A B2B marketing department has a wide range of written collateral stored in-house, ranging from copy drafts of blogs to approved infographic and landing page copy. These are typically stored in some type of content repository for easy retrieval and for repurposing assets in the long term.
All these assets are “touched” by a variety of content production workers and expert reviewers during the collaboration process, all in the spirit of producing an effective, attractive, and purpose-driven piece of content.
Digital asset management that prioritizes document naming conventions brings order to the potential chaos associated with B2B marketing production challenges.
When you place hundreds of documents into a repository, there needs to be some kind of hierarchical organization so that production staff and project managers can find what they need, when they need it. Just as important, an organized system helps in the preservation of the written expertise implemented by SME reviewers and requests made by clients and stakeholders.
Companywide processes should be implemented and adhered to in order to track edits made by internal reviewers and clients and to ensure version control throughout the entire workflow. Doing so will not only increase production efficiency, but it will also earn trust from your clients and stakeholders in your marketing agency’s ability to execute optimized and effective B2B marketing content.
While collaboration tools such as chat and virtual meeting functions are key to file-progression communications, the file storage capability of these platforms is the glue that holds it all together.
Several basic operations can be performed on a content item stored in a repository:
To bring structure to the collaboration process of digital marketing assets, documents can be stored within these platforms as versions. This allows a project manager to see the evolution of written content as it moves through the process, including copywriting, quality assurance, strategist or SEO review, and subsequent implementation of client edits.
Each review should be hosted in a separate document and be labeled in an identifying way (see naming conventions below). This type of content trail means that each person who has made edits can be identified and that the document itself or parts of the document could, if needed, be rolled back to an earlier version based on client feedback or stakeholder discretion.
For effective digital asset management during all these review phases, written materials must be labeled according to phase to preserve version history. Companies typically issue a preferred naming convention for each step of the process, ensuring the smooth and accurate transition of a document from copywriter to reviewer to client to publication.
At TSL, for example, we follow these file-naming conventions for the first stage of production:
Your stakeholders and clients know what they want in order to promote a product or service, and your strategists and SEO experts know what it takes to get companies found in search for potential conversions. Their valued opinions and suggestions should be preserved throughout the production process and witnessed upon publication.
Enforcing companywide procedures and conventions ensure that these edits and alterations are implemented and carried through to publishing, not lost in the shuffle of collaboration and file-sharing.
Here are 3 long-term benefits of document and edits preservation:
There’s no doubt that ensuring version control of B2B marketing content can be a headache. It takes time, effort, and internal buy-in and across-the-board cooperation from your team members.
These naming conventions and processes should be posted as internal resources in an area accessible to all those involved in copy creation and copy review. All marketing team members should participate in discussion and training to ensure they know the process, consistently implement the naming conventions, and understand the relationship between edits preservation and the establishment of trust.
If you’re struggling with copy control or you desire any of the strategy expertise mentioned above, please reach out. We can help with all things copy creation.