I’m a fan of burning as little mental energy as possible as a freelancer. That’s why I use templates for marketing emails, automate my prospecting, and use scripts for my onboarding processes.
That’s all admin work, but I actually do the same thing for content creation.
For pretty much everything I create, I’ve built out an SOP — that’s standard operating procedures for blogs, white papers, and case studies…just about everything.
It’s just too much mental work to rethink everything from scratch every…single…time I sit down to write.
Wanna see an example? Here’s what I use for my infographics.
- Agree on samples to use as guideline/align with client vision
- Determine argument/stance
- Identify supporting stats and facts (ideally get client approval)
- Create angle (get approval)
- Determine creative twist (what makes it fun/engaging?)
- Create story/flow outline
- Review keywords
- Insert statistics
- Insert keywords
- Insert graphic suggestions
- Read through headings only to evaluate story
- Full, final read through
- Client approval/feedback
- Proofing
That might look a little long, but I can’t tell you how much mental energy it saves. When I have someone ask me to do an infographic, I don’t even blink. I just sit down with this process and start working through.
You can do the same thing with literally any type of content, and honestly, it’s one of the best things you can do for your content marketing peace of mind.
Megan