MARKETING
6 strategies for using a DAM to manage modular content
The increased demand for high-quality content has marketers adopting a modular strategy. This means centralizing content files in a digital asset management (DAM) tool, able to be deployed in different combinations, depending on the channel or customer.
“The whole idea of modular content is to create content in blocks or sets which you can then repurpose and mix and match depending on the audience and the channel,” said Petra Tant, VP, product management, content cloud for content software company Aprimo at The MarTech Conference (scroll down to see video of the full session).
Read next: What is digital asset management?
Why use a modular content approach?
This method can save time during creation and allows more specific, or even personalized, content to be delivered to targeted audiences.
Personalization. Repurposing content saves time because you don’t have to start from scratch every time. This makes it faster to tailor content for specific segments. And easier to test and optimize based on the audience feedback.
Omnichannel. Faster creation means omnichannel experiences can go to market quicker. And the they can be channel-specific instead of generic.
Compliance and brand safety. In regulated markets, brands have to make sure they are compliant in what messages they deliver on specific channels.
“With many different groups involved in the creation of your content, the risk that content is created which is off brand or incorrectly used is high,” said Tant. “Modular content lessens the burden of regulatory or brand noncompliance by enabling the [repurposing] of already approved content and providing guidelines on how to reuse content.”
Building modular content
The core element of this process are graphics, videos and even blocks of text. These basic “atoms,” are combined to create “molecules” of related content. From there, content can be built into more complex and engaging experiences. Doing this requires having them in a centralized DAM.
Strategies for creating modular content using a centralized DAM
“This is about granular control of which content is applicable for which markets, regions, brands and channels,” Tant explained. “It’s about tracking what happens to your content. And above all, it’s going to be about measuring what value you get from your content – what content worked and what didn’t work.”
Avoid duplication. “If you want the DAM to track how content is performing, you really want to do that on one element and not on a multitude of duplicates,” said Tant.
Organizations that are rigorous with rooting out duplication are more successful in figuring out the right combination of elements. They drive more success with their content because they know which content is responsible for that success.
“You actually may not know that the duplicates exist in your dam and then your performance statistics will be incomplete and incorrect,” Tant added.
Build content relationships. Just as it’s important for brands to build relationships with customers, marketers also have to build relationships between the blocks of content that are centralized in their DAM.
“You should really track as many content relationships as possible,” said Tant. “Only by tracking the relationships between content you will be able to know which content blocks and sets are being used in final experiences.”
She added, “If a content block is being changed, which content is affected by it and where is that content currently published?”
Finished content experiences in ads, email campaigns or PowerPoint presentations should be added back into the DAM. When this happens, marketers on the team must have a way of knowing what original building blocks were used to make those experiences. They need to know the relationships between these content blocks.
Optimize metadata. Since modular content increases the amount of content objects in the DAM, metadata on the objects has to be very specific and helpful so that others can find, use and reuse these blocks.
“For DAM librarians today, managing metadata can already be a challenge,” said Tant. “My advice is to look at metadata management critically and optimize where you can.”
Grow into modular content. Start using your modular content strategy with new campaigns. Don’t bother with using a tech partner that decomposes campaigns from the past that weren’t using a modular content strategy, although there are tools like that out there.
Picking apart pieces of old content can create problems for content creators by overloading the DAM with duplicates or old blocks that won’t work as well with future content.
Connect source files in the DAM. Don’t just store a PDF of a completed project, make sure that the source of that PDF is also in the DAM.
Otherwise, you won’t be able to track back all of the individual content blocks used to create the finished project. And it’s those blocks you might need for the next successful content experience.
Expand your content. Store all content in your DAM, and not just the original blocks your team has created. If there are licensing restrictions on using content from other sources, those restrictions can and should be handled in the DAM through metadata.
“Evaluate what types of content that you’re using in experiences that are not currently part of your DAM,” said Tant. “We want to track where our content is used,how well it performed, and what the return on effort was.”
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MARKETING
Trends in Content Localization – Moz
Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.
Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.
Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.
MARKETING
How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy
MARKETING
More promotions and more layoffs
For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.
The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.
Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes
Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643.
Here are the median salaries by role:
- Senior management $199,653
- Director $157,776
- Manager $99,510
- Staff $89,126
Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.
One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%).
Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.
Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams
Employee turnover
In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”
Men and Women
This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.
In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.
Methodology
The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents.
Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.
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