An agency sends a blog post on a Tuesday. It goes to a marketing executive, then a manager, then a founder with strong opinions, then legal. It comes back eleven days later with contradictory comments from four people and a note saying it does not sound like us.
Nobody has ever written down what us sounds like.
The checklist
Agree these in month one and the bottleneck disappears.
1. Name one approver
One person who can say yes. Everything else is consultation, and a committee with equal authority is why content sits for a fortnight.
2. Agree a turnaround
A stated number of working days, both ways. Without it, approval expands to fill whatever time exists.
3. Agree what happens with no response
That content is published or scheduled after the agreed period. It sounds aggressive and it is the only thing that reliably works.
4. Document the brand voice
Actual guidance. Words used and avoided, tone, formality, whether contractions are used, how the audience is addressed. Not adjectives like friendly and professional.
5. Collect examples
Three pieces the client likes and three they do not, with the reasons. It teaches voice faster than any document, which is the same matching problem as how to keep your chatbot on brand and on message.
6. Agree the feedback format
In one document, consolidated, by the deadline, with reasons rather than rewrites. Contradictory comments from four people are the client's problem to resolve before sending.
7. Agree the revision rounds
How many are included and what happens beyond them. Unlimited revision is how an agency loses money on content quietly.
8. Separate factual correction from preference
Because one is necessary and the other is taste, and treating them the same is what makes approval feel endless.
9. Agree what does not need approval
Routine social posts, minor updates and anything within agreed guidelines. Reducing what requires sign off is the fastest improvement available.
10. Build an approved asset library
Images, claims, boilerplate and phrases already signed off, so the same things are not re litigated monthly.
11. Handle the regulated client differently
Where legal or compliance review is genuinely required, built into the timeline rather than treated as an obstacle.
12. Explain what delay costs
Missed timing, campaigns that cannot launch and content that is out of date before publication. Clients respond to consequences rather than complaints.
13. Record the decisions
So the same discussion does not recur when somebody new joins, which is the same discipline as proofing and approval questions before a print run.
13b. Agree who can overrule
A founder who appears in month four with strong views on something already approved undoes a quarter of work in an afternoon. Establishing early that late intervention restarts a timeline, and what it costs, is what keeps an approval process from being quietly ignored by whoever is most senior.
14. Set it up during onboarding
Alongside everything else agreed in the first month, as in onboarding questions in the first thirty days and the commercial framing in marketing retainer enquiries that stall at pricing.
Getting started
Name one approver, agree a turnaround and document the brand voice with examples, then keep everything answerable at any hour. SpideyChat for marketing agencies answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about answers on the features page.