Do you work remotely? You’re in good company!
Twenty-six percent of U.S. households now have at least one person working remotely one or more days every week. And if you work in technology or professional services, the percentage of remote workers goes up significantly – we’re talking 80-90%+ of people working from home!
However, for those of us managing a remote team, communication and project management can be a challenge. My go-to solution is Asana, a project management tool that Melissa Swink introduced to me in 2020. It’s been a complete game-changer for my business and has allowed me to offer freelance opportunities to many talented remote workers, growing my business and serving more organizations with content writing services.
I’ve written extensively about how to use Asana and how to use Asana to manage your business, even if you’re a solopreneur – so today, I’m going to hone in on content marketing. Asana can help you streamline and organize your content marketing efforts, whether you manage a multi-faceted team or need help getting a handle on your individual marketing efforts as a solopreneur.
5 Ways to Use Asana for Content Marketing
Asana can help you streamline your content marketing efforts and reduce the overwhelm brought on by the constant demand for new marketing assets. Here are five ways you can manage your content marketing efforts with Asana.
Use Asana to Create Blog/Email Workflows
One of the best ways to use Asana for content marketing is through workflows and task management. I’ll use Emily Writes as an example!
I publish a new blog every other week. That means I’m writing my blog on Monday/Tuesday, handing it off to my copy editor to review by Wednesday, and asking my administrative team to publish it on my website and LinkedIn on Thursday/Friday. Simultaneously, I’m drafting my biweekly email newsletter, which is scheduled for the following Tuesday.
We’ve set up all of these “tasks” to be recurring in Asana, so we don’t have to worry about missing a week or throwing something together at the last minute. “Recurring” in Asana means that after a task is completed, it automatically duplicates itself for two weeks later. Neat, right?! Even if I didn’t have a team, I would still create these recurring tasks to keep myself on track.
Here’s what that looks like in Asana:
I use the free version of Asana, but with the paid version, you can create even more advanced workflows and automations to streamline your work.
Use Asana to Create Podcast Workflows
One of my clients has a weekly podcast, and there are quite a few steps involved in creating each episode. But since she can assign these steps to herself and her team members as recurring tasks in Asana, her podcast creation works like a well-oiled machine!
Every podcast episode has a workflow with steps that look something like this:
- Set up Zoom meeting with interviewee
- Email prompt questions to interviewee
- Record podcast interview
- Send “thank you” postcard to interviewee
- Upload audio/video to Google Drive
- Write podcast notes
- Copyedit podcast notes
- Create podcast graphics
- Edit podcast episode audio/video
- Upload podcast to distribution platforms
- Add podcast episode to website
- Schedule social media post for publication day
- Send post-publication email to interviewee
- Create and schedule Reels from podcast video
Use Asana to Create Social Media Workflows
Just like the blog/email example I shared above, you can easily create workflows for your social media content. Assign yourself (or a team member) tasks for drafting captions, designing imagery, approving posts, and scheduling them on your chosen platforms.
For Emily Writes, I have my talented freelance writers helping with many clients’ social media caption writing. After creating outlines for each month for each client, I give every writer a due date. Once they’ve written the content, they drop the link to their Google doc right in the Asana task. This cuts down on email inbox clutter – win!
To save your sanity, I recommend creating at least a week of social media content at a time. For many of my clients, I create a month in one sitting! That means your Asana will have recurring tasks every week (or month) for each of the steps I just listed (drafting, designing, approving, scheduling).
Use Asana to Manage Marketing Campaigns
When you have a big launch, sale, or marketing push, it’s important to plan out all the moving parts and pieces. You can use Asana to list ALL the tasks that need to be done, and then assign them to team members with due dates. This ensures you give yourself enough time to complete all the necessary steps before your big day.
Here are some tasks you could build into Asana for a marketing campaign:
- Conduct Market Research: Gather data and insights to inform your strategy. What have other companies done? What has worked for you in the past?
- Develop a Campaign Timeline: Map out the entire timeline of the campaign, including due dates for every additional task listed below.
- Plan Content Pieces: List all content pieces needed for the campaign, such as blog posts, social media graphics, webinars, and email sequences. Assign staggered due dates so you aren’t overwhelmed with content creation all at once.
- Design Promotional Materials: Plan for all visual marketing assets like graphics, presentations, and videos. Make sure you build in time for edits and feedback with your graphic designer and video editor.
- Coordinate Customer Service: If you anticipate a lot of sales on launch day, create tasks to help handle the influx of website traffic and customer service inquiries. For example, you can prepare a list of FAQs ahead of time to streamline customer support.
- Schedule Content: You don’t have to post “in the moment.” Plan to schedule social media posts and promotional emails so they publish at the right moment.
- Launch Day: This day should be less stressful if you’ve completed all of your Asana tasks as planned! On launch day, you could go “live” on your favorite social media platform.
- Create a Project Summary: Don’t close out your marketing campaign Asana board without taking time to document what you learned. While everything is fresh in your mind, record notes about what went well and what you’d like to do differently next time.
Note that with the paid version of Asana, you can create project templates so that you can easily duplicate a past campaign to use again.
Use Asana to Brainstorm Ideas
I use one Asana “project” for each of my content marketing clients, including Emily Writes. I often have tasks or boards within each project just to document ideas. This would also work well if you have other team members, since they can also add notes to your Asana idea list.
Then, when you’re ready to execute an idea, you already have all your notes in one place!
Ready to Get Organized in Asana?
Now that you know how to use Asana to better manage your content marketing, you should be able to create more consistent, quality content! If you’re looking for help in creating any of those marketing assets – especially website content, email sequences, and blog content – please reach out to me. I’d love to discuss how my team can support your content marketing efforts.
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