5 min read
There is no magic formula for marketing success. It’s a constant process of repeating best practices but also a lot of testing and tracking, and sometimes it fails. Then testing and tracking some more. Having written standard operating procedures (SOPs) will help boost productivity and ensure that best practices are repeated. Here are a few marketing SOP examples from my career.
What is a standard operating procedure?
Don’t be intimidated by the term “standard operating procedure.” Think of an SOP as a specific task, like how to write a blog post. Your written SOP will include the step-by-step process you want your team to repeat every time.
I am not a micromanager, but I have established my own best practices that I want my team to follow. Having written SOP documents helps my team members learn the best way to perform various tasks without me hovering over their shoulder.
I have always written checklists, “how to” guides, and strategy documents that I share with my team. They provide project management tips and process documentation so that we all get the most out of our marketing efforts. This has been especially helpful for new team members right out of college. These documents provide a step-by-step guide to successfully complete their work on a consistent basis, without me lurking over their shoulder. Repetition builds both confidence and a knowledge base.
Examples of Marketing SOPs
Below are examples of marketing SOPs for the blog content creation process. Some digital marketing teams publish a new blog every day and have multiple writers. Following best practices can improve the quality of your content.
These show a streamlined version of the entire process for each topic, and you could write yours in Word or Google Docs. Mine include more supporting information than the step-by-step procedures I show here. I use Zavanta, our own policy and procedure software system, which provides much more structure than an unstructured Word or Google document.
The thought process was to create a blogging system that people on our marketing team can follow (based on our experience and best practices) that 1) provides value for our readership and 2) elevates our online visibility.
Our Blog Process involves several people and breaks down into these related SOPs:
- Planning Blog Posts
- Writing a Blog Post Draft
- Conducting a Team Review
- Building and Publishing a Blog Post
- Blog Post Promotion
Our Blog Planning SOP looks like this:
- General Description: Blog Planning
- Description / Scope: This procedure covers the steps for planning a new blog post, starting with research and initial topic brainstorming
- Purpose: Planning ensures our team is spending time efficiently and following best practices to give the blog the best chance to rank highly with Google
- Who Performs / Responsible: Content Marketing Manager, Vice President of Marketing, marketing agency.
- When to Perform: Once a week, but this schedule is flexible
- Pre-requisites: Is this related to a new feature release? Will this post be used in an email campaign?
- Approvals: All topics must be approved by the Vice President of Marketing
- Pre-knowledge / Requirements: There are no special requirements
- Detailed Steps
Note: My procedure has more details and sub-steps, but the information below will give you ideas for what you might include in your procedure. Also, for each step, include who does it, the expected result, and any special warnings. Bottom line: include all the details, tricks, and nuances the person performing the procedure would need.
- Brainstorm the topic and potential keywords from the editorial calendar. (I include a link to our editorial calendar)
- Document due dates for your first draft, edits, and final publish date.
- Perform the keyword research. (In our case, our marketing agency does our keyword research)
- Review the keyword research results. (We are looking for higher monthly search volume and lower keyword difficulty)
- Choose the target keyword (Provide criteria for selection. Discuss with the Vice President of Marketing for approval)
- Think about your target audience and the purpose of the blog post (Who is the intended audience? Prospects? Current clients? What’s the purpose of the blog post?)
- Research competing posts. (Conduct a search, read other posts, and think about our unique POV and how our post can be better than the current top-ranking posts)
- Write a working title. (We include guidelines for character length, readability and best practices to optimize search results)
- Write the outline
- Review the outline with the Vice President of Marketing.
Not that we have a plan, title, and outline, we are ready to start writing.
Additional Marketing SOPs
Writing a Blog Post SOP would cover the steps for writing the blog post, including AI usage guidelines, how to use target keywords, images, graphics, formatting, and crosslinks to other blog posts.
Next would be a Team Review. The Conducting a Team Review SOP should be designed to make it fast and easy for all team members to be notified and to review, edit, proof, and comment on the post.
Once the draft is approved, we build the blog post and publish it. Our Build and Publish a Blog Post SOP includes items and tasks such as:
- Featured image selection with a link to our Shutterstock account
- Adding in a blog graphic
- Set up the post in your CMS (this includes meta description and guidelines, tags, alt text, H1, H2, etc.)
- Double-check for crosslink opportunities
- Ask a coworker to help review and proof the blog prior to publishing
- Publish the blog
After the post is published, we perform our Blog Promotion SOP tasks. Post-publishing steps include requesting indexing on Google Search Console, linking to the new blog from an old blog, social media posting, alerting employees, and updating the editorial calendar.
Other marketing SOP examples
The same principles apply to any other marketing process or procedure. For example:
- Client Webinar Process
- Documenting Client Success Stories
- Budget Tracking
- CRM processes
Checklists can be a Gamechanger
Since I use Zavanta, I can turn an SOP into an automated checklist. For example, when a team member writes a new blog post, they have a checklist they can follow. This helps them remember what to do, and it helps me monitor their progress.
Our checklists are a way to operationalize quality control. Since our SOPs are vetted and map out our best way of doing things, we know that when someone follows the checklist, they will achieve the result we want every time. It’s that simple!
Benefits of Marketing SOPs
People may argue they don’t have time to write marketing SOPs Many of our clients experience resistance from their own internal subject matter experts with this same complaint. But capturing your best practice from your star performer or expert is well worth the hour or two it takes to write an SOP and communicate it to your team.
Think about how much time you waste answering random questions from less experienced coworkers. What are the implications of missing a step in the process? Will your marketing generate the expected results? Considering our blog example, just one part of an SOP could result in thousands of dollars in increased revenue.
Here are a few benefits of having standard operating procedures for marketing:
Improved training and onboarding. An efficient way to train new employees is to walk them through your SOPs while following the step-by-step instructions. (Check out this related blog post: How to Use SOPs for Employee Onboarding)
Efficiency and time-saving. Marketing team members won’t waste time asking questions of coworkers or subject matter experts. What if the SME is unavailable? What if the employee is performing a task several months after the initial training? Employees can simply follow the SOP, and their questions will be answered.
Consistent, quality work. You can be assured that everyone is following the same best practices to maximize the team’s efforts, make the most out of the work, and maintain a high standard of quality work. This is especially important when using marketing systems consistently for reporting and tracking or for agency SOPS to ensure your marketing agency is following your best practices.
Transparency. Our leadership team loves the transparency. It's easy for anyone to see how marketing works and understand its vital role with other departments. We’re big believers in preventing knowledge silos.
Build knowledge and expertise. Part of your responsibility as a manager is to help your team be more successful. The repetition of following SOPs will build knowledge, expertise, and confidence. With written marketing SOPs, knowledge stays in the organization even if the expert leaves.
Continuous process improvement. Having a written SOP gives you a way to easily communicate changes as you figure out better ways of doing things or as technology changes.
Improved marketing results. Ideally, the biggest benefit will be improved results. In the case of blog posts, Key performance indicators (KPIs) will be organic traffic, page views, Google rankings, and leads generated.
Zavanta Software for Marketing SOPs
The Comprose marketing team utilizes Zavanta for our marketing procedures Our built-in structure and guided authoring make it easy and fast for anyone to write a new procedure. With our new checklist automation feature, we can easily turn a procedure into an interactive checklist. We have also created a special portal for our agency to access.
If you would like to learn more about how Zavanta software can streamline your organization’s policies and procedures, please contact us.
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