As a kid I loved helping my grandmother make pies. Although she made several at once, she never used a recipe. It was so simple, she claimed, that anyone could do it. Years later I know that isn’t true – I can’t make pies like hers without her formula. A recent attempt at recreating that recipe got me thinking about why documentation is so important for content creators like myself. Documenting your content strategies helps maintain a high level of consistency, which builds trust with customers and respect for your brand.
Documentation: The Key To Content Development
If you're without a documented strategy, you're not alone – Content Marketing Institute research reveals that only 35% of B2B marketers and 27% of B2C marketers have written documentation. Yet most who do document consider it a key factor in successful content.
Whether you want to formalize strategies or establish best practices with a content creator, there’s no time like the present to begin documenting. Here are some guiding principles we use to document our processes and deliver good copy:
- Start strong: Begin by determining what rules and standards will govern your content. This may sound obvious, but when your strategies aren’t well defined, it’s more difficult to clearly explain them. Make sure you know what you want, then move toward the most efficient way to achieve it.
- Stay consistent: Great documentation ensures that strategies are uniform and that your style is consistently applied. From large concepts like establishing just the right tone to the little details like whether fractions or decimals will be used, the rule should be the same in each piece of documentation.
- Less can be more: It’s tempting to try to account for every possible situation, but the reality is that no documentation can answer every question. Provide all the needed information, but not so many variations, notes and examples that critical points get lost.
- Avoid the trap of common knowledge: Documentation helps prevent relying on “things everybody just knows” and instead provides accessible information to all users. If a tactic is key to executing your strategy, it needs to be accounted for.
- Perform regular maintenance: Documentation isn’t final when a manual or guide is created. Devote time to updating information as needed – documentation that is up-to-date and responsive yields great copy.
Watch Content Marketing ROI Grow
Effectively documenting your content strategies requires planning and maintenance, but the results will speak for themselves. When in doubt, document! You'll most likely see a more efficient content writing process and better content marketing ROI in the future.
How do you document content strategies? Let us know in the comments. Keep up with Virtucom Group on LinkedIn to hear more about our strategies for great content.
Consistent business blogging yields results – more clicks, more subscribers and – ultimately – more conversions. Whether you’re writing an automotive blog, an accounting blog, a healthcare blog or a home renovation blog, blogging for business and content development are useful for any industry. Follow the content writers at the Virtucom Group blog as they share digital marketing tips and discuss website content writing services that can optimize your business blog.
