Transform Your PR Team Into a Content Powerhouse

Strategic, goal-driven content propels your organization forward — serving as the compass to guide your audiences through their journey.

The linchpin? A team that navigates the terrain with the precision of a cartographer and the creativity of an explorer. There is an art and science to transforming your team into a content powerhouse. 

Define clear content goals.

We’ve all been there: staff churning out content without a clear direction. Don’t let your team get lost in the tactics. It’s all too common for inexperienced teams to focus on tactics without ensuring each idea links back to the organization’s goals and communications strategy. 

To anchor every initiative to your organization’s core objectives, start by ensuring that your team has a clear understanding of your organization’s objectives, which may be to:

• Build and maintain your organization’s brand image and awareness
• Strengthen credibility, trust and public perception
• Foster strong relationships with customers, staff, investors and the media
• Manage and mitigate the impact of reputational issues and crises
• Support sales and revenue growth 
• Improve customer loyalty, satisfaction and engagement

Encourage your team to rigorously vet ideas against these objectives, making sure that every effort is purposeful and in alignment.

Conduct a content audit.

Sometimes content creators are trapped on an endless treadmill — cranking out new pieces and fulfilling every request from across the organization. Pause and conduct a thorough inventory of your existing content to assess and identify opportunities to refine and repurpose what you already have.

A comprehensive content audit should catalog:

• Title: What’s the content called?
• Location: Where is it stored or linked?
• Date: When was it published or last refreshed?
• Type: What type of content is it?
• Audience: Who is it for?
• Purpose: What is the goal of the content? 

Following the audit, critically examine where you have gaps. You may be missing a critical piece of content for a certain audience or have significantly out-of-date content that needs updating.

Forge a streamlined process.

Creativity thrives within a structured process. It may seem counterintuitive, but a well-defined workflow provides the framework necessary for creativity to flourish, ensuring predictability and stability in your content creation.

Start by mapping out the current process and pinpointing bottlenecks. Then, streamline the workflow from conception to completion. 

Address common hurdles, such as:

• Idea capture and organization: Implement tools like an intake form in Asana for seamless idea intake or even a simple spreadsheet to track and prioritize ideas. 
• Workflow bottlenecks: Eliminate unnecessary review stages and enforce deadline adherence.
• Content distribution: Enhance collaboration with cross-functional teams to maximize content reach.

Hire the right writers.

While anyone can put words on paper, not every content specialist has the same skillset and experience. Due to their expertise, specialized writers can create stronger content that performs better and faster.

For example, if you’re taking a brand journalism approach, a former journalist may be a great fit. They bring extensive storytelling experience and a nose for news. A content marketer often excels at writing email subject lines and calls to action that drive engagement, while a skilled copywriter can craft impressive digital ads in under 125 characters.

 If web content is crucial, then you’ll need a writer with a strong understanding of SEO and the ability to seamlessly integrate keywords.

In an ideal scenario, you would have specialists for specific types of content. However, smaller teams may need to wear multiple hats. In that case, invest in a talented content generalist or prioritize hiring based on the most critical content for your organization. Alternatively, consider outside support from a consultant.

Embrace progress over perfection.

Content creation is an iterative process, and your team should embrace a culture of curiosity and learning. Help foster this culture of continuous improvement by using data to help your team refine their approach, focus on high-impact ideas and avoid low-visibility efforts.

Experiment with new content formats — like podcasts, interactive infographics or video explainers. You may want to test edgy ideas with a small audience segment before scaling up or break down larger projects into smaller, manageable pieces to allow your team to adapt future pieces based on feedback and data. Acknowledge and celebrate your team’s successes, but don’t shy away from analyzing underperforming content. 

Actively solicit feedback from your audience through surveys, comments and social media engagement and host brainstorming sessions to identify areas for improvement and strategize how to optimize future content based on learnings.

By following these practices, your content team will transform from simply taking orders to becoming curious explorers — constantly seeking ways to improve and optimize their content strategy. This ensures that your content stays relevant, engaging and drives real results for your brand.