Your content strategy isn’t just broken – it’s actively bleeding money on two fronts: you’re churning out mountains of content AND drowning in approvals to get any of it published.
I’ve seen this carnage firsthand. Deadlines missed because 52% regularly get stuck in approval purgatory, whilst marketers burn themselves out creating four times more content than they actually need. Eight days to approve a 100-word social post. Four hours to write a single blog post. Three versions (minimum!) before anyone’s happy.
You’re trapped in a feedback loop from hell.
The numbers are brutal when you add them up:
The approval nightmare: Eight days sat waiting for sign-off. Three rounds of revisions for the simplest assets. Creative teams ready to quit from endless changes. Campaigns going live when everyone’s moved on to the next trend.
The content treadmill: Double (or more) the amount of content needed. Over 60 hours per campaign across platforms. £1,324 in staff costs for a Marketing Manager’s time per campaign. Meanwhile, 73% of blog posts get shared fewer than 10 times.
The outcome? Content that’s been committee’d into beige mediocrity, delivered when it’s already yesterday’s news, or even worse, it’s ignored anyway.
Content Marketer (average UK salary £31,468): 62 hours = £933 in staff time per campaign
Marketing Manager (average UK salary £44,538): 62 hours = £1,324 in staff time per campaign
And this is all before considering any other costs, such as tools, promotion, or opportunity cost.
When everyone gets a say on content decisions, nobody actually decides anything. Classic diffusion of responsibility – you end up with wishy-washy compromises and last-minute panic changes.
Most content advice makes this worse, not better. “Create TikToks for Gen Z, Instagram for Millennials, LinkedIn for Gen X, Facebook for Boomers.” It’s too much. That’s 16 different pieces just to say one thing across four generations and platforms.
The real problem isn’t wonky processes or insufficient content volume – it’s the complete absence of strategic clarity driving both disasters.
Before anyone touches a keyboard, agree on what winning looks like. Not vanity metrics that make you feel clever – proper business results.
When everyone’s aligned on core messaging upfront, content ideation and, therefore, approvals, become more straightforward.
No more mid-meeting reinvention of your positioning.
Most businesses don’t actually serve every generation under the sun.
Look at your customer data properly: which one or two generations generate 80% of revenue? Start there.
Instead of separate content for every platform and demographic:
Step 1: Core Content Creation
One solid piece targeting your primary audience (4 hours)
Step 2: Strategic Tweaking
Minimal changes for secondary audience (30 minutes) (Our Generational Content Framework helps you adapt one core message for multiple audiences in under 30 minutes!)
Step 3: Platform Polish
Format adjustments, not complete rewrites (45 minutes)
Total: 5 hours 35 minutes versus 62+ hours creating everything separately
Same strategic core, different packaging; a fraction of the effort.
Smarter blogging delivers 13x better ROI – but only when content follows clear criteria rather than spray-and-pray tactics.
Scattered approach: 16 pieces, 62 hours, weak engagement, endless approval rounds
Strategic approach: 4 targeted pieces, 20 hours, focused engagement, clear approval path
Time recovered: 42 hours per campaign
Money saved: £1,680+ at standard freelance rates
This results in a freed-up budget for strategy development, better tools, or promoting content instead of endlessly revising it.
Which generations actually engage with your content? Which platforms deliver business results rather than ego metrics? How many approval layers currently exist and how many do you actually need?
Define clear business objectives that everyone understands. Develop your message house framework so all content aligns. Create template briefs that prevent confusion before it starts. Map stakeholder roles and approval criteria – who approves what, when, and based on which (relevant!) benchmarks.
Establish approval criteria and build timeline frameworks that actually stick by removing unnecessary layers. A third of marketers said that managing workflow processes was a challenge, so set up workflow processes that respect everyone’s time whilst maintaining quality.
Create one core piece targeting your primary audience, and then adapt it for two platforms where audiences naturally overlap. Use your message house as the approval benchmark rather than subjective preferences. Make sure to track how the new approval process performs compared to your old approach.
Compare time invested against your previous scattered approach. Monitor approval speed using clear briefs versus ad-hoc requests. Calculate actual savings – both time and money (because time is money) – and reinvest in content promotion.
Stop drowning in approvals for content nobody asked for and instead create a strategy that eliminates both overproduction and approval chaos.
Success isn’t about creating content for every generation or collecting everyone’s opinion.
Don’t waste time and money on content that’s the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall (especially dry spaghetti). Start creating focused content that actually moves the needle – with approval processes that respect everyone’s time and sanity.
