• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Pro Blog Service

  • Business Blogging
    • Blogging and Content Marketing for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
    • Social Media Strategy and Consulting
    • Blogging Services
    • Content Factory
    • Need a Law Blog or Legal Blog?
    • Download Our White Paper: Business Blogging: The Cost of Corporate DIY Blogs vs. Ghost Blogger
    • Pro Blog Service Books
  • Blog
  • Speaking
  • About Pro Blog Service
    • Erik Deckers
    • 4 Simple Rules for Guest Posting on Our Blog
  • Get Ghost Blogging Quote
  • Link Sharing/Contributed Articles

August 31, 2016 By Erik Deckers

The Seven Mudas (Wastes) of Content Marketing

Lean Manufacturing, which spawned America’s Agile business movement, is based on a Japanese management philosophy. It was further developed by Taiichi Ohno as part of the Toyota Production System. Ohno identified seven different areas of waste, and said that if companies could solve these problems, they could improve profits and productivity.

One of the tenets of the Lean Philosophy is to avoid mudas, or wastes. In manufacturing terms, these are the different pinch points that have an impact on the manufacturing process. For example, Inventory means you’ve tied up a lot of capital in having extra raw materials or finished products on hand, which crunches your cash flow. Over-processing means you’re putting more time and energy into each unit than you will see in profits.

While the Seven Mudas are applied primarily to manufacturing, they can be equally applied to content marketing. They are Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-Processing, Over-Production, and Defects; they spell TIMWOOD.

Transportation

This is an example of the Transportation muda. Products can get damaged during transportation, which wastes time and money.

What it means: Every time you move raw materials or a finished product, it can be damaged or lost. You also have to pay for each time you move it with labor and equipment costs, but those don’t add to the value of the product.

How it applies to content marketing: If you edit your content by committee, if you have layers upon layers of approvals, if you have a system that does not trust two grown adults to write and edit a piece of content, you’re wasting everyone’s time and energy. The Transportation muda is the time and resources wasted by passing a piece of content between three or more people who need to approve before it can be published.

How to solve it: Set up a system where one person writes, one person edits, and then it gets published. If you require a third person’s approval, these are symptoms of a bigger inefficiency. You presumably hired intelligent, responsible adults, and if you can’t trust them to make intelligent, responsible decisions, that’s a management problem, not an employee problem. Before you ever start a content management program, create an understanding of what you can and cannot discuss on your blog or social networks.

Inventory

What it means: Storing up raw materials or completed products. They don’t make you any money, and won’t until you sell it, which is wasted capital and labor. This is the problem that just-in-time inventory systems usually fix.

How it applies to content marketing: Storing up a lot of articles in advance can cause publishing problems because you either have to pay your writers up front (tying up capital), or you could lose the content because other issues and industry changes arise. You’ve paid for all of this great content, only to bump it further down the publishing queue until it’s out of date or completely forgotten.

How to solve it: Don’t store more than one month’s content in your inventory, because you never know when your editorial calendar is going to change. Instead, revisit your editorial calendar once a month, and make sure you’re still on track.

Motion

What it means: Similar to Transportation, Motion is about the movement of workers and machines. Too much motion makes people prone to injury, and machines are prone to damage from wear-and-tear through continual motion.

How it applies to content marketing: I’m going to reverse this one. The problem with a lot of content is over-automation. It’s a lack of motion. People look for the shortcuts and easy way out. But you’re sitting on a comfy chair, typing on a computer, and the only thing that actually moves are your fingers and wrists. What kind of shortcuts in life do you actually need for this job?

How to solve it: If you want good content, it’s going to take some effort on your part. You’re going to have to read, research, edit, and practice. You’re going to have to be creative, and come up with new ideas. You can’t automate this, and you can’t take shortcuts. Don’t copy-and-paste tweets into Facebook status updates. Write something different for each channel, and take advantage of its uniqueness.

Waiting

What it means: The opposite of Motion is Waiting. If products are not being transported or made, it causes delays in the line. Delays mean employees are Waiting, which means you’re paying for non-performing labor.

How it applies to content marketing: Waiting is often caused by a bottleneck in your creation process. Either your writer is too slow, or your editor is taking too long. Maybe they have too many projects, or they don’t have enough work. Or you have way too many meetings. (Or you completely ignored me on the Transportation thing, and your compliance department is taking their own sweet time.)

How to solve it: Look at your content staff’s typical productivity, and see what they can normally handle on a good day. If they have less work than that, you need more clients/projects. If they have more work, you need to more people. But don’t create busy work just so they have something to do. Focus on high quality first.

Over-processing

What it means: Doing more work than is actually needed. This not only has the problem of extra Motion, but it also adds additional labor costs.

How it applies to content marketing: Any. Committee. Ever. Do not assign content creation to a committee. The fewer people involved, the better.

How to solve it: Content creation should be between the writer and the editor. (Of course, dont’ forget the client, if you have one.)

Over-production

What it means: Sometimes called the worst muda, because it creates so many other problems. If you work ahead, you have a problem of Inventory. You have to move the product to its Waiting place, which means more Transportation. More production means more Motion. Plus, you run the risk of creating more Defects.

How it applies to content marketing: Don’t confuse this one with Inventory, although they’re two sides of the same coin. Inventory has its own problems, but Over-production is the process of getting to that point. Are you adding bells and whistles to every piece of content? Are you repurposing old content to the point that you’re just copying-and-pasting, and slapping a different title on it? I see this when a marketer turns a blog post into a podcast into a movie into an infographic into an ebook into a one-woman show at their local fringe theatre festival. It’s tiresome and more than a little lazy.

