Marketing content review process
All marketing content we create should:
- Be free of typos and grammatical errors
- Be technically precise, accurate, and easy to understand
- Resonate with devs
To ensure all content meets this bar, we’ll follow a review process for important external comms and content, including:
- Blog posts
- Email campaigns
- Landing pages/major web updates
- Videos
- Case studies
Tips for drafting content
Having a review process does not mean that we should wait to get feedback or share drafts until the content is “final.” Throughout the content creation process:
- Collaboration and getting feedback early is encouraged. Ask questions, run ideas past teammates, etc.
- Share drafts with teammates, your manager, etc., and ask for 20% feedback before finalizing the content:
- 20% feedback: Feedback on the strategy, approach, and overall direction.
- 80% feedback: Feedback on the specific content (words, design, etc.).
- Save drafts in public folders so other teammates can contribute.
Review process
- Self-review: Before sharing content with others for a formal review, review your content and make sure it meets our high bar. Here are some tips:
- Typos and grammatical errors
- Use Grammarly
- Give yourself time between writing content and editing content
- Read your content out loud
- Technical precision and accuracy + dev-first writing
- Check the handbook and docs to understand how Engineering and Product describe our product
- Research how other companies or devs write about a given subject
- Spend time reading content by devs/for devs
- Get feedback from Engineering and Product (#product, #ask-a-dev, etc.)
- Ask your PM/EM counterpart questions to help you understand the product
- Typos and grammatical errors
- Marketing peer review: Once you feel good about your content, share it with another member of the marketing team for a peer review.
- EM/PM review: Share a draft with your Engineering or Product counterpart. If you aren’t working directly with an EM/PM, then post in #marketing-eng-content-review. To make this as productive as possible:
- Give the reviewer at least 72 hours to review (sometimes this won’t be feasible)
- Flag specific questions and areas of confusion/concern.
- For headlines and other key sections, provide a few alternatives to give the EM/PM something to respond to.
- Be clear about who the audience is.
Expectations for the EM/PM:
- Ensure the content is technically precise and accurate
- Help ensure the content will resonate with devs
- Final review: Once Marketing and Eng/Product feel the content meets our high bar, share with a marketing leader (Amie, Nick, Andy) for final review. By this stage, the content should be:
- Be free of typos and grammatical errors
- Be technically precise and accurate
- Resonate with devs
- Exec review (optional): Exec review should be included for:
- Highly visible content: email campaigns, homepage updates
- Controversial content
- Major launch content
Work with your manager if you aren’t sure whether or not exec review is required.
Additional resources
- Ritza: Technical copywriters and editors; great for drafting new content, reviewing/editing content, etc.
- Join #sourcegraph-ritza to get support