Communication managers often have to keep several balls in the air at once. Post last-minute social media messages for the followers, but in the meantime not lose sight of the long-term plans, for example. Or trying to obtain information from different departments, following up with copywriters and taking everything to the printer so that an information sheet can be sent out on time. To make things easier for the jugglers of these communication services, Paddle launched a content planner. One that not only plans content on your website but also simplifies the cooperation between colleagues and other parties.
With the Paddle CMS Platform local governments, non-profit and government-related organisations can easily build and manage a user-friendly website. From within the Paddle community, all customers can select the same modules - there are more than 90 by now - and use them on their website with just a few clicks. This gives you a website with a lot of possibilities in a jiffy/at a low price.
The Paddle team has now put that same ease into the content planner. "It is a user-friendly tool that at a stroke takes away a lot of the pressure that often prevails within communication services", says marketing manager Mauro Vanderstraeten.
Sitting behind someone's feathers
Take the planning of communication messages: "We notice among our customers that many of their communication plans are fixed long in advance," says Vanderstraeten. Think of the monthly information magazine of the municipality or the annual members' day of a non-profit. "Even though these plans are known in advance, the message is often worked out at the last minute. This then involves a lot of emailing back and forth between colleagues and departments, because everything has to happen quickly at once. That causes unnecessary stress for those responsible for communication.
Sitting behind people's feathers should not be the main occupation of communication officers.
Not only unnecessary stress but also simply superfluous tasks, adds CEO Wouter Rummens: "In the long run, the communication department is mainly busy chasing this person or that department. One of them urgently needs text for the information booklet, the other still has to provide a photo to go with the Facebook message. Sitting behind someone's feathers may be part of many jobs," laughs Rummens. "But it's not supposed to be the main activity of communication staff.
That is why the communication department can assign responsibilities and add deadlines from Paddle's content planner. Vanderstraeten: "You can indicate who must complete a task by when; must deliver a text for a press release or submit the graphic design for a brochure, for example. Those people then receive a notification of the to-do and the deadline. Clear. Everyone knows what to do and shares some of the responsibility for the project. They add their text or design in the content planner and the communications officer can take it over neatly and publish it on the website or another channel."
Paddle CEO Wouter Rummens
Responding better to opportunities
All information added to the content planner is also central. A colleague falls ill? Then someone else can perfectly take over the content planning and execution without any hassle. So not only does collaboration become easier, the continuity of the communication is maintained. But with a content planner, you also need to be able to plan... content. "Of course, that is the basis," laughs Vanderstraeten. "Many communication services work with Excel to keep an overview. There is nothing wrong with that in itself; you can also use it to note down what you have to publish and when. But your planning options are very limited."
Many communication services work with Excel. Your planning options are very limited.
It is more difficult to keep an overview, for example. "And then you get a situation where one week you share four social media messages with your target group and the next week you have nothing to communicate about. This is very quickly visible in our content planner. As the communications manager, you can then easily take advantage of this and decide either to spread out the messages or to look for extra interesting information to share in that empty week."
With the ability to copy the to-do's of a recurring event - think of the annual fair in the municipality - with one click to next year, the year after, and so on, communications staff also gain peace of mind. "No stress before 2022: you copy your annual tasks, supplement them with novelties that are already planned and you already know that you are well prepared a year in advance. A blissful feeling, right?", winks Mauro Vanderstraeten.
Reporting, but clearer
Because Paddle works so closely with its clients and listens very carefully to their needs for each module, the developers were able to respond well to what communication services want in this content planner. "Apart from better planning and collaboration, they also want good reporting," says Wouter Rummens. "What have they communicated in the past year? Have the various policy goals been addressed? What social media messages did they post? How many different leaflets or posters have they printed?"
Information that can be useful to share with a director or to use as a basis to improve communication. "You can select on the subject, but also the different channels. So you immediately know how many messages you have shared on Facebook about the member event, for example", explains Rummens. "You can gain interesting insights from this. Should you perhaps focus more on the social media channels? Or did you communicate enough there, but neglect your website a bit? Then you can make adjustments and make sure that in the planning for the next few months there are a few more news items on your site."
Paddle marketing manager Mauro Vanderstraeten
The voice of the user
The content planner has just been launched on the central system of Paddle CMS. Customers can therefore immediately link the module to their website and start working with it. Convenient, because the content planner can use other assets of Paddle, such as the media library. But also those who are not working with Paddle CMS yet can perfectly use the planner. "It is not linked to our CMS, but it works very well as a stand-alone tool as well", Rummens and Vanderstraeten confirm.
Paddle expects its content planner to become a popular tool with communication services of local governments, non-profit and government-related organisations. "I regularly give demos on our Paddle CMS Platform and often get questions about a tool to organise content properly. So it is definitely an issue that many services struggle with. One that we can now solve. The first customers are already using it, but we are convinced that many more will follow in the coming weeks", says Vanderstraeten. Rummens confirms that prediction: "Especially because the tool also helps services that will continue to use home working to a large extent after the corona crisis. Remote collaboration is not easy if you don't have the right tools, but our content planner is the right tool."
We really want to hear our users' opinions to continue to increase our customers' ease of use
Those who know Paddle know that the team behind the CMS never stands still. So users of the content planner can be sure that the tool will continue to evolve. "With each module that we develop, we regularly ask the opinion of the users. We really want to hear their voices, we want to know from them where they see opportunities for expanding or modifying the module," says Vanderstraeten. "And we do not only listen, but we also do something with it. So our modules evolve, just to keep increasing the ease of use for our customers."
Thanks for reading! Contact us for more information about the new Paddle Contentplanner of Paddle CMS Platform.