We see it all the time: You finally have a content strategy. You have a content calendar based on that strategy, filled with great stuff. Your team or agency has begun delivering all that great content. And now…you’re stuck in the review process. Your content creators are being so efficient that you can’t keep up with the growing pile of things to review.

If you’ve ever been in this position, this article is for you. These are my tips for speeding up the review process so you can get yourself back on track and ahead of that content calendar.

Why Do Backups in the Review Process Happen?

In truth, most review processes become unnecessarily long because of something in the company culture. For example:

1. CYA: Everyone is afraid of a negative response from someone important in the organization, so every piece is reviewed by too many people.
2. An overloaded reviewer: One person is responsible for reviewing, as well as dozens of other tasks. They become a bottleneck.
3. Lack of trust: No one wants to fully delegate reviewing because they are afraid something will get missed.
4. Lack of interest: The people who most need to review a piece do not see it as a priority, and lack any incentive to do so.

Tackling company culture issues is difficult, but there are some policies you can put into place to make the review process more efficient.

#1. Shorten the Chain: Decrease the Number of Reviewers

Hand on my heart, I once had a client who had set up the following workflow for reviewing written pieces:

1. My direct contact (marketing specialist) reviewed it to make sure the writing flowed and the topic seemed appropriate.
2. Next, her boss, the Director of Marketing gave some feedback, and then sent it to the SME (subject matter expert) to make sure it was factually correct.
3. After that, the Director or Marketing reviewed again, and then sent to the CEO for a final “just in case.”
4. The CEO often had opinions about what he wanted to write about. Sometimes, this would derail the piece or require a major pivot. We would then go through steps 1-4 again. Often, another SME was brought into the review process.
5. Once the CEO was happy, it was sent to the SEO person, who suggested more small changes.
6. Then, the piece went to legal compliance.
7. Back to the SEO person for final publication.

This process often took months. It was way too complicated, passing the piece through way too many hands.

To shorten the chain, consider these points:

• The CEO likely has more important things to do than reviewing content. His input on topics is important, but better suited during brainstorming sessions.
• Only one marketing professional needs to review. They should trust one another and divvy up the work.
• With the right writer, the SEO review will be short, and can often be handled simultaneously with the legal compliance review

So ask yourself: How can you taking reviewing off some people’s plates? What can shorten the your chain of reviews so that there are fewer steps?

#2. Run in Parallel: Allow Simultaneous Reviewing

Modern word processing apps like Google Docs and MS Word allow people to collaborate on documents simultaneously. Take advantage of that. Have all reviewers look at the piece at the same time. When everyone can see everyone else’s comments, it provides a much more robust and direct opportunity for dialog (and, believe it or not, saves on effort).

Some teams have members who are uncomfortable reviewing in this way. Nine times out of ten, it’s simply because no one has shown them how to use these tools, and little guidance helps. (Need help with that? I’m happy to run a short training session. It can shave days off the review time for every document going forward.)

If you are not using a modern word processor that allows multiple team members to collaborate on the same document, do so. Ask yourself: What do people need to learn in order to be comfortable doing this?

#3. Time Block Yourself (and Others)

Here’s a weird thing about time management. No one ever seems to have time to finish reviewing a piece. But somehow, everyone makes time for a meeting.

Use that. If you need someone else on your team to review a piece, schedule a meeting with that person for the purpose of reviewing. Once they have shown up, give them the link to whatever needs to be reviewed (or send them the file) and give them that meeting time to review it. Ask them to meet back at the end of the hour; you’ll find that, 99% of the time, they have finished the review and more.

If you yourself are the bottleneck, just put the time on your calendar and treat it like a meeting. If you find yourself doing other things within that hour, call on an accountability partner to meet with you at the top of the hour, and at the end. When you have to report your progress to someone, you are much more likely to get the task done.

Giving yourself or others “permission” to take time away from other tasks and spend it on a review not only ensures it will get done, but sends the message that it is an important priority.

Ask yourself: Who needs to be time blocked to allow time for reviewing?

#4. Make Them Responsible

I once had a client that employed several engineers. These engineers were the SME’s, and they had to review everything we wrote. Some of them would take months before they would look at an article or blog post.

Together with the marketing director, we started telling the engineers that these articles and blog posts would be going out under their name, so they had best review them for accuracy. That motivated some of the engineers, as they didn’t want their name associated with something that was potentially inaccurate or low quality. (The pieces were never inaccurate or low quality, but just the fear that they could be was enough for some.)

They were also told that pieces would be published on a certain date with or without their input. This gave them a timeline as well as incentive to make reviewing a priority.

Ask yourself: Who is holding up the review process? How can you tap into their sense of ownership for the piece?

#5. Focus on What Is Important

You (or your team) need to focus on those things that only you know best:

• Your company’s unique style and personality
• Factual information that only you know

That’s about it. Everything else can can and should be outsourced to your writing team.. Grammar rules, proofreading, and organizing the content are their areas of expertise, and don’t need to be part of your review.

Ask yourself: Do you trust your writer to make the right decisions about these things? If not, you probably need to find a new writer.

#6. Get Better Writers, Content Creators

The better your writer, the less effort you will need to put into reviewing. It’s that simple. Keep in mind that a good writer or content creator isn’t just skilled at their one craft. They are also good listeners, interviewers, editors, and strategists. Within a few months, you should be able to get to the point where you almost trust your content creators to create on their own, with minimal input from you. If you’re not having a turnkey experience like this, you need to find someone better.

 

Final food for thought: How long do your content reviews currently take? What would be the value in making them take less time? What would be the value of getting them done sooner? Would it be worth spending 30 minutes now, with us, if it meant speeding up the process for all content that is to come?