The Power of Content Marketing With Operational Excellence
Navigating Content Marketing Challenges and the Need for Operational Excellence
Content marketing is a key component of today’s online marketing strategies and is essential for creating a sustainable competitive advantage. With content playing a crucial role in creating awareness, driving engagement, converting prospects, and retaining customers, it’s not surprising that content marketing is only becoming more commonplace. As content marketing becomes further embedded in marketing strategies, there are some persistent challenges that need to be addressed. In particular, aligning content with the buyer’s journey and improving cross-team communication.
Content Operations: The Key to Operational Excellence
When it comes to content marketing, there is a need for operational excellence. This means focusing on content operations rather than content creation. According to a survey conducted by CMI and MarketingProfs, 90% of B2B marketers feel that content operations (30%) and content strategy (29%) are the areas where they require the most attention to improve their content marketing efforts. [source: The Content Marketing Imperative: A Focus on Content Operations]
Content operations encompasses all activities related to content marketing, from understanding the buyers’ journey and mapping content to that journey, creating the content, and delivering it in the right place, to measuring its success. This includes developing cross-team processes and platforms to ensure that content is created, reviewed, and delivered on time and up to the highest standards.
Aligning Content to the Buyer’s Journey
It’s important to ensure that content aligns with the buyer’s journey and that it’s tailored to the needs of your specific target audience. This includes understanding their needs, pain points, and challenges, and crafting content that speaks directly to them. According to a recent survey of business to business (B2B) buyers, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed indicated they’re likely to buy from a company whose content helps them understand their buyer’s journey. [source: B2B Content Marketing 2020: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends]
Cross-Team Communication
Successful content marketing doesn’t just depend on the creation of content, but also on effective cross-team communication. Companies must ensure that there is clear communication between the content team, the marketing team, and other teams involved in the content creation process, such as the editorial, design, and product teams. This will ensure that everyone is working together towards the same goal and that no one is working in a silo.
Content marketing is a powerful tool for creating an ongoing dialogue with customers and prospects. However, to ensure successful content marketing campaigns, companies need to focus on content operations in addition to content creation. This includes understanding the buyer’s journey and mapping content accordingly, as well as establishing efficient cross-team communication. By tackling these challenges head-on, companies can ensure that their content marketing efforts are successful and have a lasting impact.
Content marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to reach their target audience and build relationships with customers. However, it can be difficult to align content with the buyer’s journey and to ensure effective cross-team communication. To address these persistent challenges, it is important to focus on content operations over content creation. Here are some practical tactics and strategies to consider when working on content operations.
A few content marketing tactics to think about are:
• Establishing a content calendar: A content calendar is a great way to plan and organize content in advance. It can help ensure that content is created and published on time and that it aligns with the buyer’s journey.
• Developing a content workflow: A content workflow is a process for creating, reviewing, and publishing content. It should include steps for assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and tracking progress.
• Setting up a content review process: A content review process should involve multiple stakeholders, such as the content creator, editor, and marketing team. This will help ensure that content is accurate and meets the company’s standards.
• Creating a content library: A content library is a centralized repository for all content assets. It should include templates, images, videos, and other resources that can be used to create content.
Some content marketing strategic advantages to gain are:
• Improved content quality: By establishing a content review process and content library, businesses can ensure that content is of high quality and meets their standards.
• Increased efficiency: A content calendar and workflow can help streamline the content creation process and make it more efficient.
• Better alignment with the buyer’s journey: A content calendar can help businesses create content that is tailored to the buyer’s journey and that resonates with their target audience.
• Improved cross-team communication: A content workflow and review process can help ensure that all stakeholders are on the same page and that content is created and published in a timely manner.
Content operations is an important part of content marketing and can help businesses create high-quality content that is aligned with the buyer’s journey and that resonates with their target audience. By following the tactics and strategies outlined above, businesses can ensure that their content operations are effective and efficient.
