The content creation workflow: 4-step guide

A few years ago, amid a sea of due-yesterday deadlines, a minefield of coffee mugs, and an editorial calendar that felt like a conspiracy board, I had a revelation: all content is the same. 

I’m not saying that hour-long YouTube explainer videos on the multiverse and your latest SaaS whitepaper are the same. But I am saying that there’s a lot of overlap in the process of creating them.

So even though each piece of content you create is a unique snowflake (I see you), you can follow a similar content creation workflow every time—one that can scale across platforms.

Here’s how you can create an efficient content process—without any string or pushpins.

Table of contents:

What is a content creation workflow?

A content creation workflow is the process content teams follow to produce and publish content, internally or externally. From the first spaghetti-at-the-wall ideas through the final stages of publication and all the way to repurposing and refreshing, this is a roadmap that provides clear steps for each content creation stage.  

No matter what kind of content you’re creating (whether it’s a social media post, blog article, infographic, TikTok video, internal document, or hand-thrown pottery), having a standardized process ensures consistency, quality, and efficiency—all while helping herd stakeholders and assets across teams.

What goes into a good content marketing workflow?

Every great content creation (and content marketing) workflow consists of four (very generally speaking) buckets of work: 

• Ideation is the process of coming up with the best ideas for content. It involves setting goals, researching keywords and competitors, determining content types, and brainstorming until you’ve convinced yourself that “pizza” qualifies as a creative strategy.

• Content creation is where the rubber meets the road. This stage is where you actually make the content, whether through writing, design, video production, or any combination of the above. 

• Outreach is when you get the word out. Share the content you’ve created through SEO, social media, PR strategies, and any other distribution channel that makes sense.

• Refining is the process of continually reporting on and updating your content to keep it relevant, valuable, and always reaching the right audiences. 

Some workflows may include more or fewer elements, but you can map any step of a content creation process to one of these four stages. 

A step-by-step guide to building a content creation workflow

I’ve been in the content marketing trenches for years now and have worked with some of the best in the industry. I’ve observed how they work, the tools they use, and how they’ve optimized their workflows. Here, I’ll walk you through a standard content workflow—which you can use for any type of content or content strategy.

Step 1: Ideation

First stop, ideation station. (Sorry.) Ideation is the stage where you research and plan content.  

If you’re writing blog content, this might look like competitor research using keyword analysis tools. If you’re creating for social media, this might start with performing a social media audit or social listening on your social platforms of choice.

Ideation will vary depending on the project, but important elements of this phase will likely include the following: 

• Defining your goals: How will you be measuring your content’s performance? Common content goals include backlinks, clicks, views, visits, conversions, and shares—but you’ll need to align with stakeholders on a clear goal, which will help you decide on the type of content to produce. 

• Doing competitor research: You should be creeping on your competitors. Utilize competitor research tools like Semrush or Ahrefs for keyword research if you’re focused on blog articles. Use social listening tools to monitor activity on platforms like TikTok and X, identifying preferences and trending topics. For other content formats like videos and podcasts, examine competitors’ content performance and broader industry reports.

• Determining the right type of content: Choosing the type of content—both media and funnel stage—is critical. Consider audience preferences, industry standards, and the goals you’ve identified, and don’t be afraid to shake it up when necessary to explore new formats and media. 

• Defining roles: Who will be working on this project? Does your graphic designer actually have time to animate a cartoon character, or are you limited to text only? Who’s writing? Which product will subject matter experts need to review? Knowing how much bandwidth you have to work with will also help you plan the project. 

• Analyzing and refining research processes: Constantly updating and refining your research methodology is crucial for effective content creation. Once you identify inefficiencies, consider using generative AI to help speed up content production, refine content topics, generate new ideas, streamline workflows, and evaluate competitor content. 

After reviewing each of the above elements of your project, you should have a clearer idea of what content you need to create, who should be working on it, and even how long it might take. 

Tip: If you don’t have an editorial calendar, now’s the time to build one out. It’s never too early to give project dates, and doing so will help you keep your content production scalable and organized while ensuring all stakeholders are on the same page. 

Step 2: Content creation

The second step in your content creation workflow is the creation process itself. This step has two major components: outlining and execution. 

Outlining 

Before creating, you need a plan to gather all those ideas you just came up with together into something cohesive. There’s something so satisfying about planning a piece of content step-by-step—and then following that blueprint to create exactly the beautiful content you imagined. 

While the format of your content will dictate how you outline it, here are some common elements: 

• A compelling headline or title: A captivating headline helps get your content read, watched, or heard. It grabs attention and sets the stage for the content that follows. Include a priority keyword you identified in the research phase to ensure it gets found in the search engine where your content will appear, like Google, YouTube, or a specific online marketplace.

