Publishing high-quality content can feel like a game of Tetris. You have strategists, writers, designers, and technical experts, and 17 rounds of approvals later, your social post is ready. If you’re not careful, this complexity can delay you until long after the content is relevant.
Fortunately, assembling marketing materials doesn’t need to be inefficient. A carefully planned content process can actually reduce workloads and save time.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to use a content workflow to optimize structure for your content efforts and create predictability within your team.
What is a content workflow?
A content workflow is a template outlining the process a marketing team uses to bring a piece of content into the world. Also known as a content creation workflow or a content management workflow, it is how your content creation process shows up in your business’s project management system. It represents every step, role, and responsibility involved in content creation—all in a level of detail optimized for your marketing team.
Task-based vs. status-based workflows
In general, there are two main types of content workflow templates, task-based and status-based:
Task-based workflows
A task-based workflow tracks content by documenting every step in the content creation process and monitoring a content project’s progress through them. Sample steps might include “Submit rough draft to primary editor” or “Schedule content to publish.”
Task-based workflows may include detailed descriptions, which can help more inexperienced teams keep track of complex content production processes and make onboarding new team members easier. They’re popular with teams that prefer a high degree of structure, and they can help large or distributed teams efficiently manage multiple handoffs.
The main downside is rigidity: You can’t reuse a workflow template for different content formats or outlets, and any change in the process requires a change to the template.
Status-based workflows
Status-based workflows track content by its stage in the content production process. Briefing, Drafting, Writing, Approval, and Publishing are all common content statuses. Status-based workflows provide flexibility. They’re popular with experienced content marketing teams in which members communicate well and are comfortable modifying processes to meet an individual project’s needs.
Status-based workflows allow you to reuse a single workflow across content formats and project types, and they can simplify project management processes. They provide a high-level overview of where a project is without having all the details on the surface, though you often still have the ability to click into a detailed view to see nuanced sub-steps. This is also where color-coded On-track, Needs Support, or Blocked indicators can be useful.
If your team has a high degree of accountability and autonomy, you might benefit from the relative flexibility and simplicity of a status-based system.
How to create a content workflow
- Review your content marketing strategy
- Document your content creation process
- Identify trouble spots
- Choose a content workflow type
- Select content workflow software
- Build your workflows
Establishing defined workflows for content creation processes can save time and position your content team to produce their best work. Here’s how to develop an effective content workflow for your business:
1. Review your content marketing strategy
A content marketing strategy is a framework that specifies the types of content you’ll publish and explains how your content marketing efforts support your business goals. Content strategies also include target audience and competitive analysis findings, specify publication channels and frequency, and dictate content formats and subjects. It can also outline your approach to content planning.
2. Document your content creation process
Start by writing down the steps in your entire content process. What do you need to do to bring a piece of content to publication? Every process is unique, but most follow similar patterns from ideation to publication.
Start with these basic stages, then add additional steps as needed:
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Ideation
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Briefing
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Writing
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Editing
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Approval
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Published
You may find that a blog may have a different set of rules than a social post. Some projects may require legal approval before publication, while others need input from the product team. Subject matter experts might have to review a white paper or reference guide. All of these nuances should be detailed as thoroughly as possible.
3. Identify trouble spots
Along the way, take stock of how well your content process is working. Is your content driving intended outcomes? How much time does it take? How do content management tasks interact with your other business responsibilities? List your content workflow’s pros and cons.
As an example, here’s how an ecommerce company that asks each team member to create and publish one blog per month might examine its current process:
Pros
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Content is meeting performance goals.
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The process effectively harnesses internal subject matter expertise.
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Varied responsibilities keep the team excited to create content and bring diverse voices and viewpoints to the blog.
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Overall, the workflow is efficient.
Cons
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Varied proofreading skills among team members lead to inconsistent grammar and usage.
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There’s a lack of coherent viewpoint and strategic distribution of subjects covered, as well as an inconsistent publication cadence.
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Last-minute graphic design requests create workflow management issues for the design team.
When you’re finished evaluating your content-creation process, ask yourself if adjustments would eliminate any of your problems. This content team might decide to assign its marketing team lead to build out a content calendar in advance. Then assign the company’s resident grammarian a pre-publication editing task (or write a house style guide). They may have the writer perform a final check with an AI-powered proofreading tool.
4. Choose a content workflow type
Assess your team’s strengths and needs to determine the optimal level of detail for your content workflows. If your team does best with a more routine process, you might opt for a task-based structure. If your team members are already familiar with high-production content creation and you want to structure your process more loosely, consider a status-based system.
5. Select content workflow software
The right content workflow software can expedite content creation and simplify content workflow management processes. Many project management tools have features designed for content creation workflows.
Here are a few to look for:
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Built-in editorial calendars
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Automated publishing tools
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Document storage and file sharing
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Collaborative editing features
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Editing tools designed for video content and visual elements
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Editable content workflows
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Task- and status-based workflow templates
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Built-in analytics and performance tracking
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Key integrations
Prioritize platforms that meet the technology needs best suited for your specific process, and also ones that adapt to scale and growth.
6. Build your workflows
Use workflow management software to build out content workflows with your desired level of detail. Tools with editable workflow templates save you time because you can modify each template per project type (social versus blog, etc.) instead of starting from scratch.
You can use your tool to create separate workflow templates across your business. The number will depend on how detailed your templates are designed. Some businesses are able to use one general digital content workflow for all digital marketing content, while others build out different workflows for every content type. This may include blogs, landing pages, social media posts, and video content.
Content workflow FAQ
What are the 5 stages of workflow?
The five stages of a workflow are collect, process, organize, review, and do.
What is an example of a workflow?
Here’s a simplified content workflow process for a blog post:
1. Generate ideas
2. Conduct keyword research
3. Select topic
4. Prepare content brief
5. Create content
6. Edit content
7. Approve content
8. Publish content
What is a content management system?
A content management system (CMS) is a software application that allows users to publish content to the web. A CMS allows users to set up a content creation workflow that tracks projects from inception to publication.