How to solve it: Figure out what your readers want, and give it to them. Focus on creating original ideas, backed by original research, and make everything the best it can be. Rather than recycling and repurposing that content into 17 different forms, pick one or two and stick with it. Repurposing only contributes to the content shock.

Defects

What it means: In manufacturing terms, Defects are broken products that result from bad materials, poor employees, and even problems of Transportation and Motion. Remember, it’s not just poorly-made products; it’s also a unit you stuck a forklift through during Transportation.

How it applies to content marketing: These are your typos, your grammatical errors, misused punctuation, and so on. While a misplaced apostrophe won’t waste a blog post, it can affect your credibility. I’ve seen articles on websites that claim to have strict editorial controls, and they demand excellence from their writers. And yet, I’ve seen misspelled and missing words in their work. So much for “excellence.” These are also articles with bad information, poor research, poor logical arguments, etc. And don’t even get me started on just plain old terrible writing.

How to solve it: Work with professionals. Hire professional writers and editors. Don’t just pass it off to the younger staff because it’s “that new-fangled online stuff.” Pass it off to them because they love to write. Pay for training for your staff, give them opportunities to develop further, and help them get better at their jobs. Or, just outsource the work to the pros.

Did I miss anything? Any descriptions you would agree or disagree with? Any interesting stories you’d like to share? Leave them in the comments below, and let me know how you would describe your own Mudas of Content Marketing.

Photo credit: Astrid Groeneveld (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0)

Related content:

  1. Develop Your Strengths, Not Your Weaknesses
  2. Dear Executives, Social Media Does Not Render Your Employees Stupid
  3. Google’s Changes Makes SEO Harder, Good Content Important
  4. Shiny New Marketing Automation Tools Can’t Fix Sucky Content
  5. 5 Reasons B2B Sales Need Social Media
Better Related Posts Plugin

Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Blogging Services, Content Marketing Tagged With: content marketing

About Erik Deckers

Erik Deckers is the President of Pro Blog Service, a content marketing and social media marketing agency He co-authored four social media books, including No Bullshit Social Media with Jason Falls (2011, Que Biz-Tech), and Branding Yourself with Kyle Lacy (3rd ed., 2017, Que Biz-Tech), and The Owned Media Doctrine (2013, Archway Publishing). Erik has written a weekly newspaper humor column for 10 papers around Indiana since 1995. He was also the Spring 2016 writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, FL.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ben says

    August 31, 2016 at 11:46 am

    Waiting –

    Cannot force sources to call. Cannot be changed, cannot be helped.

    I am, as I type this, waiting on call backs from an attorney, a spokesman for a motorcycle club and three companies involved in pecan product manufacturing.

    Turned in the MC piece. The bikers can be quoted in a followup, if they call me.

    Attorney, never expect to hear from him. Was a courtesy call “If you want to have your say in this article, please call me.”

    3 manufacturers, dunno. Was 4 but one called me back yesterday within 2 hours.

    Change sources? How? The attorney is the exclusive rep for one side of a court case I am writing about. No other source available.

    The pecan thing? Only 1 company in the nation makes one of the products. Further, the editor has requested region-specific sources for other information and I hit all the sources in the region.

  2. Randy Clark says

    August 31, 2016 at 9:57 am

    Robert Heinlein said, ” A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.” In the past year I’ve turned down two freelance writing/social media offers because of the organizations approval by committee process. One wanted help with how to post consistently, but when I met with them I had no answer. Every. Single. Tweet had to be approved by a compliance officer and legal. I shudder at the thought.

    I recently completed a book on staying ahead of a business blog (Andy has it and is working his magic on it) in the workbook I recommend getting and staying four weeks ahead of your blog. On the TKO blog, i’m more than two months. I’ve never had a problem with losing content, I have moved content up the schedule and I post a lot of evergreen content. The most important point is to get and stay ahead of the schedule.

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe via RSS

Categories

Tags

advice bloggers blogging blog writing books book writing business blogging citizen journalism content marketing copywriting crisis communication digital marketing Ernest Hemingway Facebook freelance writing ghost blogging ghostwriting Google grammar Jason Falls journalism language Linkedin marketing media networking newspapers No Bullshit Social Media personal branding public relations public speaking punctuation ROI SEO Social Media social media experts social media marketing social networking storytelling traditional media Twitter video writers writing writing skills

Archives

Recent Posts

  • 11 Tips for New Digital Nomads
  • 13 Things to Do or Not to Do When Connecting With Me for the First Time
  • Why You Need to Write Your Memoir
  • How to Give a 6-Minute Presentation at 1 Million Cups
  • Conduct Informational Interviews to Land Your Next Job

Footer

BUY ERIK DECKERS’ LATEST BOOK

Erik Deckers' and Kyle Lacy's book - Branding Yourself now available at Amazon

Request a Quote – It’s easy

We write blog posts, manage social media campaigns, write online press releases, write monthly news letters and can write your website content.

Let's figure out the right package for you.

FREE 17 Advanced Secrets to Improve Your Writing ebook

Download our new ebook, 17 Advanced Secrets to Improve Your Writing

Erik recently presented at the Blogging For Business webinar, and shared his presentation "12 Content Marketing Secrets from the Giants of Fiction.

If you attended the event (or even if you didn't!), you can get a free copy of his new ebook on professional-level secrets to make your writing better than the competition.

You can download a copy of free ebook here.

© Copyright 2020 Professional Blog Service, LLC.

All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

1485 Oviedo Mall Boulevard Oviedo, FL 32765
Call us at (317) 674-3745 Contact Us About