Content lifecycle management: 5 stages and tools to help you succeed
Afoma Umesi
GatherContent Contributor, Writer
Running a content team is demanding. One of the most challenging parts that 74% of content marketers report grappling with is maintaining the flow of information between teams and departments. To ensure that everyone is on the same page, implement effective content lifecycle management. Content lifecycle management allows everyone to understand where a piece of content is in the production process.
In this article, we’ll delve into what content lifecycle management is and which tools and processes help content teams work efficiently.
What is content lifecycle management?
Content lifecycle management refers to all the processes that bring a piece of content from concept to reality.
The lifecycle of a blog post begins the minute a marketer generates an idea for the post. Every step the content team takes to guide that blog post—from ideation to publication and beyond—constitutes content lifecycle management.
Why is content lifecycle management important?
Have you ever been unable to find the digital assets for a webinar or locate the original draft of a published post when it’s time to optimize? If the answer is yes, you might know why content lifecycle management matters.
Content lifecycle management keeps track of digital assets. This management process minimizes stress, unnecessary extra budget spend, and time lost hunting down valuable content assets.
Proper content lifecycle management makes it easier to publish high-quality content quickly and at scale. This increases your content team’s overall productivity.
"Proper content lifecycle management makes it easier to publish high-quality content quickly and at scale. This increases your content team’s overall productivity.”
We know what the term “lifecycle” means, but let’s take a closer look at the key stages in the content lifecycle. Let’s consider how marketers can make the most of each stage.
Planning
Content planning is a crucial first stage of the content lifecycle. It lays the groundwork for a successful piece because it includes overarching strategy and the needs of your audience.
To make the most of the planning phase, take note of the following tips:
Identify your business goals: Know your goals (creating awareness or driving conversions, for example) to angle your marketing efforts accordingly
Develop a content strategy: Recognize which metrics to measure, which topics to build on, and which content roadmap to pitch to stakeholders
Invest in audience research: Understand your audience to know which type of content resonates best (blog posts or white papers, for example) with them and what their pain points are
Do keyword research: Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimized (SEO) content and heavily informs content planning
Build an editorial calendar: Keep track of what’s next for your content team using a detailed editorial calendar
With a solid plan in place, kickstart the creation process and maintain a consistent publishing cadence.
Creation
Creating content is a multi-step process. You’ll need to decide whether you’ll keep all the work in-house or outsource some tasks to freelancers.
According to MarketerHire’s survey, 50% of these marketing leaders find freelancers work faster and help them get projects done more efficiently. Freelancers may be useful if you’re on too tight a budget to hire full-time staff.
MarketerHire survey results show that freelancers are often more affordable.
For most content formats, the process of creation involves some or all of these steps:
Preparing content briefs
Actual content creation (writing or filming, for example)
Editing written content for grammar and style guide compliance
To make the best of content creation, choose great collaborative tools, outsource wisely (when needed, within your budget, and to high-quality contractors), and focus on quality over quantity. With strong teamwork, ace the content creation stage of the content lifecycle.
Good to Know: There are dozens of different types of content, but some are more effective than others. Choose wisely to produce the most effective content for your business.
Publication and distribution
Next up: go live with your content. The bulk of the publishing load rests with your chosen content management system (CMS). Add finishing touches to your new content like links from older posts to add an SEO boost.
How you distribute content depends on how your audience prefers to consume content. Use email newsletters, social media platforms like Instagram, video sharing platforms like YouTube, and even other shareable content like infographics to spread the word about your content.
Another approach to content distribution is to repurpose content. For example, many marketers repurpose video and podcast content into blog posts to increase the reach of their content (without incurring massive additional content spend).
With a rapidly changing digital world, very little content is truly evergreen. No wonder research by Hubspot shows that content refreshes can result in up to 106% growth in organic traffic.
Review your blog analytics regularly to see how published posts perform. Then update high-performing posts to improve their conversion rates. Alternatively, make posts more valuable to users by adding more information, a helpful lead magnet, or examples.
Management
To produce content at scale, companies need a secure and accessible way to organize and store content. A survey by Prophet.com shows that 78% of brands have shifted to using cloud-based storage or “digital asset management” (DAM) platforms.
While DAM platforms make it easier to store digital media and documents, the documents may not always be easy to access or review collaboratively without the help of other platforms. Consider instead an all-in-one content marketing platform like GatherContent, which supports the entire content lifecycle.
