Creating phenomenal content that turns heads and delivers results isn’t easy these days. Brainstorming topics that will resonate with a target audience takes time, effort, and know-how. Truly next-level content requires creativity and a knack for innovation, and you need to generate a lot of it if you’re serious about succeeding.
That said, it’s not hard to see why so many businesses, brands, and marketing teams struggle to keep up with today’s demanding content creation standards. Fortunately, it’s possible to have things both ways. Here’s a closer look at what every marketer should know about how to create content fast, well, and efficiently.
1. Content Planning and Research
Great content that yields incredible results doesn’t just happen. It results from plenty of careful planning, strategizing, and preparation. However, far too many modern marketers still don’t realize this, with many working on content only when (and if) they think about it or have some spare time.
According to research by CMI, only 40 percent of digital-age marketers have a formal strategy mapped out and documented. Perhaps 33 percent do have a strategy but nothing official or set in stone, and an astonishing 27 percent don’t have any strategy at all.
Ensuring your brand is part of that 40 percent taking content planning seriously enough to have a detailed strategy and follow a strict content production schedule is a great way to speed up your efforts without hurting the quality of your output.
When you know what you’ll create in advance, the process goes much smoother, and you complete projects faster. Be sure to take care of the following tasks as soon as possible.
- Conduct thorough keyword and topic research.
- Assign pieces to team members and set reasonable deadlines.
- Research your target market, emerging trends, and the competition.
- Gather resources, tools, and other content production essentials.
For best results, shoot for having your entire content plan mapped out three weeks to a month in advance at all times.
2. Create an Outline
Creating an outline is one of the best ways to keep your thoughts and purpose organized before you write your blog post. When you create a complete, bulleted outline, you have a direction for your ideas, which helps keep you on track when you start to write.
As you brainstorm, you can add content to each bullet point to ensure your ideas are organized. For longer posts, you can include resources under each header so that you can find your references quickly and easily when you begin to write.
While each piece of content will focus on a different topic, the outline for each asset will pretty much stay the same. Consider making outline templates for the different types of content you create.
For instance, you could create a blog outline template, like this one from HubSpot, that you use every time you write a blog.
3. Narrate Your Content
Most people speak significantly faster than they can type. And while they may be able to articulate their ideas well when speaking, the words may not come as easily when they start to type.
If you find yourself staring at a blank page or often stopping while you’re writing because you lost your train of thought, you’re not alone. It may help to get your ideas out first and then write them later.
All of the little pauses and delays can result in a significant amount of time spent thinking about writing and not actually writing content.
When you’re speaking, you don’t lose your train of thought as easily, so you can get more words and general thoughts down. Use a recorder app, a talk-to-text app, or other dictation software to get your ideas down before you start to write.
The end result of your recording may not always make sense, but you can go through and organize your thoughts to make sure your ideas are clear and well-supported.
One of the biggest benefits of narrating your content is that you’re not focused on length, vocabulary, or grammar like you would be while writing content. You’re just getting ideas down so that you can fine-tune them later.
4. Edit Later
Multitasking has a negative impact on mental organization and productivity. If you’re trying to edit your work as you write, you’re multitasking and cheating yourself out of valuable time. It not only shifts your focus, but it disrupts the flow of your ideas.
Don’t think about what you should edit, just get the words down and you can edit later.
Most writers complete the first draft and then build from this draft to write a completed piece of content. This process should be no different for content marketing. Write everything that comes into your head, don’t worry about edits or revisions, and just get the words down.
When it’s completed, you’ll have an opportunity to go in and edit errors and refine your content. You’ll not only have a better end product, but you’ll also save time in the overall process.
5. Create Content Templates
Whether you’re putting together your next blog post or planning an entire e-course for your clientele, templates are an exceptional resource when creating content fast. The benefits of integrating them into your own routine include:
- Ease of use for all your team members, especially new additions
- Better flexibility, as templates are easy to keep perpetually updated
- Improved consistency for your brand voice, marketing objectives, and content structure
- Quicker, more streamlined initial development, as well as revisions
- Better teamwork, as it’s easier for all members to stay focused on what’s important
- Inspiration on tap, as no time is wasted figuring out what should go where
Companies that nail the essence of what makes great content further understand that variety is the key to keeping content strategies fresh and audiences fully engaged.
Keep your blog and social media feeds interesting by alternating content types and adopting efficient templates for each. Include streamlined templates for essential options like narrative blog posts, how-to guides, pillar posts, and more.
And don’t forget to include your email marketing and social media content as part of the mix. Ideally, you should have at least one or two templates available for each of your go-to approaches to content creation.
6. Update and Repurpose Old Content
Polishing up old content takes less time than creating new content from scratch. That’s why business owners and content marketers should spend time updating and repurposing old or outdated content.
