Content marketing checklist to help you scale your strategy

You have hired some trusted content creators who deliver in line with brand guidelines. You have created new and amazing content, but it has required a lot of effort and commitment from all parties.

Now is the time to do it again. About 250 times. This quarter.

Does it feel overwhelming? You are not alone. Scaling up a content strategy is one of the biggest challenges for a successful business, but it's also absolutely critical. A few high-performing blogs or a million views on a video is a good start, but it's not enough to keep your audience engaged in a world where TikTok and YouTube own it with their fast-paced and entertaining content.

Producing high-quality content with a limited budget when users also want to see quantity is a challenge. Luckily, we've come up with a content marketing checklist to help you scale up without losing your mind.

1. Expand your team

Scaling up a content strategy is a team effort, and you'll need every resource available to do it effectively. If your own team is too strained, you can always seek support in the form of external content creators: e.g. agencies, freelancers, part-timers and third-party platforms.

Not only is this a great way to scale up (or down) when needed, but it also allows you to experiment with new creators and perspectives without having to commit to expensive and insecure full-time employees.

• Assess your current team's capabilities and identify gaps in skills or workload.
• Establish clear guidelines for content quality and tonality to ensure a common thread in all content, regardless of whether it is produced internally or externally.
• Establish effective communication channels and project management processes to create smooth collaboration with your external team.

2. Review your current content

Another important part of creating content at scale is getting an overview of all the assets you've already created, as well as potential gems among unfinished projects. This includes everything from old blog posts to the brand manifesto your CEO sent out at 3 in the morning two years ago (you never know, there might be some real gems in there).

• Inventory existing assets of images, videos, texts, posts, ads, etc.
• Categorize them by format, subject, audience and performance.
• Link your old content with your most updated content. Identify gaps and opportunities.
• Evaluate the quality and relevance of each piece of content, flag assets that can be reused or updated.
• Use your current content strategy's guidelines and analytics to determine which pieces have performed well and should be used as models for future content.

3. Update old classics

Scaling doesn't just mean creating new content from scratch—it can also include updating existing content that has performed well. A bit of the same thinking as not only looking for new customers, but also taking care of existing ones.

• Identify content that has performed well in the past.
• Update this content according to new insights you have learned from analytics. It can be about customer reactions & reviews, expert quotes, etc.
• Optimize existing pages for users and search engines by updating the content so that it is relevant over time. This applies to descriptions, titles, alt tags for images and headlines.
• Promote the updated content through your channels to drive new traffic and engagement.
• Monitor results and make ongoing updates as needed.

Reuse old posts

Likewise, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time your team decides to try a new format, medium or social platform. You can often reuse existing content—to get more out of previous investments.

This could mean breaking down a larger project into smaller parts, or reworking a shorter piece of content for a new platform. You can start by re-modifying your blog posts and adapting them for email sending. Want to experiment with Meta Ads? The video series you made last year may contain clips that you can edit to make them shorter and more entertaining.

• Identify posts that can be reused in new formats or adapted for different channels.
• Develop a plan for repurposing your content and document it somewhere the whole team can access it (eg in a shared document, spreadsheet, or in a Slack canvas.
• Edit, modify or optimize existing content for each new channel or platform.
• Promote the recycled content to irrelevant channels.
• Monitor performance.
• Repeat the process.

Learning how to scale your content marketing strategy isn't easy, but as I said, it's critical to long-term success. By strategically supporting the team, reviewing the existing library, updating content that performed well, and repurposing your assets, you can build a sustainable and efficient process—without having to work nights and weekends.

Frequently asked questions about content marketing