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How to Build an Effective Content Committee

Amber Garrett
Updated

Purpose

A content committee is a dedicated team that will create, review, and improve on content
across all teams on Outreach. The main objectives of this committee are to:

  1. Review performance of content
  2. Share team feedback and identify improvement areas (example content request form attached below)
  3. Build and iterate on sequences, templates, and snippets

Who should be involved?

This team should include the organization’s best content writers within leadership, marketing,
and individual contributors. This likely will vary depending on your organization's resources,
but we recommend pulling together stakeholders across different roles (IC, leadership, etc.).
Common examples of roles we typically see included below:

  • Sales Enablement
  • Sales Management
  • Marketing
  • Individual Contributor (representation from all teams)
  • Individual Contributors who are looking for leadership opportunities

Requirements

The team needs to decide how often they meet to review content (e.g. bi-weekly or monthly).
A breakdown of content sections that will be included in these reviews are included below:

  • Sequences by Team
  • Templates
  • Snippets
  • Meeting Types 

With this, every team member representing their role should crowdsource the team to
determine how the committee can build out more content to support a deeper workflow. We
suggest ensuring the following baseline pieces of content are created as it pertains to your
teams

  • Outbound sequences
  • Inbound sequences
  • Follow Up sequences
  • Objection handling templates/snippets (5-8 to begin)
  • Meeting types for each role’s most common meeting reasons

Sequence Auditing

As a starting point, please see the checklist below that provides guidance for how to review
sequences when looking to iterate or deprecate:

  • Identify most commonly used sequences by team
  • Steps in sequence (outbound) at least 8-10
  • Duration of a sequence should be at least 2 weeks (unless it’s a follow-up or one-off use
    case)
  • Steps in sequence are multi-channel (to avoid email or call only sequences)
  • Content has a strong call to action
  • Reply email bumps are present throughout sequence
  • Variables are used effectively within content
  • Sequence schedules align with the persona of the target audience you’re sending to ( do
    DM’s have schedules open to late night/weekend emails?)
  • A/B testing is present
    • This is a good opportunity to test theories as to what the committee thinks will
      work. For example, if you put a company name in the subject line it will
      increase open rates or if we put specific times vs the calendar link we'll book
      more meetings.
    • Prioritize those theories and work down the list using sequences and reporting
      to understand what theories prove true.
  • Inbound sequences have the appropriate task priority levels
  • Identify sequences that may be good candidates to be locked (i.e. haven’t been used in 3+ months)

Considerations

  • Profiles must be adjusted to reflect the committee’s need for content creation/approval
    • Recommend creating a content committee profile
  • Representation from each team using Outreach is key to ensure the content supports all
    roles
  • Identifying benchmarks will be crucial as we enter the audit/iteration process
    • We will need to measure against these benchmarks for engagement lifts
  • Set membership expectations:
    • Attend monthly committee meetings
    • Actively participate in meetings by contributing to discussions, sharing ideas,
      and providing insight into content strategy based on experience and Outreach
      reporting
    • Complete action items between meetings (~60 min)
    • Change management will be required for the greater team, content committee
      members should use this opportunity to champion the program amongst their
      team
  • Consider a minimum or maximum participation commitment, for example:
    • Commitment to serve on the committee for 6 months
    • If a content committee member is not able to attend 2 or more concurrent
      sessions, are placement will be identified.
  • Develop a slack channel for committee members to engage each other

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