Today, your editorial strategy as a BtoB publisher should be about a digital-first approach. That means a lot of things, but at the heart of it, dwells your editorial workflow. Why? Because if you can’t maximize the efficiency of how you create content, you will be hard-pressed to keep up. Digital publishing is fast-paced and ever changing. When you have a strong, adaptable foundation for developing and publishing content, you can focus on reaching and engaging your audience with relevant content—wherever and however they like to do that.
Do you have the ingredients for an efficient editorial workflow?
- Seamless Content Management. A content management system that your staff can access from anywhere is where it all begins. It’s not about shuttling paper, or even email attachments anymore. Your staff should be able to log on, and go right to the body of content or project they are working on. They should be able to edit this project and make notes, in a central place where whomever they are collaborating with can do the same. Versions must be easily accessed and controlled and progress easily tracked.
- Integrations = No Manual Data. Yes, this is part of a strong CMS, but a key ingredient in itself. Your SaaS provider should be able to easily integrate your registration and eCommerce systems with circulation or fulfillment data management, your eMail tools, social media and more. Remember that integrations should result not only in smoother workflow, but a better reader experience.
- Comprehensive Collaboration. Workflow efficiencies are very much about removing silos in your day-to-day operations—not merely in terms of information but also in terms of collaboration. It’s more important than ever that your writers, editors, IT, sales and marketing and production staff can all be on the same page and easily communicate with each other. There must be a method for doing so that is universally understood and easily employed by all. Task and time management are part of this formula.
- Permissions Control. Assigning user permissions enables people to effectively collaborate without getting confused or bombarded with conversations and tasks that aren’t relevant to them. But, it also helps you to truly dial in the editorial process and the order in which content is reviewed. Make sure you have a system that allows you to assign permission and adjust as needed. You want to be able to add staff to certain projects or messages, while removing others when necessary.
- Multimedia Prowess. It’s essential that you include multimedia in your content. That’s simply a fact of this day and age. So, it goes without saying that if you don’t have a system and design that can handle multimedia—one that all content managers can easily navigate, multimedia will act as a roadblock, not a boon.
Of course, there are more ingredients to stellar editorial efficiency, but these should get you well on your way.
