You’re about to build a house. You have no experience in building a house nor the resources to hire someone to do it for you. You’re standing on an empty lot, trying to figure out which board and panel to tackle first. All you can do is hope and pray that whatever creation you’re about to make will be functional and safe to live in.
Today, you can have a house sent to you as a package where the foundation has already been laid out so all you need to do is follow the instructions and put it up. Of course, building a house is not this easy, but you get the picture.
These house packages are built and approved by professionals and the groundwork is already done for you. It’s a concept that might sound familiar to many of us. Yes, they are essentially house templates.
Why templates?
In content marketing, templates are particularly useful when you’re aiming to scale your content production. Equipping your teams with templates makes content creation quick and easy, and you can easily safeguard your b2b branding. When the brand governors build or approve the frame in which the content is then added, the creators don’t have to worry about publishing off-brand content to the world.
Templates help you save time by speeding up content creation and eliminating the unnecessary back and forth with a designer. When you provide your teams with a solid frame to work in, you don’t need to constantly check on them to make sure that the content created exceeds the brand standards.
Speed up processes
Here at Foleon, we have templated pretty much everything, for seamless, quick, and uniform content production.
We’ve even set a theme for our Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets, so whenever a new document or presentation is created, it has our font, text styling, and colors in place. This way, we can be confident that everything we create is fully on brand and that everyone in the company knows how to navigate these documents.
Our content production workflow is also heavily templated. For instance, in our project management tool, we have a series of fixed tasks and items for content requests, differentiating per content type. This way, when someone sends in a request, it automatically has the right steps, tasks, and assets attached to it. Simple, right?
Additionally, we have a template for blog articles like this one, too. It’s built in a way that when you copy text from it to the HTML text editor, it’s automatically formatted the right way, which is ideal for our blog platform. Saves a ton of time and nerves, I can tell you that.
Uniform messaging is essential
Enabling non-core content writers to independently create branded content can be scary. Your messaging should be uniform across all the content you produce and one mishap or disconnect can cause confusion among customers and prospects. In the worst case, this can lead to mistrust toward your brand.
So, how can you ensure that all your content carries your messaging in the right manner?
Having templated messaging paragraphs, such as boilerplates, brand stories and product positioning statements accessible across the company makes it easy for anyone to stick to the story. Not to mention the ease of quick content creation. Everybody wins.
Make sure to have your brand guide easily accessible and navigable. You can have a look at our external brand guide here.
Visual templates keep your brand in check
So, you have your messaging safeguarded but you can’t quite yet sit back and rest.
Your brand’s visual identity is pretty much your business card. You need to not only stand out and impress but also be recognizable. Think of brands like McDonald’s or IKEA that have established their branding so strongly that we automatically associate a color combination or a typeface with them.
Building visual identity takes a great deal of effort and resources. Therefore, it’s essential that all your content follows your brand guidelines. Otherwise, all the hard work goes to waste. Visual templates put your brand guide into action, so to speak. They are a celebration of your colors, fonts, and imagery that represent your brand.
Adding brand messaging paragraphs into visual templates, leaving room only for personalization, speeds up the content creation process and safeguards your brand.
Our Foleon Content Creation Platform is template-focused and a lot of our content creation revolves around them. Our template manager allows the brand owners to create templates and share them across the company. This way, other users can easily find them and create on-brand and top-notch content while saving time.
With well-built visual templates, content creators can simply focus on populating them with stellar content.
Just template it
Scaling content creation can be challenging but with templates, you can make it quite a lot easier. By providing brand-approved templates to your content creators, you empower them to create top-notch content in no time. Here listed are the main advantages of using templates:
- Create content fast, without unnecessary back and forth
- Stay on brand
- Ensure uniform colors, text styling, and imagery across all content
- Empower more people in your company to create content
- Establish brand identity internally
Branded templates enable — and empower — you and your teams to successfully create top-notch content, in no time. With a solid foundation in place, it’s time for you to have fun and get creative with your build — whether it be a house or a brilliant new piece of content.