Step-by-Step Guide for Your Optimal Content Management Workflow

1. What does content management workflow mean?
2. 5 reasons why a good content management workflow can help you
3. What makes a good content management workflow? - A checklist
4. Step-by-step guide to a good content management workflow
5. Which tools support content management workflow?
6. Conclusion about the content management workflow

Planning content, research, copywriting, revising, uploads - The tasks of a content marketing team are numerous. Have you ever lost track of where your current projects stand? Has your communication suffered as a result? Yes?

What can help you is a content management workflow: a way to define and centralize your entire content creation, production, and management process.

If you are fans of structure and clarity and your common goal is to create high-quality content in the most efficient way possible, then keep reading and let our guest author Lisa Kubatzki show you what good content management workflows are made of, how to create one yourself, and which tools can help you plan and implement your workflows.

What does content management workflow mean?

A content management workflow encompasses the steps a content marketing team goes through to publish a new piece of content. It is part of content lifestyle management and includes content planning, content production, as well as review and evaluation after the actual publication.

Content management workflows can look different for different teams and vary in complexity. They can include many or few steps, depending on the type of content, scope of the project, resources, time, and budget.

A CMS or Project Management Tool can assist you with content workflow management. With the appropriate function, you can set the various stages of your workflow, establish an approval path, and thus ensure that each published piece of content meets your requirements.

5 reasons why a good content management workflow can help you

1. We love structure.With a centralized process, a fixed sequence, and clear roles and tasks for every single person in the team, no questions remain unanswered in the process of content management. In turn, this avoids discussions about responsibilities and days when a piece of content is, so to speak, 'up in the air' and it is uncertain what will happen next. Instead of having to arrive at a common result between various processes and workflows of different teams, there is a centralized process that removes ambiguities and inconsistencies.

2. Deadlines are met and blockers are identified.
   ⁠In the content management workflow, you as a team can not only define your content creation and publishing process, but also specify how long it should take to complete the content production workflow.
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   ⁠A workflow CMS that assists you in implementing your process makes deadlines visible, sends reminders to accountable individuals, and also helps you see where bottlenecks are and which workflow steps can be optimized. When these blockers are identified and addressed, it also leads to a better atmosphere within your team.

3. Clear role distribution & cooperation. Once you have established a robust content management workflow, no questions about responsibility or tasks should remain unanswered. It should be clear to everyone within your team who is responsible for which step within the content management workflow and who they should turn to next.
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   ⁠Each individual within the team thus has the sense of participating in the project. Collaborative handover and feedback processes are created between different team members, which in turn strengthens team spirit and communication. This also makes it easier for new employees who join the team later on to get started.

4. You allocate your money, your time, and your resources tactically. When everyone in the team knows which phases a piece of content goes through, valuable time is saved that would otherwise be spent on discussions and agreements. And as we all know, time is also money. Costly elements of the content workflow can be identified and eliminated more easily.
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   ⁠Looking at it from a business perspective, a content management workflow enables efficient and consistent work and optimizes the content management strategy.

5. Increased productivity. Once you have established a workflow that works perfectly for you, it is easier to estimate how long it will take to publish a piece of content. This also makes it easier to create an editorial plan or content calendar.
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   ⁠How many pieces of content can be created per week, month, and distributed throughout the year can be scaled much more precisely with the help of an efficient workflow. With a content management workflow and the right software, many processes can be automated that would otherwise require much more team resources and effort.

What makes a good content management workflow? - A checklist

For a content management workflow to work, it should be tailored to the needs and goals of the team and provide answers to the following questions:

• How does each piece of content you need to produce fit into your marketing strategy?
• Using which factors do you prioritize your content?
• What are the quality criteria for your content?
• What steps must a piece of content go through, what tasks must the team fulfill, to produce and publish a high-quality piece of content?
• Who in your team is best suited for which task
• What tools does every individual in the team need to fulfill their own task?
• How long does it take to complete the individual tasks?
• How do you ensure that the content management process actually flows and that there are no overlaps or redundancies?
• What are the key performance indicators and criteria for the success of your workflow?

This might sound like a lot of work at first. However, teams that design a content management workflow often answer many of the questions quite automatically when planning. And in the long run, the work will pay off once the workflow is implemented and becomes routine.

