I’ve missed deadlines, not published something to avoid criticism, been frustrated with feedback, and felt confidence levels drop as a content creator. I’ve compared my content strategy approach to others and spent far too many hours procrastinating on a paragraph.
It’s all part of perfecting your craft, I would say. No matter how long you’ve done something, there’s always something more to learn.
Here’s some of the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far as a content creator, working in a content team, and managing content programs.
Lesson #1 You don’t have to aim for perfection, choose ‘good enough’ instead
When you aim for perfection, it can be the fastest route to perceived failure or the beginning of an agonising journey of procrastination.
‘Good enough’ doesn’t mean it’s going to fail. ‘Good enough’ stops you from trying to achieve unattainable perfection status.
As a person who is guilty of this myself, here’s the steps I take to avoid a perfection spin-out:
Know your why: Articulate why this piece is getting published and who it’s being created for. Write this down and believe it. This benefits you in a few ways: it helps you stay on track with the creation of the piece and keep it a priority within the business.
Seek feedback wisely: No one likes too many cooks in the kitchen and it’s the same for content creation. When it comes to feedback on a piece, the timing can be an important factor.
One way to avoid a mid-way debate is to get an outline ready from the start and articulate the main points you want to write about. Get this approved by the editor or the person who usually does the final sign-off.
Side note: If your current content approval process is taking longer than the time it takes to actually create the content in the first place, there could be a fundamental problem with your business processes around content creation.
3. Create and stick to timelines: One of the most productive content teams I have worked in was big on timelines and deadlines. The biggest benefit to this was there was no room for procrastination to flare up, you just had to get stuck into it.
Content creation in particular can really drag out or be de-prioritised in a business when there are no strict deadlines in place. Also, discuss progress every day! Even if it’s just a quick check-in on where things are at.
This is very important when you’re working on some of the bigger pieces of content that have quite a few moving parts with design, web development and promotion.
I’m a very visual person so I love using Kanban style organisation and I have become very fond of using online organisational tools like Airtable.
Lesson #2 Celebrate your wins (small) and large to keep team morale high
This is really important if you work in a content team. I’ve seen content teams (and individuals) completely lose their confidence and motivation due to the lack of recognition within the company, not tracking results effectively and fostering a content culture of quantity over quality.
Delivering an effective content marketing strategy relies on the ebb and flow of creativity, careful planning, and proactiveness.
It sounds simple: but motivation is manifested when you actually start to do something. The more you do, the more motivated you get. At least, that’s what I’ve found in my experience with content production.
But this motivation will come in waves. As I said in my previous lesson, creating and sticking to timelines is one part of the puzzle.
The other is keeping motivation and team morale high. And one way that helps is through recognition and celebrating the small wins.
I worked for a company where the Content Manager would take the team out for a coffee when we had completed and promoted a new content campaign.
Something so simple, but it was a great way to keep the content team tight-knit and on the same page.
In addition to this, make sure you post your content to the wider marketing team and business.
If you’re a small business: Upload new posts into your communication channel every time it goes live and encourage members to share or like on social channels.
If you’re in a large business: It’s highly likely there is a company newsletter or intranet you can post the latest content piece you’ve created.
Lesson #3 Marie Kondo your content, not just your life
I’ll admit, I haven’t watched or read any Marie Kondo content but the sentiment is still the same; and that is taking a minimalist over a maximalist approach to your content.
But which one are you?
Minimalist approach
You’ve done everything you possibly can to get as much reach as possible with every piece of content
You’ve got a good idea on which content pieces or formats have worked well and what hasn’t
You’ve got space to get creative and test and trial new things
You’ve got a plan on how you’ll repurpose all of your high-performing content
You’re consistently tracking content engagement and have set KPI’s around this
Maximalist approach
KPI’s are solely set on achieving X amount of articles per month
Quantity is celebrated over quality
Promotion is an after-thought
Your blog is spilling over with content and you’ve found quite a few articles that could be consolidated into one
There’s no consistency in the articles
Of course, there will always be some brands that become an exception to the rule. It’s usually when you’ve got the resources, time, budget, AND the audience who is hungry for more content - you can achieve maximum output with quality every time.
To make Marie Kondo proud, here’s what you should do:
Start with a content audit and do a pulse check of what content you have and what it’s achieving.
Put together a repurpose and refresh plan of your existing content.
Focus on updating existing content and put new content creation (unless it’s absolutely necessary) on hold until you get your content house in order.
Once you’ve got everything in order with your existing content, work on how you’ll promote it.
Review and repeat while you gradually add in new content ideas to the mix.
Lesson #4 Don’t just accept the way things have always been done
I’ve spoken about implementing a fair bit of change so far. So I think it’s important to call this out.
Firstly, I can almost guarantee there will be people in the team or the business who are resistant to any change you want to implement. Whether it’s a new content approval process, a new type of content approach, or a type of content campaign.
In my experience, the best way to approach this is:
Present the DREAM: Put together a presentation that clearly articulates what you want this to achieve. What does the end result look like? If you can, work with a designer to give this presentation a lot of edge and make it look amazing.
Get buy-in: This is where it’s important to read the room. Some people love big picture thinking, others like data-backed evidence. Whatever it is that will take to convince the people, make sure you add it in.
Remind and reiterate the dream: You might still experience some push-back. Make it extremely clear that we’re all here to achieve the same business and content marketing goals. And if you have someone who is being extremely difficult, you might have to work a bit harder on finding the reason why they are so resistant to it. Make sure they feel heard.
Share the results: Check in with everyone on how the new processes or changes are going. Do it more often at the start.
Lesson #5 Never underestimate the power of a damn good brief
Whether you’re briefing a copywriter, developer, or designer the same rule applies: always provide a super detailed brief.
And if you’re on the other end of the brief, demand more details if you need to.
You can lose a lot of time when a brief is not clear or detailed enough from the beginning. If you are someone who has a very specific vision, make sure you are clear about it with the people who are helping you deliver on it.
Here’s the details I always put into the briefs I create for other content creators (and the details I demand myself!):
Who are we targeting?
What's the tone of voice?
Word count approximate
Where will it be published and promoted
Deadline
Topic and suggested headline
Short description that explains how this idea came about and why it’s relevant
Examples of related material that will be useful
Relevant keywords
A specific outline including points to cover with relevant examples or links to research I’ve found
It seems like a lot to put into a brief, but it saves so much time when it comes to editing. You might also have additional parts to add in!
Lesson #6 Learn to distinguish between personal preference vs a strategic suggestion
Sometimes when you’ve got more than one passionate person working on something, it can raise some friendly debate.
It can be bigger:
What types or kinds of content you create
How you promote the content
What your tone of voice or writing style should be
What kinds of images you should use
How to format the content
What types of content campaigns you put together
Or smaller:
Grammatical
To pun or not to pun
Structure
Referencing style
Hyperlinking
The smaller stuff is easy to work out after you have a style guide in place. The debates around the bigger stuff can be put to rest easy if you’ve got a content marketing strategy or some kind of plan figured out.
But the lesson here is to not just stick with the plan. Friendly debate can be very healthy, because it keeps people on their toes. A strategic decision in my experience can be based on learnings from a similar experience or leveraging data for specific insights.
Even if it’s your manager or the CEO suggesting something, they may not always be right. It can be scary to confront that, especially if you’re quite a passive person. But you’d be surprised how much a friendly push-back or debate can earn respect and open communication lines you never used to have.
Lesson #7 There’s always going to be more lessons to learn from.
I could go on, but this post was already getting kinda long. I’m interested to hear from you and the lessons you’ve learned so far in the comments below. 👇🏼