Editorial Office | Capital IDFriday, June 24, 2016

Once the marketing or communication department has chosen a content strategy for its client communication, campaigns or corporate communication, the next step is to create the content itself. When creating high-quality content, several issues have to be considered. How do you record what content needs to be created, who will be responsible for producing this content, how can you make sure the deadline is met and that the content meets internal and external guidelines (e.g. corporate style guidelines, usage rights or advertising legislation) and the specifications of the channel through which you want to publish?

When dealing with these issues, the added value of a proper process and an effective tool can help your marketing and communication department efficiently create the desired impact.

How might the aforementioned issues best be facilitated and safeguarded?

Assignments for the creation of content

Content creation usually consists of several components. For example, in addition to the client, designers, photographers, translators and copywriters may also be involved in the process.
A good marketing operations management (MOM) solution makes it possible to send out various types of projects in a standardised manner, e.g. the adding of new photographic material to the image database, the supply of new designs or the creation of your communication content.

For each project, you can quickly and easily add stakeholders, campaigns, budgets, deadlines, preferred suppliers and lead times. A workflow facilitates the acceptance, review and handling of the project by the various stakeholders.

Content creation

There are many different forms of communication content. The challenge is to keep all this content unified and consistent in order to optimise your brand experience and communicative strength. To do so, you make use of corporate style guidelines. Whenever content is being created, it is important to continuously make sure this content complies with the style guidelines and other compliancy requirements.

One of the aspects a MOM platform facilitates is recording – together with the client – these corporate style guidelines and other business rules in templates for the different forms of communication content for both web and print. Think of e.g. advertisements, posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, business cards, newsletters, online magazines, Facebook and Twitter messages, YouTube videos, press releases and even entire action sites.

The design and business rules for your content are all recorded in a template. All that is left to do is to add text and images. This results in a significant cost reduction, because it eliminates the process of working with a designer to edit and format your content. Your content is on-brand and complies with your internal and external advertising regulations processes.

Omni-channel distribution of your created content

After your content has been created – regardless of whether you used a template or whether a designer supplied the file – you want to evaluate the work and then distribute it. These processes are also ideally suited for automation. With the help of workflow, the created content can be evaluated, annotated and tested for compliance with applicable regulations.

In a workflow, you decide how and when to distribute your content; digital or in print, on what type of paper, from which printer, which social media channel, via email, etcetera. The options are virtually limitless.

All content can instantly be made ready for publication in a MOM solution. For offline content, the right colour conversion is applied depending on the type of paper that will be used. As a client, you will have constant insight into the entire process from initial briefing to creation and distribution. The printer will automatically receive files that meet their delivery specifications.

Advantages of automating your content creation process

  • Control over the creation and publication process
  • Easily and quickly publish content on the market
  • Shorter lead times
  • Easy reuse of previously created content
  • On-brand
  • Cost reductions
  • Safeguarding of risk, governance and compliancy (RGC)

If you are curious about how this method might benefit your department or brand, feel free to contact us or sign up for a free demo!