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Content Marketing Checklist

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Pre Writing

  • What are the desired outcomes or goals of this content?
  • What audience/persona is the content targeting?
  • What topic is being covered?
  • Why does this content need to exist?
  • Based on the topic what are some benefits we want to communicate (Things people can connect to)
  • What keywords/phrases are needed for SEO?
  • Which phase of the buying cycle/sales/marketing funnel is content address for our target market?

Intended Audience

  • Have we properly defined the intended audience
  • Have we created a persona for the intended audience
    • What do they “look like”
    • Job Title/Role
    • Typical Challenge
    • What do they care about
    • Have we given the target persona a name?
    • For example: This is Michael, He is a Software Engineer at Some Big Software Company.
      His challenge is he has not been officially trained on writing marketing copy, but his supervisor expects him to deliver a fully functionally piece of software with a users manual.. He cares about getting his job done as quickly as possible, and meeting the expectations set by his supervisor and the client. He is most likely going to read our content right before he sits down to write the users manual after the software has been written.
  • When is the intended Audience most likely to read our content?

Content Creation

  • Is the content simple and easy to understand given the target audience?
  • Does the concept or idea reveal new information or existing information in a new way?
  • Does the content connect with reader?
  • Does the content appear trustworthy?
  • Does the content connect with the readers emotions?
  • Has the content been proofread?

Findability

  • Can it be found by the search engines
    • Does the content contain a Heading 1 tag, if applicable?
    • Does the content contain a at Least Heading 2 tag, if applicable?
    • Does the content include all necessary meta data?
    • Does the content link to other related content?
    • Does all images contained in the content have alt tags set?
    • Have we considered WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) practices and all aspects of the content been engineered to be accessible to screen readers and other devices ?

Readability

  • Does it tell a story?
  • Is the most news worthy information displayed first (Inverted Pyramid writing style)?
    • The who, what, where, when, why, how’s are explained.
    • Important details appear after most notable/news worthy information?
    • Finally all other background Information
  • Are the topics grouped logically?
    • Does the content contain additional information such as images, bullets, numbered lists, quotes, etc..
  • Can the reader get the general idea of the content if we replaced all the paragraph text with Lorem Ipsum and only left the headers, bullet points, and call-outs?
  • Does the content follow our company style guidelines?

Understandable

  • Have we considered our target audiences motives?
  • Has the reading level of our audience been respected?
  • Have we articulated any old ideas in a new  and hopefully exciting way to our readers?

Actionable

  • Have we properly implemented our call to action?
  • Can the readers comment, share, rate or review, the content. I.E. can we build a mini community around the content?
  • Is there a summary of what steps are needed for the action that we have requested of the reader?

Shareable

  • Does our target audience have a reason to share this content?
  • Have we invited our readers to share it with there peers, friends, or social following?
  • Have we made it simple for them to share it?
  • Have we made personalized links or hashtags for Tracking Results?
  • Have we written the content so that it doesn’t appear overly promotional of the business it represents.
  • Does the content provoke an emotional response?

Post Writing

  • Does the content’s length meet the minimums and maximums set for its distribution channel (I.e. Facebook, Twitter, or blog limits)?
  • Is there a Clear and Catchy Headline?
  • Is this piece of content relevant to our target audience?
  • Was our main point stated in the first few sentences?
  • Have we avoided using industry jargon or industry specific terms wherever possible?
  • Is the content consistently addressing the reader directly (i.e. you) or indirectly (we)?
  • Is the content interesting?

Media

  • Have we chosen high quality media to go with the content?
  • Does the media supplement the content and not distract from it?
  • Is the media appropriate for the target market?
  • Do we have permission to use the media and it does not violate any copyrights?
  • Have we self hosted the media (No hot links)?
  • Does the media display properly when re-sized on a different device?
  • Has the media properly been marked up with all necessary meta data such as alt or longdesc tags?
  • Have we embed our logo or watermark on each piece of media?
  • Have we created alternative versions of the media for all social platforms?