When it comes to the content management workflow itself, there are 5 simple guidelines you should keep in mind:

1. Don't make it too complex

Too many cooks spoil the broth. This applies to content production as well. If a simple blog post has to pass through too many stages and is revised by too many people over and over again, it not only wastes time, but also the nerves of the copywriters and involved team members.

And at the end, you have a piece of content that barely resembles the original. For the benefit of the creatives, the team spirit and your time planning, do not let your marketing content go through too many unnecessary hands.

2. A good framework instead of a strict set of rules

Of course, there are quality factors and guidelines like style guides, linking rules, etc., that you as a team should adhere to. Yet, content management workflows are more about efficiency than control.

As a team, give yourselves the necessary space for creativity and ideas, instead of sticking to a too strict plan.

3. Quality over quantity

Instead of producing as much content as possible in a given period of time, your focus should be on producing the highest quality content with the least amount of detours.

Therefore, deadlines should not be too tight so that quality suffers.

You can never know for sure whether a person in your team unexpectedly drops out or an article requires more research than others, for example. Also the production of other digital assets such as graphics or videos for individual content posts must be taken into account.

4. Teamwork makes the dream work(flow)

No matter how good a content marketing strategy may be, in the end, it is the people who ensure that the best results are achieved. Therefore, you should ensure that your content management workflow includes all team members, creates the optimal conditions for cooperation and communication, and leaves no one behind.

It is also important to ensure right from the start of the workflow design process that each person in the team has the opportunity to throw in their own ideas and wishes and thus help shape an optimal cooperation. Therefore, make sure everyone feels seen and heard.

5. The right tool

Although your content team is the element without which no good content management workflow can come about, a software greatly assists with the actual implementation of your workflows. It locates and visualizes your content lifecycle workflow and simply makes working on a project easier.

Think about what requirements you have for such a tool. Should there be approval processes? Should there be a Wordpress plugin that connects with the tool? One thing is certain: A workflow CMS or project management tool will make many time-consuming tasks easier for you!

Step-by-step guide to a good content management workflow

But how do we now create a good content management workflow? It's not as hard as you might think. Of course, the recommendation we give here is just a basic template that can be applied to basic content lifecycles. However, your individual content management workflow may include more steps. This guide is intended as a guide if you don't know where to start.

1. The Strategy & Content Planning

At the beginning of every good content marketing campaign is a comprehensive strategy. You should think about this first. That means, a goal should be set, audience research should be conducted, and topic areas should be defined that you want to deal with, for example, on a quarterly basis.

Then it's time for more detailed topic research for various pieces of content. The topics should then be recorded in a content calendar. In this calendar, the main keywords of each post should also be documented, formats of the digital assets should be determined, and stakeholders should be identified, so that everyone in the team gets an overview.

This stage is fluid, as your content strategy can (and should!) change at regular intervals.

2. Define roles

Now it's time to determine who in your team will take on which tasks. Meaning: Who will take on the Writing a blog post, who is responsible for the SEO research, who will revise the text, who will publish it?

Of course, it is also possible for individual people to take on several tasks, but you should think about this in advance.

Possible roles could include:

• Copywriter
• Editor
• Designer
• SEO Researcher

It might also be interesting to define the role of Content Owners: people who are responsible for ensuring the coordination and communication between the instances flows and the content meets the team's expectations.

3. Deadline and briefing

Now the actual content production workflow begins. A publishing deadline and a deadline for the first draft should be set so that all parties involved know what dates to adhere to. The person responsible for the briefing should then record more details and requirements for the content. It also involves researching what the competition has already written on the set topic and seeing which posts are currently dominating the web; and how you can do it even better.

4. Content creation

Content creation is a workflow in its own right, depending on how elaborate your content production is. There's not much more to say here. This step encompasses everything that comes with creation: writing texts, designing images and videos, creating social media posts, preparing newsletters, and so on.

5. Quality check and revision

When the first draft of your content is ready, one (or more) person(s) should check it thoroughly. This includes spelling, but also the general quality of the content, as well as its usefulness to readers.

Does it meet your style guidelines and brand identity? This should also be questioned here.

Accordingly, you should make notes and documentation of any changes and pass the feedback on to the copywriter. This is followed by potential revision until approval by the checking person.