• A clearly defined structure: If you’re writing a blog post, organizing your written content with H2 and H3 headings makes life easier for your reader—and for Google. This hierarchical structure guides readers (and robots) through the content, making it easier to digest—and rank. If you’re working with formats like videos, podcasts, social posts, eBooks, or whitepapers, the value of good structure is more practical than SEO. Good structure helps you make the point you want to make while staying focused on the most valuable ideas and actionable content elements. 

• Meta data: Mildly controversial take: write your meta titles and descriptions before diving into the content. These are useful for search engine optimization and help drive click-through rates. Getting them right before writing will help focus your piece. 

• Harness competitor research: Use all that juicy competitor research you did to see what information or assets the most successful content includes. This helps you understand what users are looking for and ensures your content meets those needs. The outline phase is the ideal time to think about how you can improve on what’s out there.

Tip: AI tools can streamline the outlining process by offering content suggestions based on current trends and all that competitor research and keyword analysis you already did. You’ll always need to refine the AI’s take, but it will absolutely speed up the process.

Execution

Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite part of the show: getting down to business and flexing your (and your content team’s) creative muscles. 

Depending on what kind of content you’re creating, you’ll involve several contributors to ensure your content is shipshape:

• Writers: Writing is the first (and, I’d argue, most important) content creation stage. You’ll either flesh out your outline into a complete draft yourself or work with a writer to do so. 

• Editors: These fine folks check that everything meets quality standards and style guidelines. (This is also the step where someone corrects me on the endless number of ways I’ve found to misuse capitalization and commas.) 

• SEOs: For organic search-based content, an SEO specialist can check keyword usage and optimize meta tags and descriptions for best SERP performance.

• Subject matter experts (SMEs): Whether internal or external, SMEs provide insights and verify the accuracy of information to maintain credibility.

• AI tools: AI tools are becoming our newest coworkers. Use them wherever it might speed up the process, but always ensure that the final output is polished by human brains.

• Videographers: A specialist may need to handle filming and post-production to ensure high-quality, polished content.

• Designers: Designers will review and adjust visual elements for aesthetic appeal or add their own creative touch. (Thank you, designers, for making my stick figure doodles look professional.)

• UX designers: You may need these specialists to make sure the user experience is seamless and the content is easy to navigate.

• Marketing teams: For content marketing campaigns, stakeholders across a marketing team will approve content to ensure it aligns with overall goals and ensure messaging is consistent across channels.

• Sales teams: Sales may also provide input to tailor content toward addressing customer pain points while maintaining consistency across content and product efforts. This team can enhance copy with messaging that presents products in a way that appeals to potential customers or leads.

• HR teams: If your content is for internal use, someone from HR may also need to review it to ensure the content aligns with internal communications guidelines and addresses employee needs.

Once you know the players involved, remember to weave them into your content schedules at predictable cadences and with enough time to gather and incorporate feedback so you can scale your content with iterable timelines. Once their feedback is in, you (or the original creator) may even need to repeat the feedback cycle (maybe crying a little) until all stakeholders have approved the piece.

Obviously not all the above stakeholders will be involved for all content for all content producers. But it’s still worth considering who on your team may have valuable, specialized input that can align content positioning with greater company branding, products, KPIs, and messaging. 

Step 3: Outreach

Now that you’ve published your content, you’ll want to make sure people read/watch/hear, right? Creating the content is only half the battle—outreach ensures that your assets reach the right eyeballs or ear holes at the right moment. Doing so can lead to valuable backlinks, increased traffic, and higher engagement across the board.

SEO optimization is a built-in outreach channel if you’ve optimized well, but here are some other popular strategies for content distribution. Remember that not all outreach strategies work for all content, so you want to pick what will have the highest impact for the least amount of effort.

Social media

You knew the first thing on this list would be social media marketing—everyone’s favorite distribution platform.

Organic: Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok are great ways to share content directly with your audience. But be strategic—social media thrives on specific types of shareable and engaging content, particularly video. Optimize your content for each platform by focusing on visually compelling content and dynamic storytelling to maximize reach and engagement. 

Paid: You can also boost your content directly onto your audience’s feeds using paid ads (like Facebook Lead Ads) on most social media platforms, allowing you to extend your reach. Paid ads allow you to target specific demographics likely to appreciate your content. You can also use influencer partnerships to do the same thing—let the coolest folks on the internet tell their audience to buy your stuff. 

Email marketing

Email marketing allows your audience to directly opt in to updates from your brand and build a relationship with that audience over time. It’s great for long-term nurturing and driving recurring traffic to your website without a third-party platform. Also, it’s a great way to promote your beautiful long-form written resources.

