Content Creation and Production
In today’s digital age, content creation is the cornerstone of engaging audiences, building brands, and driving meaningful connections. From crafting compelling blog posts and designing eye-catching visuals to producing high-quality videos, the process of content creation blends creativity and strategy to deliver impactful messages. Whether you’re a business aiming to boost visibility or an individual looking to express ideas, mastering content production ensures you stay relevant and resonate with your target audience.
Inside, you’ll find everything you need to know about the content creation process, including how to estimate costs, best practices for creating different types of content, and how to develop a content strategy and plan. You’ll also discover who you need on your team to help create content and some tips for developing great content.
Follow along step-by-step or jump to the sections you want to level up immediately. You can use the actionable advice and tips in this guide and adapt it to create your own playbook for creating content.
How much content are you exposed to every day?
Digital marketing experts estimate that the average American is exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day — and these are just the ads. This doesn’t take into account the other types of content we consume.
It shouldn’t be too surprising. Content is all around us. From websites and social media channels to newspapers and magazines, TV, radio, and emails etc it’s a long list
Some of that content isn’t relevant, and some of it we are exposed to without choice (i.e., all those billboards on the morning commute). But when we do seek information, especially when looking to make a purchase, we expect the content we consume to be accurate, helpful, and timely.
What steps are involved in content creation?
Content creation is the process of planning and creating content that is useful, accessible, and effective for an audience. While this guide will focus on written content, it’s important to consider that content also includes videos, infographics, podcasts, and more.
The key requirements for creating successful content are:
- A plan for what kind of content to create
- A specific purpose and goal(s)
- Content creators who know best practices for creating good content
- Creation with a focus on readability and accessibility
- Creation that begins with a specific digital marketing channel in mind
These requirements ensure content will be effective in helping the customer and the business achieve their goals.
Why is content so important?
Content is an asset for your business, and it is what will allow your customers, prospects, readers, and users to get the information they need to make an informed buying decision. Here are some reasons content is essential to your business:
Provides value to audiences
If you’re creating content such as educational resources, guides, and articles, this provides value to your audience and can help them level up. Value is also offered through content that helps people achieve specific tasks.
The value you provide will depend on the piece of content and the topic. However, the basic ways you can provide value with your digital content are through education, inspiration, and entertainment.
Builds your brand (and trust)
What people think about your brand (and its content) is so important as it will determine whether or not they will recommend your brand to friends, family, and colleagues. Content helps your customers build their opinion of your brand. Consistently creating high-quality content that is useful will help build trust with your audience.
Attracts and engages prospects
The best content is not only useful to your target audience but also useful to your business. Use content to start to establish your reputation with potential customers and users. When you educate them, rather than just sell to them, you are providing value in a way that shows potential customers you know your stuff.
Delights existing customers
There’s a lot of focus on creating content to get new customers. But you can and should still serve your existing customers and audience through content too. Identify opportunities to add greater value through pieces of content as part of retention and growth strategies.
A formula to calculate the cost of creating content
To calculate the cost of content production, you might have a spreadsheet with some variables and formulas that helps determine the scale. Any insight will allow you to make smarter recommendations around timescales, resource gaps, expectation setting, and approach, e.g. phased content rollouts.
A good starting point is to answer these questions:
- When does the content need to be delivered?
- When are you able to start creating content?
- How many writers are assigned to work on the content?
- How much effort (in hours) do you expect each page or piece of content to take to create?
Getting started creating content without knowing these answers is a risky business.
You can begin to calculate the cost of your content creation by using a similar approach to the project management triangle of: 1) Scope 2) Time 3) Cost/Resource.
Depending on the project, you will adjust the Scope (the amount of content), Schedule (available working days), and Cost / Resource (amount of writers) to affect the others.
Reducing the number of writers means the number of working days must increase to create the same amount of content without impacting on quality. Or if a hard deadline means no extra working days can be added, it means reducing the number of pages.
Things do speed up with practice and there are efficiencies of scale but never underestimate the effort needed to create and deliver quality content.
