WORKWEEK

What is your content team responsible for producing?

First and foremost, your team needs to be clear on what it is you produce. There are a lot of different types of content, including but not limited to:

• Blogs [Of course]
• Case studies [Often both ungated and gated for sales]
• White papers [Gated]
• Decks [Gated and often used for webinars, too]
• One-pagers [PDFs used by sales, sometimes gated] 
• Landing pages [Often, gated asset landing pages]
• Nurture stream emails [Typically for those gated assets…]
• Newsletters [To distribute your content]
• Webinars [Another potential distribution channel for content!]

I have been on teams where I was responsible for all of this––and for press releases, too. I have never been on any tea, though, where I wasn’t responsible for, or at least an important input, for all of the above. 

We’ll talk about content repurposing more in future newsletters, because long-form content repurposed into all of these different formats is how I’ve been able to do all of this work, even as a team of 1, without losing my mind. But before you can even repurpose, you need to make clear which things you team does. 

At Klaviyo, the content strategy team creates:

• Blogs 
• Case studies 
• White papers 
• Decks 
• One-pagers 
• Landing pages (sometimes!)
• Nurture stream emails
• Newsletters 

That’s a lot, and I have a team of 4 people, not including myself. 

With so many options on the table, it is critical that my team understands the holistic nature of a content request. Otherwise, we’re left asking ourselves these questions, among many others:

• Does someone want a blog and a white paper? 
• Only a white paper? 
• If they want only a white paper, do they understand there will be no SEO benefit from that white paper? 
• Do they want an SEO benefit?
• Do they know that long-form, ungated content is great for blogs, and people are still downloading long-form content even if it’s completely ungated somewhere else? 

Look, content marketing has matured enough as a discipline that it’s likely many people on your larger marketing team or in your larger organization in general have some experience working with other content teams. And few content teams, and few organizations, talk about content marketing the exact same way. 

Because of this, I’ve found that regular words like “gated asset,” “SEO,” “long-form blog,” “white paper,” and more all mean different things to basically everyone. 

It is your job to clear up this confusion––for your larger team and for your content marketers. Otherwise, what is produced won’t be what is expected, and over time, that creates internal distrust and burn out. 

So, right now, write it down. What types of content is your content marketing team expected to produce? Now, let’s visualize it––because that is the easiest way to clear up confusion. 

Creating content packages & a content menu 

In general, there are three types of content packages. Note here that if your team is also responsible for case studies, that will be a 4th content package, and is not covered here. 

They are:

• Gated asset package
• Blog post package 
• Combo package 

Each of these package have different user journeys, different distribution options, and more. You can often predict which teams will want which package. For instance, SEO folks are usually looking for blog post packages. Performance team typically want the gated asset package. Your PR team, and even your product marketing team, likely often want the combo package.

Each package should make it clear what type of content will be produced, how it will be distributed, and more. This becomes your content equation which then details out exactly what your content team needs to produce. This is what you will typically include in your content request form or what you’ll request in a brief from other teams.

From here, once you have the brief or the ticket request, you can review the requested options for the package. They can only choose one package, but can pick and choose from various options for that package. Then, you can back into timelining for that need. You’ll see my own timeline requirements in the packages below. 

Let’s break down the package types to give you a clearer picture. 

Gated asset package

This package is focused on having a single piece of quality content that is only available upon download. Common examples are whitepapers, ebooks or webinars.

The goal of this package is to generate leads for the company to nurture.

Each brief writer or ticket submitter decides which distribution channels should be used, given the audience, step of the funnel and nature of the content. 

All of the options below are available, but not all must be used for each package. 