6. Publication and promotion

Now comes the most exciting moment. The publication of the content. From upload to social media distribution to adherence to SEO best practices, this is a fairly extensive step that carries a lot of responsibility.

It is also advisable here to have another person from the team read the published content to see if anything has slipped the publisher's alert eye.

To ensure that the content reaches the widest possible audience, all channels that were previously decided upon (in step 1 or in the briefing) are being used.

7. Analysis & evaluation

This applies to the published content, but also to your workflow.

On the one hand, you should keep an eye on how your publications perform in order to know what works well with your audience and what doesn't and to improve accordingly in the future. But the performance of an article or other asset also says a lot about how your teamwork functions.

Especially if your content management workflow is still in its infancy, then jointly evaluate what can still be improved.

8. Additional: Content revision

Some time after the publication of your content, especially when it comes to articles or blog posts, you should check whether the content is still up-to-date or requires updates. Often, content upcycling can contribute to the fact that your contribution's organic ranking increases and even older posts gain new attention.

Which tools support content management workflow?

Many of the best content management systems (CMS) or digital asset management (DAM) tools have features for content management workflows. You often find these features under other names like workflow, team workflow, or content lifecycle workflow.

So if an assistant for your content management workflow is important to you, you might want to check out the following software providers. The good thing is that many of these services come with other features that are beneficial for content teams.

All the tools mentioned can be found in detailed reviews in our OMR Reviews.

Storyblok

Storyblok is a popular headless CMS for developers and marketers. You can create workflows in Storyblok's user-friendly, visual editor that help shorten the coordination phases between teams and their customers.

There is an activity log that makes it easy to track changes and phases of your content management workflow. Within a team workflow, you can assign roles and rights and set approval rules.

Contentful

Contentful is a platform that allows you to create a digital experience on different channels. The platform mainly works through API integrations.

You can define roles and tasks for different types of workflows, from creation to publishing. The tasks of a workflow must be fulfilled before a piece of content is approved for publication.

Similarly to Jira or Asana tasks are assigned to individuals. This person will then be notified by email. Once the task is fulfilled, the person who assigned the task will be notified. This allows for a seamless handover.

Sanity

The Sanity Studio enables your team to work side by side in a completely transparent way. You have the chance to program your own publishing workflows. These workflows help you to set permissions and set status stages. All changes are shared and saved so revisions are a piece of cake.

The workflows work via Kanban or Swimlane boards and are thus clear and easy to use.

Widen Collective

Widen Collective is a digital asset management platform with features for assets, entries, insights, portals, templates, and workflows.

The workflows enable you feedback and approval chains for your content without lengthy email communication. You can set deadlines and assign different levels of release to various team members.

You can also add comments and feedback to your content versions and compare them before they go online.

Filestage

Filestage is a review and approval platform that allows you to build quicker and more efficient feedback and review workflows. Their platform promises 30% fewer emails a day.

You can comment on content pieces on the platform, centralize files and versions, and deliver projects faster and of better quality. The status display signals to you which assets you have already commented on and reviewed, and which files are ready for publication.

It keeps a version history to ensure that no files are lost through revisions. Great is also that you can share your files and projects with an unlimited number of people.

Bynder

Bynder is also a Digital Asset Management Software, that has a content workflow function up its sleeve. With this function, you can manage the entire content lifecycle in one place. The functions of publishing tools, feedback emails, and cloud servers for document management are centralized in Bynder.

This allows for a transparent content production and review process, which increases teamwork and efficiency and ensures the best possible quality for your assets. Collaboration is done by assignment, making it easy to manage and meet deadlines.

Wrike

Wrike is a work management software with features for time tracking, progress monitoring, and budget management.

You can create request forms for tasks and customize and automate approval processes. The workflows are then visualized via kanban boards or gant charts, making them easy to use, even for beginners.

You can customize the workflows and dashboards for different projects or types of content.

Conclusion about the content management workflow

With a good content management workflow, you stay organized and produce scalable, high-quality content to the deadlines you set. The tools we have listed in this article can help you implement this workflow.

The only important thing is not to forget to communicate within your team, to question work processes and also your workflow and to optimize them. Because in the end, it's the team that is responsible for the success of your content.