Every year, a huge number of companies and marketing teams stop to review their content strategy. This is a mistake.

A content strategy lives in a context and a reality that is constantly changing. Algorithms, new platforms, changing targets, changing audience behavior, etc.

It would be indecent to never take the time to evaluate the content strategy you have in place.

However, it is not realistic to stop once a year to review your content strategy.

At Toast, our recommendation is always the same when we work to operationalize our clients’ content programs:

Your content strategy should be under constant evaluation and evolution.

Your content strategy document should be a living document.

Struggling to get content out the door? A good content strategy required good prodution partners. Discover our capabilities in video, audio and editorial-SEO content production.

But how do you make it possible to implement the content strategy while revising it on an ongoing basis?

By using our content strategy canvas. If you download our tool, you’ll be able to see its structure and how the different elements of a strategy are established and how they relate to each other. This framework allows you to always be able to ensure that the strategy is properly defined and that the considerations of each of the 9 blocks of the framework have been thought out and documented.

How to make all these blocks evolve in a continuous way?

Our solution is a continuous, annual evolution.

Documenting an entire content strategy framework is a big project. That’s why we don’t recommend a complete revision every year or, worse, every two years.

It’s possible to stay on top of the latest trends, maintain flexibility in your approach, and still only take a few hours a month to evaluate the various elements of your content strategy.

Struggling to get performance out of your content? If your content team is living through content chaos on a daily basis, schedule a quick call with us to discuss Content strategy and content operations. We can help you get all your ducks in a row.

Each element of the strategy can be evaluated, adapted and updated by considering one of them each month. The calendar-tool below gives you an example of how the different elements of the strategy can be broken down throughout the year:

In the example above, the entire strategy is reviewed over a one-year period. Plus, it gives you time to rest for the summer and the Holidays!

How do you tackle one item each month?

We recommend planning two half-days to work on each element. This way, the equivalent of one full day per month can be used to review the different elements. We also recommend assigning these elements to a few people in the team, according to the different responsibilities of each.

This time allows for an audit of the current situation, and then allows for modifications to be made.

The order of the different elements and the month in which they are considered always varies from one organization to another. In the example above, we can guess that the annual planning period for budgets and objectives is in the Fall and that the beginning of the year is a good time to review processes, tools and external resources. In your company, these realities would be different and the layout of the different blocks would be adapted to your reality.

Want to get your content team up to speed on this? Organize a team workshop or one-on-one coaching with an expert of our team. You can also book Alexandre to come and speak at your event!

 

Interested in exploring an approach to governance and operationalization of your content program like the example above? Contact one of our experts to discuss it further.