Options for each piece:

• Landing page 
• White paper (Downloadable)
• Deck (Downloadable)
• Follow up email for the gated asset (Autoresponder)
• Lead to MQL (marketing qualified lead) nurture flow 
• UTM link to landing page
• Promotional assets for each distribution channel (e.g. social assets, paid media assets, etc)
• Available distribution channels: PR, direct, social, newsletter, lifecycle, paid media,partners

This is what a common gated asset user flow looks like:

Gated asset timeline: 

• Briefing: 1 week
• Writing: 2 weeks
• Editing: 1 week
• Designing: 2 weeks
• Lifecycle: 2 weeks*
• Landing page: 4 weeks*

Total average timeline: 6-8 weeks. 

*Denotes timeline phase can be done while other phases are on-going. 

Blog post package 

This package is focused on educating the target audience on a specific topic, ranking for a key term or phrase and ideally teasing an asset and exchanging the details for contact information. Blog post UX plays an important role here, and next week’s newsletter will go deeper on that. 

The goal of this package is to rank overtime for the key term or phrase and generate leads nurture.

Each brief writer or ticket submitter decides which distribution channels should be used, given the audience, step of the funnel and nature of the content. 

All of the options below are available, but not all must be used for each package. 

Options for each piece:

• SEO optimized blog post + URL
• Data collection via form + language for that form (This form would live on the blog, not on a landing page)
• White paper (Downloadable)
• Deck (Downloadable)
• Follow up email for the gated asset (Autoresponder)
• Lead to MQL (marketing qualified lead) nurture flow 
• Promotional assets for each distribution channel (e.g. social assets, paid media assets, etc)
• Available distribution channels: SEO, direct, social, newsletter, lifecycle, paid media, partners

This is what a common blog post user flow looks like:

Blog post timeline:

• Briefing: 1 week
• Writing: 2 weeks
• Editing: 1 week
• Designing slides: 2 weeks*
• Lifecycle: 2 weeks*

Total average timeline: 5-6 weeks. 

*Denotes timeline phase can be done while other phases are on-going. 

Combo package 

This package is focused on sharing survey results, or larger top of funnel pieces that desire both SEO distribution and paid distribution. 

The goal of this package is to demonstrate a specific point of view in market, generate leads for us to nurture, and rank overtime for the key term or phrase.

Each brief writer or ticket submitter decides which distribution channels should be used, given the audience, step of the funnel and nature of the content. 

All of the options below are available, but not all must be used for each package. 

Options for each piece:

• Landing page 
• Follow up email nurture 
• Lead to MQL (marketing qualified lead) nurture flow 
• SEO optimized blog post
• White paper (Downloadable)
• Deck (Downloadable)
• Link to landing page + UTMs
• Promotional assets for each distribution channel (e.g. social assets, paid media assets, etc)
• Available distribution channels: PR, SEO,  direct, social, newsletter, paid media, partners

This is what a common combo user flow looks like:

Combo timeline:

• Briefing: 1 week
• Writing: 2 weeks
• Editing: 1 week
• Designing: 2 weeks
• Designing slides: 2 weeks*
• Lifecycle: 2 weeks*
• Landing page: 4 weeks*

Total average timeline: 6-8 weeks. 

*Denotes timeline phase can be done while other phases are on-going. 

In general, with content packages in place, my team is working 1-2 months ahead of schedule to hit needs. 

We have a content live date calendar, brief due date calendar, draft due date calendar, and a final edit date calendar. We use Monday for our project management tool, but I’ve been able to set up very similar calendars and ticket management processes in Asana, Jira and Airtable. 

Now, you and your team should know what you need to produce, where it will be distributed, and the earliest possible date that you can get it live. 

Next week, we’ll take a step back from this detailed view at project management (don’t worry, we’ll come back to it!) to look at ideal blog UX for turning organic traffic into leads. 

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A note of this advice:

You do you! 

One content marketer’s best practices aren’t always right for another one, though I do try to distill out the main concepts and core practices I believe everyone can benefit from. That said, you must use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice given from folks on the internet. I am an expert, and this advice comes from my direct experience, but I am not smarter than you, and I have nothing to gain or lose because of what you do.