Links

  • Have we internally linked any relevant keywords?
  • Are any external links to sites that invoke trust or relevance.
  • Have we verified that there are not too many links for the content.

Share-ability

  • Is the content structured in such a way that the target market will take action?
  • Are the share buttons or other calls to action on the post in highly visible areas without compromising trust or speed?
  • Does the content ends with a call to action where appropriate?

Timing

  • Have you scheduled this contents promotions to not fall on any holidays (Unless it has been written for that holiday)?
  • Has it been scheduled to be published during peak viewing and sharing hours?
  • Have we verified that there hasn’t been a recent release of a similar idea that would make it harder for success of this content?
  • If the content has references its publishing date, is it the correct date and not the date the content was written?

Browsers

  • Have we checked the content on all major browsers, devices, and versions?
  • Has a speed test been done on the content if necessary?
  • Has analytic’s code been installed or some sort of tracking method been implemented?

Url

  • Has a vanity short url been created where appropriate?
  • Has a short url been created where appropriate?
  • Does the main url contains your primary keywords if necessary?

Meta

  • Does your contents Meta Section have the following?
    • Rel=Auther
    • Open Graph
    • Twitter Cards
    • Schema.org
    • Description

Pre Launch

  • Has the title been optimzed, is it pleasings, and will it make others take action on it?
  • Is the title’s length as short as possible but still communicates our message?
  • Does the title contain our primary keywords?
  • Is the content is scan-able (The content contains sub headers, call outs, bullets, etc… )
  • Is the content an appropriate length for it’s distribution channel?
  • Does the content conveys the message the title is sending?
  • Does the content contains all necessary primary keywords?
  • Have we checked the content for spelling or grammar errors?
  • Have we proofread all the content a second time including the main body, titles, and meta data.
  • Have we compared the content to any competing content in the market and confirmed that ours is improved over that competing content?
  • Has the content been shown to someone else inside your organization, but not someone who has helped to create the content?
  • Has the content  been shown to someone in the target market for feedback?

Pre Launch Marketing

  • Have teasers, previews, or hints of the content been released to the target market prior to release date?
  • Have reporters or other industry influencer’s been given access to the content early so that they can “break” the story on release day?

Post Launch

  • Has the content been shared on all our social platforms?
  • Has a second share been done after a predetermined amount of time?
  • Has the content been up-voted on social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon, Hacker News, Inbound.org, etc.., where applicable?

Email

  • Have we sent the content to the appropriate email marketing list at the time they are most likely to take action?
  • Have we verified that the email template is not overly promotional?
  • Have we checked to make sure the email template does not contain spam words such as free, money, or viagra, unless of course you can’t avoid it?
  • Does the email template have enough custom fields(Name, Customer Number, etc..) that it won’t appear to be a bulk email to the intended recipient?
  • Will the email subject grabs it intended audiences attention?
  • Will the email be sent during the time period where the intended audience will take action?
  • Does the email template used include email tracking/analytic’s?

Target Market Industry Advocates

  • Have we contacted all those who have liked or shared content similar to ours?
  • Have we followed up with emails to the target market where applicable?

Content Maintenance

  • Has the content been scheduled to be audited every 3 6, 9 ,or 12 months where applicable?
  • Have we setup Google Alerts for when our content becomes linked to or referenced?
  • Have we setup Google Alerts for common questions related to our content?
    • How * create content?
    • Why * create content?
    • Can * create content?
    • When * create content?
    • Will * create content?
    • Is * create content?

Resources

  • http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/04/valuable-content-checklist/
  • http://www.siegemedia.com/content-marketing-checklist
  • https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/Inverted_pyramid_2.svg/680px-Inverted_pyramid_2.svg.png
  • http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/leibtag_content_checklist.pdf
  • http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Web-Copy-Template-Allure-New-Media.pdf
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