By Jessica Davis

 

Content creation has been identified as one of the biggest challenges that marketers face. Some companies work with in house teams, while others work remotely with freelancers or agencies to create their content. Regardless, managing everything from planning to approval requires some coordination, and the process can be frustrating. Low content productivity can affect your company’s content output and slow down your content marketing efforts.

Check out these collaborative tools that can streamline the process and boost your content productivity.

Trello

As a content strategist, you have to oversee content production from start to finish. Managing that job is a nightmare, with dozens of files for different clients being passed between writers, reviewers and SEO analysts. A hangup in any stage can cause a drop in content productivity. You can use a collaborative content management system to add some structure to that chaos. That is where Trello comes in.

Creating projects

You can add a new project by creating a card and labelling it. Once you have invited team members to join your project board, you can assign projects to them by tagging them on cards.

Managing projects

You can set a deadline for each project and hold that person accountable by commenting on his/her card, when the project is overdue. You can move a project between phases (say topic – in process – to be reviewed – to be posted).

Reviewing content

People working on projects can upload files on their cards on completion. You can view files on cards and share suggestions via comments or make changes to the files and upload them again.

You can create an account for anyone and invite them to your project board for collaboration. By shifting your team to the app, you can oversee all your projects, virtually, in one place.

DrumUp

As a social media manager, you have to work with copywriters, graphic designers and brand strategists to create your content. Even if you manage your brand’s social networks by yourself, doing it on more than one social media page can be tough.

With an app, you can manage multiple social media accounts with ease.

Collaborative social media management

You can add team members and give them different levels of access to the content stored on your app dashboard. You can provide them with access without having to giveaway your social media account passwords and review all the content they create before it gets posted.

Managing original content

You can store your content online where it is easily accessible in a content library and schedule content from there, to be posted on your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts when needed.

You can also view the queue of your scheduled content in calendar form to get a sense of how many posts you have set for each day and what the overview or general theme seems to be.

Curating content

Your industry probably has great publications and experts who create brilliant content on a regular basis. You could curate that content for your social media audience, to show them that they can trust you with content in your niche.

You can also use the @mentions and #tags that the app recommends with suggestions to build powerful relationships with influencers in the industry, so you can collaborate with them for content.

GetResponse

As a content marketer, email marketing is probably an important responsibility. If you are working with a large team for multiple clients, or working for a large organization globally, you need to collaborate on concept, content and execution.

That’s where GetResponse can be used, to make collaboration effective.

Collaborative email marketing

You can provide users different levels of access to the company account and overview all of their content before it gets delivered to your client base. You can also give read-only access to certain people of required (reviewers or clients).

Creating newsletters

If creating newsletters is only a part of your responsibility, you can streamline the process by using built-in templates and stock images.

Optimizing newsletters

If mobile view is a priority (and it should be), you can preview your designs in mobile view before scheduling it to be sent to your email database.

You can also personalize emails by inserting the custom name field wherever necessary in your email text.

If needed, you can also automate the responders to ensure that your email recipients don’t feel ignored when they write back to you.

Finally, if your email database is diverse, you can target your content better by segmenting your email lists by custom data, geographical location, subscriber engagement, date and more.

You can also provide teammates access to analytics so they can stay in the loop about email marketing performance.

WorkflowMax

If you work for multiple clients and collaborate with a team of people responsible for the content production, managing trivial but crucial tasks like proposing quotes and tracking payments can be a hassle that takes focus away from the content.

WorkflowMax is an interesting means to solving that problem and streamlining client communication.

Customizing client interaction

Your brand is a promise of the content you intend to deliver. You can make your brand a part of all the communication between you and your clients by enabling automated insertion of brand insignia on quotes and invoices.

Storing project details

Manually forwarding data between teams can be a cumbersome task to manage each time a client comes on board.

You can use the app to store and share account details like emails, documents and other information where your team can access them.

Assigning and tracking projects

You can assign projects from the main dashboard, set deadlines and track them. You can also automate reminders so your teammates receive emails to notify them of projects that are past their deadlines.

The tool helps you see who’s working on what, so you can allocate your resources better. You can also monitor the budget being spent on each project and analyze which projects earn you most revenue.

The dashboard can be accessed from anywhere, making it easy to work on the move.

You can also provide clients access so they can follow progress and add their comments on the work that is taking shape.

MailShake

As a content marketer, emails sent to clients aren’t the only ones you have to worry about. You probably also send emails for guest post pitches, content promotion, link-building, co-marketing partnerships, lead generation and PR pitches.

Managing email campaigns can be a challenging task. That’s where MailShake can make a difference.

Collaborative email management

You can create an email management team and provide certain people access to edit, pause or stop your campaigns.

You can also set long-term campaigns on an automated loop to avoid doing it manually every single time.

Creating email copy

You can enter your deliverables into the app to generate copy for your emails. Further, you can store drafts for each type of email that you intend to send out.

Following up with emails

Sending an email is just the first step – you have to follow-up when needed and ensure that you get through to the person you’re trying to reach.

You can set up reminders to follow-up with certain people based on triggers. Set up alerts to be notified when someone clicks on a link, or no reply is received to an email within a previously decided interval of time. You can rely on those reminders and relieve yourself of the burden of remembering too much.

 

Author bio

Jessica Davis is a Content Writer at Godot Media, a leading content agency. represents Godot Media. Her areas of interest include social media and content marketing, science and fashion.

 

Featured image via Pexels.com

When my twins were born, it was around-the-clock, crazy, unstoppable madness. For the two and a half months they spent in the NICU, we commuted every day to spend time with them, feed them, and learn how to take care of them.

It could have completely consumed our attention, to the exclusion of everything.

Except…

The twins had a brother who was 20 months old at the time.

One of the most important things we did was to make sure he was included, cared for, loved, and given his own personal time with us. Ten years later, he still talks about the special time he spent in the park with his dad while I was at the hospital.

Why am I sharing this?

Because most of the focus right now is on cranking out a steady stream of content that will attract leads. Content marketing can be a useful tool in the marketer’s toolbox, but don’t forget to share the love with your existing customers.

How to Use Content Marketing to Retain Existing Customers

Blog posts – Yes, you want to use your blog for outreach, thought leadership, and lead generation. Why not sprinkle in the occasional post that specifically addresses a need for your existing customers? It could be a how-to, could be an inspirational case study (two birds with one stone), or it could be corporate news.

Training/tutorials – Create visual content that helps your customers do their jobs better. Listen to their most frequent questions, and create training materials that speak directly to those questions.

Knowledge base or FAQ – Your knowledge base can be a place to apply content marketing skills. Concise writing, engaging visuals, and use of keywords will get your expert content found by both existing customers and potential customers.

External guest posts and articles – Typically you would think of a guest post as an opportunity to get “new eyeballs.” What if you focused your next article on the needs of your current customers? Provide insights that make your product or service more valuable in their eyes; make them feel smart for choosing you.

In-person events – If you have on-site events for your customers, are you offering them anything of tangible value? Think about collaborating with them during the event to create content they can use themselves. (Because they’re probably trying to create content the same way you are.)

Chat events, Blabs, Periscopes, etc. – Streaming video or text-based chat is being heavily used to demonstrate expertise, as a way to get brand awareness and leads. I’d suggest experimenting with these formats for customer communication as well. What if you invited your best customers to participate in a streaming event to discuss your product roadmap?

 

 

Are you using content marketing techniques to retain your existing customers? Please share your ideas with us!

 

Featured image via Flickr CC: rachaelvoorhees