Creating High-Quality Content for Your Construction Company: A Guide to Content Batching
A well-constructed building requires a lot of time, effort, and planning. The same is true for your business's digital presence and beyond. From landing pages to social media advertising to email campaigns, there are countless ways to amplify your message and get eyes on your company. At the same time, that also means there’ll be a massive queue of content you need to create for each effort.
Content helps your business grow — you know this. Creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience is essential if you want to grow and not get left in the dust by the competition. But your time is valuable! Without the right process and strategies in place, the hours and hours you put into each ad campaign, social media post, blog article, and so on can end up costing you more than it’s worth. Even more, you’re probably already swamped with responsibilities and have little time to even think about your marketing strategies.
Luckily, content batching could be your secret sauce. This top planning and productivity technique enables you to work smarter, not harder. So, hold onto your hard hats. We’re diving into the what, why, and how of content batching.
What is Content Batching?
Here's the thing about content: it's a lot of work.
From planning and outlining to creating and editing to scheduling and publishing that content, there are a lot of different tasks involved in the process of content creation.
One way to approach this process is to go through each task one by one whenever you need new content. Want to launch a social media ad campaign? Alright, let’s set up a photo shoot, pick and edit the images, design the ad creative, craft the creative copy, and so on. Oh, but wait, we don’t have any organic posts scheduled for social this month either. Okay, time to do that process all over again.
Now, don’t get us wrong, tackling each piece of content one at a time can give you the results you want. Do that for months on end, though, and — spoiler alert — you’ll quickly find it isn’t exactly the most productive nor cost-effective way to go about content creation.
Enter: content batching.
Content batching is all about batching similar tasks together, which enables you to create and distribute content in bulk. It's a way of organizing your work so that it gets done faster and easier, saving you time, energy, and money.
As a construction company, you’re probably already familiar with the concept of batching. After all, when you’re developing a new build, you’re not going through the entire process one room at a time. Whenever possible, you’re completing each step for the entirety of the building. You’re ordering and installing materials in “batches,” so that you don’t have to constantly switch gears and go back and forth between different tasks.
Content batching takes the same approach. It’s about taking a holistic look at your marketing strategy, breaking each effort down into manageable tasks, and combining similar activities to optimize productivity.
It’s knowing you need new images for ads and social media and planning a photoshoot that provides you with content for both. It’s taking a few hours to focus on crafting a month’s worth of social media posts that can be scheduled instead of frantically editing images and whipping up new copy every few days when it’s time to post again.
When you batch content, you consciously set aside time to do each content creation task in bulk, which naturally leads to some pretty awesome benefits.
What’s All the Buzz About?
By this point, you might be wondering, “What is it about batching that makes it so great?”
Well, science. According to various studies, we become less efficient and more likely to make a mistake when our brain is “constantly switching gears to bounce back and forth between tasks — especially when those tasks are complex and require our active attention.”
In other words, content batching actually aligns with how our brains work. By setting aside time to complete similar tasks in bulk, you allow yourself to get in and stay in a state of deep creative focus. This is important because, once you get out of that flow state, it can take nearly 25 minutes to get back in the zone.
Bottom line? When you're able to focus on one kind of task at a time, you can accomplish more with less effort. More time in the zone leads to getting more done in less time, greater productivity, and, ultimately, less stress!
And if that wasn’t great already, batching also keeps you on schedule with consistent content. No more telling yourself you’ll get to updating your company’s project portfolio or LinkedIn Page “when you have time.” By scheduling sessions to create batches of content for future use, you can strengthen your online presence with regularly scheduled posts.
Lastly, content batching opens your eyes to opportunities for repurposing existing content. It forces you to look at the big picture. You start to realize that creating content for, say, an email campaign and a new blog article doesn’t have to be isolated tasks. You can tackle both in a brainstorming or writing session by repurposing content from your latest blog into your email campaign (or vice versa). This approach not only saves you time and energy but adds an element of cohesion throughout everything you’re creating.
3 Tips to Nail Content Batching
Before diving headfirst into content batching, you should know that the process will look different for everyone. In general, though, here are some tips that can help you ace this productivity technique.
1) Lay the groundwork
Make sure you understand why you need to create content and the core pillars you want your content to revolve around.
What are your marketing goals? What channels are you using to achieve those goals? In a general sense, what kind of content does each channel require?
What are the quality standards for the content that you’d want to create? Research your audience and competition so you can understand what it takes to create content that adds value and makes you stand out from the crowd.
While this step may seem simple, it’s actually one of — if not the — most important. Content batching means little if everything you’re creating isn’t backed by an effective strategy. Our suggestion? If you’re not sure of the direction you’re going in when it comes to content, don’t be afraid to seek advice. We’re always happy to help, whether you just want a team to bounce ideas off of or need some more detailed guidance.
2) Look at the big picture
Or, in this case, the big calendar. Plan out what you need for the next three months, six months, or even year, according to your marketing and advertising goals.
Want to establish a monthly newsletter? That’s 12 emails, which may include images, videos, and copy, you’ll need to create this year. Looking to launch a new social ad campaign each quarter? That’s several ads to design, which may also require images, videos, and copy. What a coincidence, eh?
Taking a long-term approach to the content you need means you make fewer off-the-cuff decisions that waste resources and time. You know exactly what you need and can plan accordingly. More often than not, there’s an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by repurposing content across efforts.
3) Don’t bite off more than you can chew
When you first start out, it can be tempting to try and knock out a year’s worth of content in a few work sessions. While it’s certainly not impossible with a good (and large) team behind you, a more realistic approach is recommended.
Start small, tackling one manageable batch of content at a time. Consistency is key here. Slowly work your way through each batch and, before you know it, you’ll be way ahead of schedule with your content calendar. Remember: prioritize quality over quantity.
An Even Better Fix
All in all, there are some undeniable benefits to content batching. At the same time, though, we get it if you just don’t have that kind of bandwidth. The content you put out is a reflection of your brand so you don’t want to just add it as an afterthought to your already excellent staff’s to-do list.
Knowing this, our team at PH3 has gladly stepped up to handle content for plenty of clients, including those in the construction industry. Just see what we’ve been able to accomplish for Batia Construction Co., for instance. By employing the content batching technique, we produced a range of content for them in an efficient and timely manner so that their team could focus on what they do best—creating top-tier real estate assets for their clients.
So, ready to expand your capabilities with a team of skilled marketing experts? Reach out today to find out how we can create kick-butt content and transform your brand.