Digital PR

This is a step many content marketers skip—but it’s a crucial one. You can actively collect backlinks and shoutouts from big publications by exploring the following options. 

• Pitch to journalists: While it can be scary to march into inboxes waving your content around, it does work. Journalists often look for authoritative sources; your content can be a reliable reference.

• Utilize press releases: Press releases can be used as a slightly more conservative approach to reach journalists and news outlets. Write a press release to announce significant content pieces, such as comprehensive guides, research studies, or new product launches, and distribute through PR channels. 

• Engage in communities: Perhaps the scariest avenue of all: you can approach online communities like Reddit to promote your content organically. Try to share your content where it naturally fits into the conversation—without slimy-sounding self-promotion.

• Rope in your sales team: Your sales team works directly with potential customers all the time, and they always need resources. Share your new content with Sales to provide them with invaluable resources to explain your product to prospects—and you’ll get lots of free eyeballs on your work. It’s a win/win. 

Using any of these outreach tactics can be powerful—but using multiple together is where the magic lives.

Step 4: Refining

Your work’s not done even after you’ve shouted from the rooftops about your new content. Things change constantly—from industry updates to changing user intents to data becoming outdated—so there are lots of reasons your content might not be as relevant as it was even just six months ago. 

With this in mind, you’ll want to build continuous optimization into your processes with tactics like these: 

• Gather feedback: Ask for feedback from people you don’t usually get feedback from. What does the Product team think of a piece? Or someone in Engineering? Determine whether the content effectively serves needs organization-wide. 

• Track KPIs: Monitor your content’s performance and track your rank in SERPs consistently to gauge whether it’s helping your team meet the goals you set at the beginning of the campaign. 

• Schedule routine refreshes: Depending on the industry, a good rule of thumb is to review and update published content at least annually, if not more often. Your competitors should give you a good sense of how often it counts as “routine”—if the most successful ones do it annually, semi-annually, monthly, or even more often, you may need to follow suit to keep up.

Committing to a content campaign is like bringing home a puppy. You’re not just saying yes to a cute new piece of content for your LinkedIn. You’re also committing to long-term optimization and revitalization as trends change and the internet evolves. 

Your content marketing workflow toolkit

Now that we’ve covered the typical steps in a content creation workflow, let’s talk toolkit. As you go through each stage—ideation, creation, outreach, and refining—you’ll use different tools to help you nail each step. Here are some favorites.

Ideation

The best content begins with the best research. Use these tools to lay the groundwork for highly effective content, including all the planning.

Creation

These tools can help produce the compelling content of your marketing dreams.

Outreach

Don’t skimp on the latter half of that content lifecycle. Enhancing your content’s visibility and performance requires specialized tools to help with SEO and promotion.

Refining

Keep things fresh by making sure that your content is optimized. You’ll probably need to head back to your ideation and creation toolkit as you update things, but you can also use these tools to see how your content is performing—and then improve on it.

Exploring the anatomy of a content workflow

Not sure what to put in your workflow for each of the four stages? It may be helpful to get a little more granular. Within each of the stages listed above,  your workflows will include some key components: 

• Goals: What do you want to achieve with this project? Always pin your goals to the top of your metaphorical vision board when you start planning a workflow.

• Tasks: These are your actual to-dos. The work itself. 

• Roles: Who’s doing what? Assign people to the tasks you identified. 

• Tools: The software that makes your work life easier.

• Timelines: The deadlines, turnarounds, hand-offs, and buffer space that keep projects on track for publication. 

If, for example, we’re planning to write a blog article, the content creation stage components might look like this: 

• Goals: We want to rank #1 for the keyword “how to start a popsicle stand business.” 

• Tasks: The tasks necessary to write this blog will include research, outlining, content writing, editing, review, and publishing.

• Roles: We’ll need a writer, an editor, and an SME to accomplish those tasks.

• Tools: We’ll use Google Docs to write this blog and WordPress to publish it. 

• Timelines: We have two weeks to get from an outline to an approved draft of this blog. 

Use this as a jumping-off point to break down your own processes and nail down an efficient workflow. 

Automate content creation workflows with Zapier

Your content creation workflow can get a lot faster when you connect all the apps you use and create automated systems for getting things done. From syncing content templates across multiple apps to sending updates across teams when a step is completed—automation makes the creative process easier. Learn more about how to speed up content production with AI and automation.

If you’re working with a large team, Zapier Canvas allows you to map out automated workflows for your whole content squad simultaneously, incorporating all the software you depend on. A side of collaboration with your automation. 

Related reading:

This article was originally published in May 2018 by Stephen Altrogge. The most recent update was in October 2024.