Appendix D. Workflow  Your digital workflows should support the creative/marketing function, whose primary goal is to sell the product or service of a given company. As these images suggest, the message, brand, or content can be repurposed and distributed in a number of ways. The means you use to further marketing strategies are examined in this appendix. I use the term workflows because there are several that take place concurrently and are discussed throughout this appendix: Creative This workflow involves the assembly of your resources, the layout of your content, and the production of your content based on delivery or distribution strategies. Asset This workflow includes the organization, management, retrieval, and archiving of all your digital assets. Repurposing content This workflow includes taking content in one form and changing it to become compatible for another method of distribution. Review and approval This workflow is the communication between all approving investors in the production of your content. Job management and tracking This workflow includes assigning tasks, tracking those tasks, and managing them through to conclusion. Quality control This workflow involves the hand-offs throughout the previously listed workflows and how they affect delivery of content.
Throughout each of these workflows there should be quality control measures built in to ensure that all the workflows are performing to best practices and standard operating procedures. If you're reading this book, you are probably responsible for the creation and delivery of content in some form or another. So, let me illustrate the concept of content distribution in the context of workflow with the following example. Example of Content Distribution Your marketing department develops a strategy to drive consumers to a specific page on your company's website because, statistically, they know that if they can get a consumer to this page, their close rate goes up by 40%. So, the challenge is how to get consumers to log on. The answer might be a combination of strategies: direct mail, telemarketing, emails, and broadcast orchestrated around a theme or message that ties the campaign together. Resources for each of these distribution points are very different: Direct mail requires page layout and print graphics. Telemarketing requires valid, qualified data. Emails require both valid, qualified data as well as brief, well-formulated content. Broadcast might require video or animation targeted to specific demographics on specific outlets at specific times of the day.
You might be required to supply a good portion of this content and therefore should have a firm understanding of the requirements each of these distribution points will demand. You'll also need a well-organized set of tools, assets, and skills to be able to call on an efficient workflow to meet these demands. |
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