With demand for high-quality content skyrocketing over the last few years, content creators are under more pressure to deliver the goods. More than 90 percent of B2B marketers report their company views content as a business asset. But, how much of that perception translates into effective content strategies and efficient content production?
Unfortunately, you might be wasting your investment if you’re not focused on improving the efficiency of your content creation processes. That’s because inefficiency can impede your ability to create enough quality content. You spend enormous amounts of time and money creating content but without content governance, you’re poised to spend even more resources. Enterprise content governance operationalizes and maintains content strategy and impact over time. Read on to learn exactly how much inefficient content creation could be costing your company.
Efficiency is expensive
Over years of working with content professionals Acrolinx found that a staggering 66 percent say that their content creation isn’t as efficient as it should be. That’s compared with just five percent who report they’re highly efficient at content creation. The question is why does that matter?
Content loses its ROI quickly when it’s slow to publish and if it’s hard to find, share, or repurpose. In fact, IDC data reports this kind of content chaos costs organizations with over 1,000 employees approximately $2.5 million per year. Not only that, but the subsequent need to duplicate this mismanaged content costs another $5 million for these organizations.
On the other hand, those organizations that are experts at efficiency produce two times as much content as everyone else, and they do so 163 percent faster using the same volume of resources. Figures like these speak for themselves: It pays to work smarter, not harder.
Factors that contribute to inefficiency
Poor processes are always going to be one of the biggest factors in a business producing content inefficiently. If the process is unclear, not standardized, or has too many steps, it’s going to take a lot longer for content to get to market.
Likewise, if the quality of the writing is poor. Editors are a valuable commodity, but it’s a waste of their time to be correcting basic grammar and spelling mistakes when they should be concentrating on the quality and meaning of the message. Plus, if a piece of content has to be reviewed and edited multiple times, it can easily get bottlenecked. Often, large enterprises with fast deployments will risk publishing content without checking it’s 100% compliant with their style, tone, and terminology. At best it leads to an embarrassing Tweet from an irritated customer, but at worst these simple errors risk legal consequences that result from product misuse or not meeting regulatory requirements.
Translation is another sticking point for inefficiency. You often see near-identical pieces of content translated repeatedly, wasting time, and money (and often with varying results). Likewise, with writers starting with a blank page instead of using a template, or modular content designed for reuse. Instead of repeatable, scalable processes, too many companies get trapped in a cycle of having to reinvent the wheel every time they create content. That’s simply not cost-effective and highly inefficient.
Pain-free efficiency gains are achievable
To achieve your goals, you need to know what you’re doing, how you’re going to do it, and why. That’s why a content strategy is so important. SEMrush asked 1,500+ marketing agencies and businesses if they have a content marketing strategy. 84% said yes but only 11% said they consider it to be an excellent one.
To create efficient content, you must have standardized, documented processes that everyone involved follows closely. Managing a workflow by clearly identifying the steps a piece of content goes through, milestones to pass, and who the approvers will be, are key ways to streamline and simplify the process, while also giving creators valuable confidence, support, and guidance. And then, you need a way to govern it so that content continues to pay dividends over time.
Finally, you need the right tools for the job. While content professionals say that documented processes are the most important factor in efficient content creation, almost 60 percent agree that using the right technology is vital. Taking advantage of technologies, such as content creation and optimization software and artificial intelligence can have a huge impact on speed and accuracy. And if there’s an option to automate some of the creation and editorial review processes, even better!
Efficient content production with Acrolinx
If your content creation is inefficient and demand for content keeps increasing, or your products and services continue to grow, it can lead to serious problems. You’re going to wind up sacrificing quality, quantity, or worse yet, both. Luckily, we can learn from some of the world’s most valuable companies and get content creation back on track. Rather than panicking and hiring more staff or compromising your output, technology such as a content impact platform can make sure you get the most out of your precious resources.
Acrolinx is the leader in content impact. Our AI-powered software improves the quality and effectiveness of all types of enterprise content. Acrolinx helps Fortune 2000 brands meet the challenges of creating content at massive scale — across writers, workflows, languages, and cultures. It does that by increasing your content’s value with streamlined creation workflows, governing it against established writing guidelines, and improving its value over time. In the aggregate, our customers report a 90% reduction in time spent reviewing content and a 2.4 times increase in content creation velocity.
