New digital marketing managers often think that they don’t need a process to do their job easily. After all, it’s mostly social media and how hard could that be? However, this is a common trap. Managers who don’t optimize and standardize their processes often get stuck doing the same tedious tasks over and over again, wasting valuable time that could be put to better use with something else.
You need a good workflow to limit the time wasted and improve your overall success and consistency.
Here is what you need to do:
Content marketing – distribution
To effectively promote your content, you need first to draw up a content plan. It can be just for the next day or, more efficiently, for the next week or month.
Next, decide how you’ll promote your content – through which channels. Also decide what kind of pieces you’ll create – informational, promotional, press releases, case studies, video, and so on.
Include a CTA to every piece and decide how you’ll measure its result. It will mostly depend on what you want your audience to do – if you have asked them to subscribe, you will naturally look at the increase in the number of your subscribers.
Set all of this upfront so you’ll have an easier time during the process.
Planning and brainstorming
It’s a good idea to have one brainstorming and planning session a day. Set a dedicated time of the day to gather your team and put your ideas on paper.
If you want to upgrade your process even more, have a meeting once a month where you can brainstorm the ideas for pieces and plan the schedule for the entire month until the next meeting.
Always remember to leave some wiggle room because there might be something unplanned to talk about like a recent event or something similar.
Search and analysis
To have a better grasp of your reach and the audience’s reaction to your efforts, you need to perform searches for online conversations that mention your brand and analyze those conversations to get feedback and info on what to do better or what to do next.
You can intervene with negative comments and mild their effect while engaging with users who have positive comments. Watch your tone when communicating and make sure that you are always kind. You can even set a workflow for responding.
Timeframes
Another thing that you should have specifically set is the time frames.
For one, you need to decide on the best publish days and times of your content. Make sure that those times are relevant. Once you publish your content, you should focus on following the sharing Workflow. Each social media platform should have their Workflow – for instance, how many times you will share on Facebook will differ from how many times you’ll share on Twitter or Instagram. How something is shared will differ too. While you can put more focus on text on Facebook or Twitter, the image will play a much more valuable role on Instagram or Pinterest.
Next, you need to follow email Workflow time frames. For example, the success of your cart abandonment emails will depend on how many times you send that emails. You can either follow regular rules or create your own.
Responsibility to oversee the workflow
Once you create the workflows, you will have to decide on who will oversee the correct implementation of those Workflows. Some managers do this job themselves as they feel like it’s easier than delegating.
But, you could set one of your employees to control and oversee the entire process, and give yourself more time to do other important things, stay updated on recent events, and so on.
Give clear instructions to your employees on how to implement the workflow and instruct the overseer how to notice if something is not being done according to plan.
Content management tools utilization
In order to make your content marketing processes even more efficient, you can further improve. This is done by using content management tools.
For one, content creation can be tedious and take a lot of time. Some managers recommend outsourcing your content creation to professional services. You can use WordPress or similar software to manage your content – formatting, publish dates and times, distribution, SEO optimization, and so on.
Bottom line
Digital marketing can be made easier with good workflows and planning. You will be able to do much more if you create workflows that cover all of the important points of your digital marketing strategy. Take these steps to begin creating the perfect workflow for you. Also, don’t forget to check this amazing Internet Marketing Podcast for more relevant news on the topic.