Content marketing has been trending for quite some time now, even more so today since a lot of business has transferred online. There are almost 2 billion active websites on the Web at the moment. People make many of their purchases online instead of in-store. Website owners make money from sales, advertising, marketing, and many other sources.
That being said, the need for content marketers is bigger than ever. Compared to before, this field has a wider reach, many more responsibilities, as well as numerous positions that need to be filled to do the job right.
In this article, you’ll learn about the secrets to building a successful, productive content marketing team.
1. Recognition and rewards for higher employee engagement
The most important of the employee engagement strategies in 2022 is to create a quality recognition and rewards program for them. Over 37% of employees today feel that this is the most important thing to keep them productive at work.
Those that will work to promote your website or brand with the help of content will expect recognition for their success. This doesn’t only include praise. If you want to engage your team, and more importantly - attract them to work for you in the first place, you need to put suitable rewards in place. To do this, you should check out Perkbox’s recognition platform.
Perkbox is a rewards and benefits platform that allows you to customize and optimize your rewards program. You can use it to connect with your employees regardless of their location. Since many content marketing positions are remote these days, it’s a great tool to use.
2. Optimized hiring process
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Let’s say that you have some content marketing positions to fill. You have created your rewards program, know what you can offer your employees, and are ready to look for them.
At this point, it is important to know where to find the right people - and how.
There are plenty of things to consider if you want to optimize the hiring process. You need the perfect job ad. For example Homerun has an excellent content creator job description for you to use. How you craft the job description can affect everything from who applies for the job, what they think of your brand, how you start the onboarding process, etc.
Homerun is also a great tool for optimizing the rest of the hiring process. You can use it to collaborate with your team and ask them to join in on hiring the right people. This will help you find candidates that will work well with your current team members, as well as get useful insights on who to choose.
You can track all this and more in the organized dashboard. In the dashboard, you can view all open jobs, shuffle candidates visually through different hiring stages, and access key information you need to make this process run smoothly.
3. Using quality communication tools
Communication is vital for every team, but it’s even more important if you have a team of remote experts working on your content marketing. Proper communication helps creativity, minimizes mistakes, and boosts the productivity of your team.
If you choose a quality communication tool, you can ensure that your team always has the right information and can work together toward a common marketing vision. Tools like Slack and Zoom will make communication instant, easily accessible, and available to all of your employees.
4. Using a good task management system
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Content marketing requires a lot of work and includes many tasks and obligations. Your team will need to take care of creating the content, editing it for different platforms, optimizing it for SEO, posting it on different channels, and more.
To make this easier and error-free, you should use platforms that deal with task management. Tools like ProofHub optimize communication and collaboration in teams, and they can help you manage the many projects and tasks efficiently. With such tools, you can meet the requirements of a big or large team, remote and in-house team, and even cross-functional teams.
5. Investing in the right content creation tools
You can employ the best people, but their work will also depend on what tools they use for it. You want your team to have access to solid writing, editing, and content optimization tools to maximize the potential of your marketing strategy.
For starters, you’ll need simple tools that they can use to create their content, such as Google Docs. This tool can be edited in real-time, accessed by anyone you need, and the content will be stored online to avoid program issues or text losses.
Next, you’ll need a tool for SEO optimization. There are plenty of such tools you can use, including the plugins you can install into your WordPress site, such as YoastSEO.
Your options do not end here. You can invest in tools that help your team collect quotes from influencers and niche experts, plagiarism checkers and good editors for their content, thesaurus tools for more creative word choice, tools for creating unique visuals, etc.
Yes, these will cost you some money. However, the investment will be more than worth it if it helps your team work more productively and more effectively.
6. Scheduled and automated social media sharing
Creating great content is just one step in content marketing. What follows requires a lot of research, careful consideration, and the right choices. You’ll need to tweak that content to get it ready for different platforms, as well as decide on when to share it - and where to do it.
Your team will need to research and brainstorm on the frequency, timing, and methods for sharing content for the best results. This can be much more efficient if you give them access to a platform used for automation, scheduling, reports on the target audience’s activity, and more.
7. The right people for your content marketing team
This might just be the most important thing of them all - hiring the right people to join your team. You need to offer them the right benefits, make their job easier with quality tools, and motivate them to work. But, this will only work for your benefit if you hire the right people for the right positions in your team.
That being said, let’s explore the different job positions you might need to fill for content marketing:
Content strategy positions
These are the people that will craft the marketing strategy by using research, considering your abilities and budgets, and making sure that it all aligns with your goals.
For this, you need a marketing leader such as the company founder, the boss, the CMO, etc.
You’ll also need a marketing manager that will run point and make sure that everyone can do their job effectively.
The third person you’ll need is a data expert, someone to measure the success of your strategy and collect and analyze analytics data.
Content creation positions
These are the people that will generate and produce content or content ideas based on the marketing strategy.
All of your writers will be managed by a managing editor that oversees the content creation, manages the publishing cadence and volume, and pretty much keeps the content flow running.
Content marketing cannot work well without an SEO expert that keeps track of progress, audits the content, and optimized it to be perfect.
You might also need subject experts i.e. people that have the necessary expertise to create credible, informative content that your target audience needs.
Writers and designers are the people that you cannot do without. These are the ones that will create the content and put all that data and effort into action. You need them to create the visual and written elements of your content marketing strategy. For every piece of content created, you’ll need editors to polish it and make it perfect.
Content distribution positions
These people will get your content to your audience. Your efforts will be in vain unless you hire the right people for this job.
To distribute your content effectively and in the right places, you need a distribution strategist that will create your content publishing plan. THey’ll decide what type of content goes where and when, help you form relationships with others, work on your paid placement plans, etc.
Email marketing remains one of the most popular marketing methods today, so you might want to consider hiring an email marketer that will focus on optimizing your email messages and take care of things like newsletters, email lists, subject lines, A/B testing, and more.
Since social media takes the biggest part of most marketing strategies today, you’ll want to employ a social media specialist, too. This person will look for tactics to engage your audience on social media channels, strategize the distribution, and communicate with your followers.
These might not be the only people you’ll need for your team, of course. As you create your marketing plan and learn more about your abilities, you can work toward growing your team and making them more efficient. Soon enough, you’ll have amazing writers, SEO experts, and distribution experts, and can hire wildcards and influencers to give your strategy an extra flair.
Author’s bio:
Nadica Metuleva is a freelance writer who’s passionate about creating quality original content. She holds a Master’s degree in English teaching and a Bachelor’s degree in translation. With 8 years of experience in the freelance writing industry, Nadica has become proficient in creating content that captivates the audience, drives growth, and educates.