For the past few months, I’ve been interviewing content marketing executives at global enterprises about the challenges and opportunities they face when trying to scale up single-country or regional content marketing efforts to take them worldwide. (I’ve also been helping some brands build the strategies to make this happen.) Creating a global content strategy While about half the organizations I interviewed said they have a global content strategy, the rest admit they don’t yet have that aspect of content marketing formalized. A global content strategy requires buy-in from senior leadership. Process The components that enable and streamline a global content strategy are, by definition, more complex than what keeps a single-country content strategy chugging along. Most organizations have a central, overarching content strategy or, failing a formal strategy, governance on levels such as brand and/or legal. Establishing process also means developing training. Technology Clearly, no digital marketing initiative occurs without technology, global content marketing being no exception. Shared assets are just part of the call from collaboration tools. About The Author Rebecca Lieb has published more research on content marketing than anyone else in the field.
For the past few months, I’ve been interviewing content marketing executives at global enterprises about the challenges and opportunities they face when trying to scale up single-country or regional content marketing efforts to take them worldwide. (I’ve also been helping some brands build the strategies to make this happen.)
Here’s an advance look at some of my research findings. The full report publishes soon.
Five top global content strategy goals
When I asked global content strategy leaders what their top goals and responsibilities are, five clear themes emerged.
1. Creating a global content strategy
While about half the organizations I interviewed said they have a global content strategy, the rest admit they don’t yet have that aspect of content marketing formalized.
Some have domestic strategies or have worked out strategy on a country-by-country basis, but tying it all together is complex — from strategic and logistical standpoints, as well as from the perspective of convincing diverse stakeholders, groups and regions to get on the same page.
If 70 percent of organizations in the US don’t yet have a documented content strategy domestically (according to numerous research studies, including my own), looping in over 93 nations is geometrically more complicated.
2. Evangelizing and socializing content strategy (and content, period)
As one executive I interviewed put it, “A content strategy is just a piece of paper. The really difficult part is implementation.”
“Evangelism” is a term I heard over and over. Convincing senior management to allocate budget. Determining who spearheads initiatives. Making certain numerous voices are heard, but that overarching rules and guidelines are enforced. Developing training programs, perhaps establishing a Center of Excellence.
Small wonder that when asked what their principal duties as global content leaders are, “change management” was the most-cited term.
3. People
Content can’t happen without people, one of the three lynchpins of enabling a strategy (the other two, process and technology, follow).
A global content strategy requires buy-in from senior leadership. It also requires content leaders, often in central command roles, as well as regional leaders who can help oversee efforts on the ground in, say, Europe, Asia or Latin America.
People in lines of business other than marketing have to be involved in content initiatives, too. IT is one obvious area; so, too, is legal. But the really good content leaders know looping in divisions where stories and customer-facing…
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