Content lifecycle management tools we recommend
Now that you know what’s involved in managing content pieces throughout their lifecycle, we’ll share three top tools to make the process easier than ever.
GatherContent
GatherContent is an all-in-one tool to organize the entire content production process.
Keeping track of different tools for every stage of the content lifecycle just gets tedious. GatherContent seamlessly handles more than 50% of the process by bundling together planning, the entire creation process, publishing, and the content management phase.
Top features
Plan content in one hub with the built-in editorial calendar
Draft quickly with content templates instead of starting from scratch
Assign tasks to team members and keep track of content progress using the workflow tool
Collaborate on content pieces, review, and add comments with the editor feature
Directly publish web content with seamless CMS integrations
Pricing: Plans start at $1,069/year
Ahrefs
Ahrefs provides in-depth data views of your website's keyword metrics.
Keyword research is integral to creating SEO content, and Ahrefs is the tool for the job. Get a comprehensive look at your keyword, its difficulty level, competitors’ approaches, and even an estimate of how many backlinks you’ll need to unseat them in search engine result pages (SERPs).
Top features
Search for broken links and optimize websites for search engines
Understand and cover a keyword thoroughly with Keyword Explorer
Peek at any website’s backlinks with the Unique Backlink Profile tool
Stay updated on any background SEO changes to their site with the one-stop dashboard
Pricing: Plans start at $99/month
Buffer
Buffer's content calendar offers a full view of content production for all team members.
Buffer is a top-notch social media tool for entrepreneurs, marketers, and content creators. It allows you to plan, schedule, and publish social media content.
Buffer connects to several social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Top features
Schedule posts to multiple relevant social media platforms
View post analytics and keep track of user engagement with ease
Collaborate with teammates to review and compose social content using Buffer’s Team plan
Build a social media content calendar and set reminders so you never miss a chance to post
Engage with your audience with smart comment notifications and keyboard hotkeys
Pricing: Paid plans start at $5/month per channel
Take charge of your content lifecycle with GatherContent
Producing content is a rewarding journey. Although challenging, it doesn’t have to be bumpy. Eliminate bottlenecks by choosing multi-functional tools that support you at every point of the content lifecycle.
GatherContent is one such tool. Designed to support content marketing teams from planning to publishing, this content operations platform has many features to help you succeed. Once you’ve figured out your content strategy and governance model, we’ll be there to help you execute it.
In this article, we’ll delve into what content lifecycle management is and which tools and processes help content teams work efficiently.
What is content lifecycle management?
Content lifecycle management refers to all the processes that bring a piece of content from concept to reality.
The lifecycle of a blog post begins the minute a marketer generates an idea for the post. Every step the content team takes to guide that blog post—from ideation to publication and beyond—constitutes content lifecycle management.
Why is content lifecycle management important?
Have you ever been unable to find the digital assets for a webinar or locate the original draft of a published post when it’s time to optimize? If the answer is yes, you might know why content lifecycle management matters.
Content lifecycle management keeps track of digital assets. This management process minimizes stress, unnecessary extra budget spend, and time lost hunting down valuable content assets.
Proper content lifecycle management makes it easier to publish high-quality content quickly and at scale. This increases your content team’s overall productivity.
"Proper content lifecycle management makes it easier to publish high-quality content quickly and at scale. This increases your content team’s overall productivity.”
We know what the term “lifecycle” means, but let’s take a closer look at the key stages in the content lifecycle. Let’s consider how marketers can make the most of each stage.
Planning
Content planning is a crucial first stage of the content lifecycle. It lays the groundwork for a successful piece because it includes overarching strategy and the needs of your audience.
To make the most of the planning phase, take note of the following tips:
Identify your business goals: Know your goals (creating awareness or driving conversions, for example) to angle your marketing efforts accordingly
Develop a content strategy: Recognize which metrics to measure, which topics to build on, and which content roadmap to pitch to stakeholders
Invest in audience research: Understand your audience to know which type of content resonates best (blog posts or white papers, for example) with them and what their pain points are
Do keyword research: Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimized (SEO) content and heavily informs content planning
Build an editorial calendar: Keep track of what’s next for your content team using a detailed editorial calendar
With a solid plan in place, kickstart the creation process and maintain a consistent publishing cadence.
Creation
Creating content is a multi-step process. You’ll need to decide whether you’ll keep all the work in-house or outsource some tasks to freelancers.
