Like the best surfers, the smartest content leaders read the waves. One thing they're seeing – the time for big ideas is now.
Surfers say waves travel in groups of seven. Having the patience to wait for the most powerful seventh wave leads to a great day in the water.
In reality, the “seventh” wave could be any wave. There are bigger waves and smaller waves, but patterns – though they exist – are elusive.
Great surfers can sense when that big wave is imminent. So can content practitioners. And these days, I hear a repeating theme:
“It’s time for big ideas to take shape.”
By Robert Rose
Today, executives are more convinced than ever that content is a strategic function in business. But they don’t quite have a feel for how it all works yet.
Content production has become a bottleneck. Marketing leaders know they need more content assets, but the business can’t quite count the waves.
Owned media properties (like websites, blogs, magazines, and resource centers) enhance the customer experience.
But businesses don’t quite have the hang of managing them as products.
Content practitioners can feel it. They know. They’re paddling out. They understand 2021 is different. They know a swell is coming.
For the fifth year in a row, Content Marketing Institute conducted its 2021 Content Management and Strategy Survey to get a snapshot of how marketers use technology to help create, manage, deliver, and scale enterprise content and marketing.
The study also examined how content teams use people, processes, and technology to target and engage audiences to provide a better and more valuable customer experience across the customer journey.
This year’s study, which we fielded in April 2021, provides a lens on a unique time in the world of content-as-business strategy. While it’s clear the world is still dealing with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we see glimpses of optimism and resurgent growth.
But we also can see lingering challenges for the business environment and accelerating changes in the way we live, work, and take our products and services to market.
The main takeaway is a fundamental sense that big change is coming.
Here are a few results that jumped out to us – and the questions they might prompt you to ask.
Like last year (and seemingly every year), around 40% of respondents said their organization isn’t using its existing content technology to its potential. The top reasons for this struggle include:
When we asked a new question about changes to content management technology due to the shift to remote work, we found:
And 57% indicated their organization has a strong/moderate desire to add new content management technology as it adapts to a post-COVID-19 world; 43% indicated little/no desire.
This desire to add new technologies isn’t surprising. Last year we predicted a much greater need for more collaborative solutions to help content teams work remotely. This trend has been accelerating as more and more businesses demand more and more content.
The growth of freelance networks and content contributors from all around the world also creates pressure for businesses to get their arms around how they engage and facilitate all the work done outside the traditional corporate campus.
Following on that technology question, another finding indicates teams are becoming more focused on their owned content marketing platforms (e.g., websites, blogs) than reacting to internal ad hoc requests.
Consider this: In 2020, we asked respondents to “indicate the typical approach taken by content creators in your organization.” Forty-three percent selected “project-focused” (creating content in response to internal requests), whereas only 14% picked “platform-focused” (creating specific types of content such as blogs or videos).
In 2021, we changed the question to: “Which one of the following most closely describes your organization’s current content operating model (i.e., where the content team spends most of its time, effort, budget)?”
Interestingly, half (50%) indicated a “content products” model (focused on content marketing platforms such as website, blog, magazine, resource center), followed by 32% who indicated a “projects/campaign” model (operating as an internal agency, responding to ad hoc internal requests).
In our content operations consulting work with more than 30 clients in the last 12 months, I can tell you that while those numbers ring true, there is another side of that coin.
While we frequently see the focus shift to direct-to-customer platforms (e.g., publications, improved website, digital magazine, resource center), the pressure on the content team to increase their content projects and ad hoc asset production remains high.
Put simply, many businesses are adding things to the grocery checkout conveyor belt instead of rebalancing the content team’s charter.
It’s time to get ready. All the accelerated change we began to see in 2020 is coming. The case is there. It’s time to take action. Here are some things we see that can help you catch that next wave.
There’s a good chance your content team has been in triage mode the last 12 months – or maybe it always has.
If you suffer from too many demands or production bottlenecks or are unable to measure content effectiveness, you probably lack a clear charter and operating model for your content team. Put simply, if you’re not implementing a standard – there is nothing to improve.
Assess your content team’s current operating model and create a roadmap for how to get where you believe you should be. The gaps between where you are now and where you want to be should become the priority initiatives.
Start using technology to connect digital experiences for your customers when and where you can. Trying to de-silo your marketing department may be too big a hill to climb right now.
Instead, explore how your content technology can connect to create one source of the truth for your audience/marketing database. That alone will pay huge dividends. It’s the first step toward having groups like sales, marketing, demand gen, and brand teams work together.
Your website, blog, resource center, or digital magazine are as important to your customer’s journey as the products and services you put into the marketplace – treat them as such. Each owned property deserves a managing editor and to be budgeted and measured as a digital product.
It’s time. Get your surfboard out, wax it up, and paddle out. Show your executive leadership that you’ve got a feel for the big wave. And it’s here.
We’re about to take on the “seventh” wave. Time to shoot the curl. CCO
Robert Rose is the founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory, the education and consulting group for the Content Marketing Institute. He’s provided content marketing and strategy advice for global brands such as Capital One, NASA, Dell, McCormick Spices, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Follow Robert on Twitter @Robert_Rose.
