8 tips to get new content and writing tools for your team

Co-authored by Tina O’Shea,
Director of Content Design & Design Tech at Intuit

Content designers often complain there aren't enough of us to get the work done. On top of that, no one else seems to care about the stuff that we care so much about, like voice and tone, grammar, consistent style, and the quality of our writing.

To move forward, we need to accept these things won't change, and that it's our job to work through issues of scale and quality. This is where tools can really help.

It’s easier to get tools than people

Here’s the surprising thing. It’s easier to get tools than it is to get headcount. Everyone is struggling for headcount. Designers, PMs, engineering, marketing. Everyone has the same complaint about not having enough people to do the work.

Once we started advocating for tools instead of people, we actually got more attention. More people, and my boss, play. It sounds like we’re in charge of driving a transformation to address the issues of scale and quality rather than just growing a bigger team. When we talked about these issues and how we thought that we could use tools to solve them, it was much easier. We got more resources more easily for new tools than for new people.

You have to take the lead

We need to stop complaining about these things that other people don’t care about, and realize that these issues of scale and quality are ours to fix. No one else is going to come along and magically fix them for us.

Be ready to take the lead, even if it makes you uncomfortable. No one else will champion or prioritize technology for content. If you wait for someone else to come in and do it, you’ll be waiting a long time. It’s going to have to come from you. The tools we use are our problem.

The risk of not doing it is that you’ll always be a support organization for other teams. You won’t be in control of your content or your function, and others won’t see you as in control of your content.

The benefit is that you finally have ownership over your content issues and you shift from being a contributor to being a strategic driver.

You don’t have to be a PM to make it happen. As content leaders, we do what it takes to deliver awesome content.

We’ve stepped into change

Basic steps to getting support

Let’s focus on the first step, just getting support. These are the tasks. They’re never this tidy or linear, but will get you there if you work on them.

• Research to define the problem and the opportunities if you solve it. Maybe it’s having a more consistent voice, or scaling your team, normalizing terminology or improving search.
• Gather data so you have evidence about the size and scope of the problem. We’ve looked at search queries, click paths, call drivers, user testing, and content audits.
• See if there are any parallel projects to leverage or company priorities you can ladder into
• Find out what tools are out there and how much they cost
• Weave all this information into a story you can tell to make your business case. Up to here, everything is easy to do.
• Mobilize stakeholders and partners if you need help to develop, implement or integrate your tool, or onboard other teams to it. This is probably the hardest thing.
• Ask for resources and commitments. Once isn't enough. Pitch to different leaders, at different meetings and forums, in one-on-ones and side conversations. So tiring.
• Win support and stop crying over tools. Totally possible.

With any plan, there’s an element of chance to throw you some twists. These contingencies shouldn't stop you from trying. They are reason to keep trying:

1. Money
There are many reasons you may not get it. Maybe you didn’t get it in the budgets early enough for the year ahead. Maybe content is less important than investing in other tech, at the moment. These are just realities you can’t take personally.

2. Timing
You might get lucky and ask at the right time. If not, wait it out. We were told so many times that “We’re not ready or there yet.” We’ve also been told “no” only to get a “yes” a year later. Sometimes it’s just being in the right place at the right time, and being set to go when the time comes.

So what’s made it happen for us? What do we wish we’d known sooner? Based on what we’ve learned, here are 8 tips.

1. Own it
Your job description might not say anything about driving implementation of content tools. But neither does anyone else’s! Assign it to yourself. Add it into your goals and make it part of your development plan. It will turn you into a more strategic content leader. This is good for you, for the whole content team, and it’s going to be good for the company.

2. Start before it starts
Opportunities to get new tools may be few and far between. Keep looking for them. Until they do, read about tools, request demos, and talk to users. Brainstorm with your teams about potential approaches to establish relationships and lay the groundwork for future collaboration.

3. Reframe the problem
Always tie the content problems back to the bigger picture. When you’re looking at internal processes and tools, it’s easy to talk about things too narrowly. Framed as problems for me and getting my job done. It goes nowhere. Instead, frame your problems as business problems and customer problems.

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat
Getting to a shared reality of the problem takes many conversations at many levels, across many boundaries. We’ve faced other teams who can’t see there are content problems. Why? Everything is working for them. Repeat your story without losing your enthusiasm for fixing it.

5. Create stakeholders
Look for stakeholders in either the problem, the solution, or both. Who else will benefit from what you want to do? They aren’t knocking on your door, but they're out there. Learn to see from their perspective and how they’re impacted by tool changes—positive and negative.

6. Understand the effort
Don’t minimize it. Show you know what you’re asking of engineering and where it sits among other things they’re doing. Be able to talk past a big vision and break it down into realistic pieces of work. Study up and don’t undermine yourself on first impression. Imagine how your tooling project sounds in the context of someone else’s day. We’ve made the mistake of dropping in like spaceships.

7. Build influence before you need it
The technology is the easy part of this compared to the people. Tooling projects involve cross-functional groups and lots of decisions. You’ll need to be ready to influence at the right times. Having influence is like growing a garden from seed. You can’t just walk in one day and ask for something and expect to influence.

8. Stay strong
Getting support for new tools takes conviction, persistence, and time. Stay optimistic even if you haven’t won buy-in after a year of trying. That’s typical. Connect with your peers, other writers, and content leaders. You can do it while you stretch and grow. Challenge yourself to get it done.