few of your friends and ask them to proofread politely. Small favors from your friends and family matter when you are at the beginning of any startup. Also, you can pay them back in terms of presents, exchange of favors, or anything that suits your budget and schedule.

Adding visuals and infographics is an integral part of content marketing.

You cannot just get away with static content every time. Not all your audience is a reader. I know you are but the focus shall be on the audience and not yourself. Thus, try communicating with your designers and getting visuals designed in accordance with the blogs your team is writing. Easier said than done, getting your ideas turned into designs is a real hectic thing but with great communication comes great design. So, you shall explain every bit of your ideas to the design team and keep close contact with them to get things perfectly designed.

Again, if you are handling everything alone, try learning some basic design skills so that you can add visuals and graphics to your content. There are millions of free graphics available online that can be downloaded and used with slighter alterations. But make sure you don’t use something that claims copyrights. This can put your content into a problem. It can be blocked in extreme situations.

To put it all condensed, content creation is the most significant part of overall content marketing. Your audience would never get a chance to look at your strategy and ideation instead, they can only look at the content you publish. Thus, make sure that you publish stellar content that possesses the capability to make an impact on the audience. And the above-mentioned points can surely assist you in rightful content creation.