Stale content on your website is not only clutter for visitors, but it’s also a wasted opportunity for you. Ideally, you want your content to be fresh and topical, but you don’t always have to produce new content from scratch.
Take some time to go through old blog posts to update facts and information, correct any grammatical errors, and add new information. This will not only keep your readers interested, but it will also improve your SEO by keeping your content relevant and optimized.
You can also repurpose old content. Having a mix of content types is a great help for your readers, so take old blog posts and turn them into videos, infographics, or podcasts. If you have a lot of content on a particular topic, consider turning the content into an e-book or guide or including them in a longer post.
These are great ways to get more out of the content that you already have written.
7. Remove Distractions and Interruptions
Some pieces of content are long and require a significant amount of research to complete.
While you will need to spend some time researching and writing these more comprehensive posts, you can still save time by limiting the distractions or interruptions that may make the process even longer.
If possible, find a quiet and comfortable place where you can write without people interrupting you. Limit your use of social media, your smartphone, and anything else that might distract you from content writing.
8. Break Down Larger Projects
Sitting down for hours at a time to write is not always the most productive way to complete writing projects.
Sometimes trying to tackle a big project all in one sitting ends up leaving you with little inspiration or focus. Instead, you may want to try blocking out your time and working on larger writing projects in chunks, instead of all at once.
While not every person responds to the same time management techniques, many individuals swear by the Pomodoro technique. This method of time management involves working in short sprints and taking frequent breaks to keep you motivated and creative.
If you find yourself often burning out from larger, more time-consuming writing projects, try taking more breaks. While this may seem counterintuitive as you’re trying to save time, it may actually make you more productive as you’ll have more energy and focus.
9. Practice and Consistency
Like anything else, you will become better and faster at writing the more that you do it. If you’re only writing one or two blog posts each week, you’re not likely to be very fast at it.
As you write more and more, you’ll find tips and tricks of your own that help you organize your ideas and shorten the content creation process to produce more good content.
If you don’t have a workload that keeps you writing every day, consider starting your own passion blog, journaling, writing short stories, or engaging in any other type of writing to make it part of your daily routine and get your practice in.
Also, practicing your typing skills can go a long way in shortening your writing time. The average typing speed is around 40 words per minute. With a little practice, it’s not difficult to bring that up to 60 or 70 words per minute, which nearly doubles your production.
When you’re putting out multiple blog posts, that time really adds up.
10. Hire Professional Help
Keeping up with a well-rounded, comprehensive content production schedule in 2023 isn’t easy. In the past, a digital-age business might have gotten away with managing one or two social media profiles and updating a single company blog once each week or so.
But optimal posting frequencies for various content outlets are relatively robust these days. In addition to keeping an authoritative blog adequately filled with a steady stream of high-quality, helpful content, brands need to maintain active, engaged presences on all the major social media platforms.
Add email marketing efforts, guest posting opportunities, and more to the mix, and it’s not hard to see why contemporary content production is far from a solo job.
Outsourcing is the way to go to create content fast without letting quality fall by the wayside, outsource content creation. Working with freelance professionals like writers, graphic designers, video makers, animators, and so forth, is key. The benefits include the following.
- Outsourcing helps your marketing budget go further. Instead of covering salaries, paid vacation, sick days, benefits, and more for full-time employees, you pay only for the work you need.
- Professional writers and content creators from top marketplaces such as WriterAccess bring fresh energy, insight, and expertise to the table.
- With the right outsourced help in your corner, your content production routine is much more efficient and effective.
- Access to a team of professionals who are masters at their craft allows you to produce content quickly without cutting corners on quality.
- Outsourcing makes it feasible for even startups and small businesses to access a wide range of valuable professional services.
In other words, if you want to know how to create content fast while ensuring everything you produce meets the highest quality standards, you can’t afford to be without access to all the help you need. Add a content writing resource such as WriterAccess to your toolbox, and you’ll never go back to trying to tough it out alone again.
Conclusion
Ultimately, developing a solid working understanding of creating content quickly, efficiently, and effectively is far from impossible. It’s truly all about being organized, planning ahead, and ensuring you have the right resources on tap to be accessible when needed.
Flexible access to seasoned professionals who know what it takes to produce winning content consistently is one of those resources, without question.
Take your own content strategy to the next level and beyond today when you sign up for your free 14-day WriterAccess trial. You’ll love the difference the right freelance content creators can deliver for your brand.
Jill B has over ten years of experience in Internet marketing, including writing SEO website content, blog writing, and social media management. She has worked with many well-known national brands, large e-commerce websites, and dozens of attorneys and physicians across the United States. In addition to her Internet marketing experience, Jill has many years of experience in the staffing industry, where she has worked as an executive recruiter, a branch manager of a temporary staffing firm, and as a Career Services Specialist on a college campus.
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