These days, marketers wear many hats: updating a company’s blog and social media feeds, overseeing print ad campaigns, networking at conferences or other industry events, meanwhile handling a host of other duties. This time of year often amps up the frantic pace as colleagues take time off or companies squeeze in last-minute holiday campaigns.

Streamlining your content strategy and finding ways to get more mileage out of every marketing piece can help you improve results and save your sanity in the process. Here’s a look at five must-dos for busy marketers like you.

 1. Determine your audience.

Before you start writing, think about whom you’re writing the content for so that you can tailor your content to their needs. Are they industry-specific professionals who already possess a deep subject matter expertise or do they need more introductory information to get started? Also think about whether you’re writing this for your existing readers or those you hope to attract in the future (oftentimes, these may be two distinct groups with different interests or needs). Once you’ve zeroed in on your reader, you can start thinking about the types of content that will best fit their interests and provide the most value. Your audience may want a listicle (like this) featuring actionable steps they can implement right away. Or they might be more interested in case studies that show how a specific company implemented a new Twitter strategy or tweaked their website to boost sales. Give your readers value; something actionable they can implement to improve their business.

2. Create an editorial calendar.

The editorial calendar is the content marketer’s best friend. It helps them stay organized and see the big picture to create a variety of content on an ongoing basis and avoid duplication. When you’re planning content for multiple marketing channels such as Twitter, Facebook, webinars and a blog, an editorial calendar gives you the ability to get an overview of your content plan in one place. It’s often helpful to organize your editorial content by date and the type of content, but to also plan out what keywords should be included and which places the piece should be promoted on. Your content developers will know what to write about, when to write it and what keywords or other various promotional tactics they should be using.

3. Mix up your content.

Content comes in many shapes and sizes, so alternate between long posts that are chock full of information and shorter posts that present concepts in bite-sized formats such as infographics, charts, bullet points, “best of” listicles and so on. Just because something has been shared doesn’t mean that all of your readers have seen it. Get more mileage out of every piece of content you create by repurposing it. A long article could be broken up into several shorter pieces or reimagined as an infographic. A shorter piece could serve as inspiration for an ebook or webinar. This saves marketers time while giving readers more digestible content.

4. Consider distribution.

Content may be king, but content that doesn’t get read doesn’t do you or your readers much good. To make sure your content findable, use tools like Google Adwords or ubersuggest.org to find out what terms your readers are searching for. Tweak your SEO strategy to rank higher and reach more readers. Of course, many readers now find content through social media channels instead of search engines, so posting to multiple channels allows to you to cover your bases. Tools that allow you to post to multiple channels with a single click saves time while achieving wide distribution.

5. Curate content.

Many busy marketers don’t have time to create loads of content from scratch, so curating content from other credible sources allows them to save time, money, and team resources.  Curation also allows you to build your credibility as a thought leader while incorporating your own insights or perspective on the topic. It’s also a chance to include more diverse voices beyond your own. Just be sure to give credit, add something new, and link back to the original piece so that you’re curating ethically.

Ready for more tips and strategies to improve your content marketing? Download Curata’s free ebook 5 Simple Steps to Becoming a Content Curation Rockstar.