Here are two all-too-familiar scenarios. And I guarantee that, if you’re struggling with a slow content review process, at least one of them will resonate with you:
Scenario one: The draft for that ebook or blog post your sales team has spent months begging you for lands in your inbox. You look through it and it’s good—just a few tweaks and it will be perfect. So you tap everyone on your team who needs to review the piece with high hopes of shipping it within a week or two. The sales team is getting ready to start reaching out to cold leads, and you know this piece will be a fantastic attachment to those emails. Sadly, that never happens. Because one and a half months later, the piece is still languishing in review as you sift through conflicting feedback and unsolicited advice.
Scenario two: You’re a new-ish business looking to boost SEO and website traffic. You’ve checked every box in the SEO playbook, and all that’s left to do is start populating your blog with content. But your blog lingers for months at a time with no new entries. You hired a content agency that’s doing a fantastic job at delivering high-quality and super engaging blog posts. But each time you get a new piece, it takes forever to get to the final approval line. Comments and suggestions alternate between a trickle and a tidal wave and the end product doesn’t see the light of day until months afterward.
Whether you identify with the first case or the second one, the opportunity costs add up just the same:
- Lost revenue from leads and customers who could’ve converted with the help of that content.
- Missed opportunities to connect with your audience by leveraging fresh and timely content.
- Decreased brand visibility and audience engagement as competitors capture your audience’s attention with a steady stream of quality content.
- Weakened SEO and organic traffic thanks to outdated content.
- Wasted resources from the content creation and review process.
TLDR: In a fast-paced market, the speed and efficiency of your content review process are just as important as the quality of the content itself. In the short term, it leads to lost opportunities. In the long term, it can impact your brand’s credibility and visibility.
While the ideal content review process for each brand varies, we believe there’s a set of universal best practices that brands of all sizes can implement to streamline their content review process, accelerate publishing cycles, and cut down on headaches:
- Start with high-quality content
- Define your stakeholders
- Provide detailed briefs
- Set firm deadlines
- Organize the feedback process
- Restrict the number of revisions
Below, we break down each one in detail.
Start with high-quality content
The more checks you incorporate into the content creation process, the smoother and more efficient the review process will be. When a piece meets voice, tone, style, and SEO best practices guidelines from the outset, stakeholders can focus on providing high-level feedback that will elevate the final product rather than getting bogged down over details. And good content not only makes the review process faster—it also makes people more willing to participate in the process because they know they’ll be working on improving something that’s already pretty good from the start.
But, as many marketers know, starting with a good product is easier said than done. The lucky ones have in-house writers and unicorn freelancers who can churn out stellar, on-point, on-brand, and on-time content every single time. The rest are stuck trying to strike gold in a freelancer’s market where the pickings are slim and the quality of the writing increasingly questionable.
If you’re in that second group, tapping a third party with a strategy-powered approach may be just what you need to secure consistently high-quality content your team will always be excited to work on. With dedicated experts overseeing the full content creation process—from research and writing to proofreading and checking voice alignment—your team can focus its time and energy on imbuing each piece with valuable insights and stand-out messaging instead of splitting hairs over trifles like spelling and wording.
Define stakeholders and their responsibilities at the outset
Does your CEO really need to weigh in on that blog post? Should the department head give it a look to make sure all facts are accurate? And what is Bret from sales contributing here, exactly? Too many cooks in the kitchen will ruin a piece—fast. That’s because writing is not an inherently collaborative task as, say, software development or planning a marketing campaign. It requires a clear vision, which will become compromised when too many voices are trying to weigh in. In our experience, the more eyes involved in the content review process, the higher the risk of losing focus and ending up with a product that feels more like a patchwork of ideas than a cohesive text.
In many cases, your stakeholders will remain consistent across projects—marketing, SEO, maybe legal. But, depending on the size of your business and the scope of your content strategy, that can change occasionally or even frequently. For example, you may have to tap a VP for a thought leadership piece or involve different SMEs to cover a larger and more complex roster of topics. In any case, be sure to start all projects with a defined list of stakeholders and the role each one will fulfill. That means that Bret from sales should only chip in to highlight common client pain points, not typos. And Social Media Susan can’t swoop in uninvited with unsolicited feedback for anything other than content meant for social media channels.
Secure alignment and relevant feedback with a detailed brief
More than too many voices, one of the biggest derailers of the content review process is misalignment. We’ve all been there: down to the last revision when a higher-up in the marketing department pops in for a review and starts making suggestions without a full background on that piece’s goal and history. While their intentions and ideas may be good, without enough context, they’re likely to be out of step with the original scope and intention of the piece. Moreover, incorporating them so late in the process may require considerable work, further protracting already lengthy reviews.
Providing your stakeholders with a detailed brief outlining a content piece’s goals is crucial for enhancing collaboration and enabling all parties to align their feedback toward a common purpose. With a solid understanding of what’s expected, they can provide higher-quality insights that elevate pieces rather than drag down the process with aimless suggestions. The good news is that you don’t have to create a separate brief for every person involved. One detailed breakdown of the piece’s topic, intent, target audience, publishing date, and any other applicable elements should be enough to ensure everyone’s on the same page.
Address creative feedback before technical suggestions
Generally, feedback on most content pieces falls into two buckets: creative and technical. The creative side belongs to writers, editors, and marketing teams, while feedback from SEO specialists and legal teams tends to focus on more technical aspects. SME reviews and proofreading processes also fall into this last category—although we strongly suggest you keep proofreading as part of the content creation process, not the review.
Ideally, you want to structure your workflow in a way that enables your team to address all creative feedback before moving on to technical elements. This solves two problems. First, it ensures that stakeholders on the creative side focus solely on the piece’s message, tone, and effectiveness without being distracted by technical minutiae. And, second, it minimizes the need for large revisions later in the process. Think about it this way: SEO shouldn’t be reviewing the piece before your marketing team checks it for voice, tone, and campaign alignment. And legal should be the last bar to clear to ensure that no one adds something that could lead to liabilities down the road.
Limit the number of revisions and set a deadline
“You should aim for no more than two revisions,” explains Paul Rosevear, one of the Content Strategists here at MarketSmiths. “Once you’re past two rounds, the process can spiral into endless revisions that rarely deliver marked improvements. You’ll find yourself caught up chasing perfection instead of shipping something that’s perfectly good enough.”
Beyond leading to delays, excessive revisions can dilute the piece’s initial focus and flow—not to mention add up to some very expensive extra hours if you’re working with a contractor. Every minute spent agonizing over wording or speculating over how readers will perceive a given phrase or sentence is time that your team could’ve invested somewhere more productive.
To avoid falling into an endless revision trap, it’s important your team keeps a hard but very liberating truth in mind: no matter how invested and attentive your audience is, no one is paying as close attention to your content as you are. If a piece meets your voice, tone, and strategy guidelines, shares truthful information clearly and concisely, and is not offensive or incendiary, chances are it’s good to go.
Supercharge your content strategy with world-class writing
There is no greater hack for streamlining your content review process than starting out with a great product. By the time each MarketSmiths piece reaches your inbox, our content strategists have tested it on everything from grammar and punctuation to voice and tone. That means first drafts that consistently hit the mark, require minimal to zero edits on your end, will spark joy instead of eye-rolls from everyone on your team.
Talk to us to learn how our team can streamline your content strategy with world-class writing that delivers real results.