According to MarketerHire’s survey, 50% of these marketing leaders find freelancers work faster and help them get projects done more efficiently. Freelancers may be useful if you’re on too tight a budget to hire full-time staff.
MarketerHire survey results show that freelancers are often more affordable.
For most content formats, the process of creation involves some or all of these steps:
Preparing content briefs
Actual content creation (writing or filming, for example)
Editing written content for grammar and style guide compliance
To make the best of content creation, choose great collaborative tools, outsource wisely (when needed, within your budget, and to high-quality contractors), and focus on quality over quantity. With strong teamwork, ace the content creation stage of the content lifecycle.
Good to Know: There are dozens of different types of content, but some are more effective than others. Choose wisely to produce the most effective content for your business.
Publication and distribution
Next up: go live with your content. The bulk of the publishing load rests with your chosen content management system (CMS). Add finishing touches to your new content like links from older posts to add an SEO boost.
How you distribute content depends on how your audience prefers to consume content. Use email newsletters, social media platforms like Instagram, video sharing platforms like YouTube, and even other shareable content like infographics to spread the word about your content.
Another approach to content distribution is to repurpose content. For example, many marketers repurpose video and podcast content into blog posts to increase the reach of their content (without incurring massive additional content spend).
With a rapidly changing digital world, very little content is truly evergreen. No wonder research by Hubspot shows that content refreshes can result in up to 106% growth in organic traffic.
Review your blog analytics regularly to see how published posts perform. Then update high-performing posts to improve their conversion rates. Alternatively, make posts more valuable to users by adding more information, a helpful lead magnet, or examples.
Management
To produce content at scale, companies need a secure and accessible way to organize and store content. A survey by Prophet.com shows that 78% of brands have shifted to using cloud-based storage or “digital asset management” (DAM) platforms.
While DAM platforms make it easier to store digital media and documents, the documents may not always be easy to access or review collaboratively without the help of other platforms. Consider instead an all-in-one content marketing platform like GatherContent, which supports the entire content lifecycle.
Content lifecycle management tools we recommend
Now that you know what’s involved in managing content pieces throughout their lifecycle, we’ll share three top tools to make the process easier than ever.
GatherContent
GatherContent is an all-in-one tool to organize the entire content production process.
Keeping track of different tools for every stage of the content lifecycle just gets tedious. GatherContent seamlessly handles more than 50% of the process by bundling together planning, the entire creation process, publishing, and the content management phase.
Top features
Plan content in one hub with the built-in editorial calendar
Draft quickly with content templates instead of starting from scratch
Assign tasks to team members and keep track of content progress using the workflow tool
Collaborate on content pieces, review, and add comments with the editor feature
Directly publish web content with seamless CMS integrations
Pricing: Plans start at $1,069/year
Ahrefs
Ahrefs provides in-depth data views of your website's keyword metrics.
Keyword research is integral to creating SEO content, and Ahrefs is the tool for the job. Get a comprehensive look at your keyword, its difficulty level, competitors’ approaches, and even an estimate of how many backlinks you’ll need to unseat them in search engine result pages (SERPs).
Top features
Search for broken links and optimize websites for search engines
Understand and cover a keyword thoroughly with Keyword Explorer
Peek at any website’s backlinks with the Unique Backlink Profile tool
Stay updated on any background SEO changes to their site with the one-stop dashboard
Pricing: Plans start at $99/month
Buffer
Buffer's content calendar offers a full view of content production for all team members.
Buffer is a top-notch social media tool for entrepreneurs, marketers, and content creators. It allows you to plan, schedule, and publish social media content.
Buffer connects to several social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Top features
Schedule posts to multiple relevant social media platforms
View post analytics and keep track of user engagement with ease
Collaborate with teammates to review and compose social content using Buffer’s Team plan
Build a social media content calendar and set reminders so you never miss a chance to post
Engage with your audience with smart comment notifications and keyboard hotkeys
Pricing: Paid plans start at $5/month per channel
Take charge of your content lifecycle with GatherContent
Producing content is a rewarding journey. Although challenging, it doesn’t have to be bumpy. Eliminate bottlenecks by choosing multi-functional tools that support you at every point of the content lifecycle.
GatherContent is one such tool. Designed to support content marketing teams from planning to publishing, this content operations platform has many features to help you succeed. Once you’ve figured out your content strategy and governance model, we’ll be there to help you execute it.
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Share with email
