7 Steps to Building a Content Marketing Culture That Works. Build a message ‘house’ One way to help your marketing team unify its content efforts across multiple digital channels is to build a message architecture, which acts as a guide for aligning content with both customer needs and business objectives. Roles must be defined by marketing and business leaders if there’s to be a unified culture in which multiple stakeholders own content. If the person in that role doesn’t have all the content teams officially reporting to him or her, that person needs to find ways to “matrix manage” across those teams. Ideally, all those designated people from various teams come together to help each other understand the workflow for each type of content. Develop guidance for creating key types of content Consider designating an accessible place where teams can get familiar with the types of content your organization creates over and over: webinars, case studies, white papers, videos, research reports, newsletters, blog posts, infographics, presentations, etc. This is one of the goals of creating a content culture that works. If you take these seven actions, your organization is on its way to building a content marketing culture that works. Want more on content strategy for marketers? He also consults for c-level executives and writes for many leading digital, content and marketing publications.
If you’ve ever worked with a company where no one knows who is
supposed to own what content or how content aligns with company
objectives, you’ve probably seen tension build between departments
and within teams, and you’ve probably seen content produced that’s
aimless and inconsistent.
In large B2B organizations especially, no one person or team
owns all the content. Each team needs to produce content on demand
for its own objectives. Here are some typical (potentially
conflicting) interests:
- The SEO team wants quality web content that will survive
Google’s algorithms and drive organic search traffic around certain
keyword phrases. - The demand-generation team wants to drive visibility and
interest in the brand through
eye-catching content. - The product team wants content that highlights the features and
benefits of the
product. - The sales team wants
content that persuades and shows how the company has produced
results. - The customer-service team wants content to teach best practices
and innovative ways of doing things. - The PR team wants thought-leadership pieces it can use to
secure placements and interviews. - The recruiting team wants
content on the company’s culture, news, and events.
To align these efforts, a company must
build a culture that unifies teams and their content when no one
team owns all the content.
In an ideal
content culture that’s driven by a unified process, the
following things should be agreed on and documented:
Read on for suggestions related to each element.
1. Build a message ‘house’
One way to help your marketing team unify its content efforts
across multiple digital channels is to build a message
architecture, which acts as a guide for aligning content with both
customer needs and business objectives. You might find it helpful
to create your message architecture in the form of a house.
More on how and why to create a message
architecture:
Align All Your Messaging With This Simple (& Fun) Tool
2. Establish content objectives
Keeping the message architecture in mind, marketing leaders must
associate every piece of content with at least one objective. A
content objective, as content strategist Meghan Casey
defines it, is simply “the thing you want a piece of content to
accomplish.” Examples:
- Amplify a specific message
- Reach a certain target audience and promote a branded
initiative - Influence an outcome for a specific business unit/influence a
decision - Promote an event
- Build registrations to a webinar
- Drive sales
Content objectives, of course, must tie to both business
objectives and audience objectives.
- Business objectives: Know what value the
content to be created brings to the business’
overall goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). For
example, if the goal is to increase sales by X percent, how many
leads do you need? And how can you generate X number of leads
through content?
- Audience objectives: Your content has to serve
a purpose for the audience it’s intended for. If you don’t know
what your audience is trying to accomplish, content results will
fall flat. Create content that is useful and helps them take action
relevant to their objectives.
Content objectives provide a basis for suggesting the types of
content each team should create. For example, if your objective is
to build brand awareness, your
best content types may be videos and infographics. If you want
to drive demand, you might want to create webinars, emails, and
white papers. If you aim to influence a wider audience, you might
go for contributed bylines and thought-leadership pieces in
industry publications.
More on how content objectives help you create the right
content:
Why You Need Content Strategy Before Editorial Planning
3. Define content marketing roles – including a unifying
leader
Only after you’ve built your message architecture and
established content objectives accordingly do you define content
marketing roles. Many companies define roles prematurely, creating
overlap, inefficiency, and turnover.
Roles must be defined by marketing and business leaders if
there’s to be a unified…
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