Content creation is the process of creating (or producing, or drumming up, or whipping together) content. You can create content to inspire, educate, persuade, convince, argue, support, express, and the list goes on. Content is pretty much any form of media that your audience can consume—written, spoken, video, audio, and the list goes on.

Let’s finish off with some insider tips from ITnow Studios on how to create effective content—and how to do so efficiently.

1. Identify the who and why

Every piece of content should be created for a specific audience with a specific purpose. If you’re going to do a webinar, for example, the topic you decide on, the presentation you create, the positioning of the promotional emails you send, and the ads and social posts you create for it will all depend on who you want to attend and what your goal is with the webinar.

2. Establish levels of awareness

On a similar note, make sure you know the level of awareness of your target audience for each piece of content. Across the buyer journey, there’s pain-point aware, problem aware, solution aware, and brand aware. Make sure you know what level of awareness your audience has for the particular piece of content you’re creating so you can use the language that will resonate best.

3. Rely on data

All too often, content marketing gets misperceived as purely right-brain. But the truth is, if you want a truly lead-generating content marketing strategy, there is a lot of math and data that goes into content creation. You’ll need to:

Pay attention to keyword volume and competition levels.

Establish content marketing KPIs so you can set measurable goals for your content. For example, traffic numbers, conversion rates, and overall ROI.

Track SEO metrics such as time on page, page speed, backlinks, domain authority, and more.

More often than you’d think, we come to find that we thought we knew what our audience would like best but the numbers show otherwise. Use data as your compass and let the creativity flow from there.

4. Create with repurposing in mind

The beauty of content is that there are so many forms of it that you can get a ton of mileage out of just one piece. Repurposing is a content creator’s best friend. Write a thorough, keyword-optimized blog post with images and you don’t just have a blog post. You can make it into any or all of these:

Linked social post.

Unlinked social post (such as just an image, excerpt, or stat for quick tidbits).

A PDF guide (these make great lead magnets).

A video or slideshow.

A webinar.

5. Stick to evergreen topics

On a similar note to the above, most of your content should be evergreen. Content creation, no matter how easy you make it for yourself, is still time and energy exerted.

The best way to make it worth every minute and dollar you spend is to focus on timeless topics that people will always be interested in, rather than trends and fads that will spike and then die out. It’s easier to go in and spruce up evergreen content from time to time than to constantly be chasing the hottest topics.

6. Keep a content library

On that last note, keep a library of all your content so that everyone on the team can have visibility into what exists. Not only will this ensure your content gets the most usage, but it will also prevent unnecessary recreation of content and proliferating content. This is a waste of time and your messaging will become inconsistent.

Also, a content library allows you to keep track of updating that evergreen content. Our content audit templates will come in handy here!

7. Have an editorial calendar

Be sure to create an editorial calendar. Content creation doesn’t happen in isolation. You’ll have multiple pieces in development at once. An editorial calendar will help you to keep track of everything in progress, prioritize as needed, hold others accountable, and plan ahead of time. This planning is especially beneficial as it can help you to come up with monthly themes and keep your content extra–cohesive.