By Ahava Leibtag, Content Marketing Institute
“Every day, there is more and more to manage and get right and learn.” Who said that? It’s definitely someone in content marketing, web strategy, or digital communications, right? Wrong.
It may surprise you that the quote is from Dr. Atul Gawande who wrote “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right”. Gawande is a general surgeon who suggests that applying simple checklists to both complicated and routine medical procedures can affect overall success rates and reduce infection and mortality. What does his quote have to do with content marketing? A lot.
Great content strategy is all about taking the guesswork out of execution, so that creative content can flourish.
As Gawande explains, most professions resist checklists because “we believe our jobs are too complicated to reduce to a checklist.” But if doctors, project managers, and the World Health Organization are convinced of the power of checklists, then why shouldn’t we be?
An overview of valuable content
The checklist is designed for digital content creators and marketing teams. It defines valuable content using 5 benchmarks:
- Findable
- Readable
- Understandable
- Actionable
- Shareable
However, there are two actions you need to complete before starting with the checklist. Find out these and more at the Content Marketing Institute.