MARKETING
Want to Scale Your Content Strategy? Hiring Isn’t the Answer
If you ask an actor or screenwriter about their career goals, they’ll almost all say, “But what I really want to do is direct.” Or so goes the Hollywood trope.
Ironically, the director participates the least in the creative work. A director’s role isn’t to write, act, play music, edit, or even point a camera. The director’s job is to direct the individual artists’ contributions to the film product.
Yes, some directors do double duty by writing or acting in their films or shows. But the director’s function remains clear: Guide, enable, and manage a team of storytellers to efficiently produce powerfully engaging work.
Successful directors shape the work of hundreds of independent artists so effectively the resulting film sings with one clear voice. The words, pictures, actors, costumes, music, and editing mesh so completely that removing any of them would pull the entire piece apart.
Transcendent directors do this so successfully that their signature style shines through even when they use different individual contributors for each project.
This idea of the director role came to me as I talked with the head of content at a B2B technology company recently. She told me that her content studio had earned enough respect within the business that they’re considered the go-to team for getting something written or designed well.
But she’s frustrated that most people considered them just the team that produces “good words and pictures.” She wants the team to play a more important role. So, she asked me, “How do we become more strategic to the business without adding more head count? How can we take on more content?”
Without a doubt, scalability is the biggest challenge I see among businesses trying to succeed with content marketing. The ability to “create enough content” gets mentioned as one of the top challenges in our content marketing research year after year.
Somehow, adding more writers, designers, podcasters, and other skilled staff never seems to solve that challenge.
Here’s the thing: The ability to grow doesn’t lie in the capability to produce enough content.
To scale, a content strategy team must be more than the collection of skilled creators of “good words” or “good pictures.” The content team’s purpose must be more than to create great assets.
It must also enable every other part of the business to do the same. What you need is a team that really wants to direct.
Your #content team must have a purpose beyond creating great content assets to be truly strategic, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Why you’ll never create ‘enough’ content
One of the biggest strategy mistakes I see is to equate establishing a content strategy with building a content studio filled with talented writers, designers, and multimedia specialists.
Even when there’s one person who manages the team, many in the business consider it a collection of individual contributors whose roles are to produce assets as efficiently as possible.
Spoiler alert: This approach rarely works. Why? Because businesses can’t get ahead of the content need.
Call this Robert’s Law of Content: The need for content expands in direct proportion to the number of resources allotted to it.
The need for #content expands in direct proportion to the number of resources allotted, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
An intelligent content strategy in modern business isn’t about creating a siloed group of individual content contributors.
Instead, it’s about creating a team whose role is that of a director. Everyone on the team should be focused on helping create, guide, and enable the entire organization to tell a consistent story.
“Now wait just a doggone second,” you say. “How can a team of people all act as a director? Isn’t the director one person?”
Yes, that’s true. I mean that the function of a content strategy team is like that of the modern movie director.
The team isn’t there to provide any single content creation skill on demand. It exists to enable the broader organization to develop and integrate its messages into a common voice.
Like any seasoned director, the team also may do double duty as writers, editors, or designers. But that’s not their primary purpose.
They’re not simply providers of words that a sales professional copies and pastes, attaches to an email, or uploads to a website to create and deliver value to a customer, for example.
They should guide, shape, and develop the sales professional’s ability to deliver the best story regardless of who creates it. Occasionally, that might be someone on the content strategy team.
But an integrated, enterprise content strategy must work like a film project – it’s a director’s medium. The only way to truly scale is to shape, guide, and, yes, direct everyone in the business to do their part in telling the brand’s stories in one voice.
The only way to scale an enterprise #ContentStrategy is to direct everyone in the business to do their part in telling the brand’s stories, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
My advice to any content leader looking to scale a team and become more strategic is to buy every team member a shirt that says, “But what I really want to do is direct.”
Then, start coaching the team to stop acting as an internal content production studio and start directing all enterprise content regardless of who creates it.
5 strategic enterprise content strategy roles
To facilitate this evolution of a content strategy, you need a new team charter that defines the content strategy team’s roles, responsibilities, and functions.
I see five primary responsibilities for the team. Each balances individual contribution with skills to foster in the broader organization.
1. Strategy: Planning and prioritization
This piece is missing in most content strategies where the team is seen as individual contributors. “Random acts of content” happen when no team accepts the role of leading the planning and prioritizing for which content will be produced and when.
A great director provides a consistent storyboard, shot calendar, timeline, and plan so everybody knows what gets created and when. Likewise, a content team must help the business with setting content objectives, distributing resources, and balancing priorities and business needs.
2. Content creation and management
This step is the most misunderstood because it’s the one most people think they understand. (“It’s just creating the assets as they’re needed, right?” No, it isn’t.)
Once you have prioritization, scheduling, and resource planning under control, the process becomes less linear yet more efficient.
Does that seem confusing? Think of it this way: A movie director might send one team off to shoot what’s called b-roll. (Think establishing shots, crowd shots, or filler shots that establish context).
This kind of filming can happen any time (not just as needed) because everything is planned out. The director describes what’s required but doesn’t have to provide it or even be present when these scenes are filmed.
Likewise, a great content manager might lead (but not create) content captured by someone in account services. The assets the account services staff captures can be remixed into case studies, marketing pieces, advertising, thought leadership, and so on. The person in account services knows what to produce because the content team member provided a complete “shot list,” set of interview questions, etc.
3. Merchandising: Internal scheduling and distribution
Merchandising is another area missing from many content strategies. Most companies conflate the idea of content assets and digital assets. They think, “We’ve created X e-books, web pages, and emails, so we’ve created X content assets.”
So much time ends up wasted by having to “undo” digital assets to retrieve content for repurposing.
One of the most critical roles on a film set is the production asset manager. That person ensures every asset (film, audio, video, photos, and so on) gets tagged and routed to the artists who need to create content with it.
Likewise, a great content strategy team ensures that both raw content and the resulting digital assets are easily findable, routed correctly, and available ready for reuse, repurposing, and activation.
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4. Activation: Publishing and promotion
The responsibility here is not just completing the asset and saying, “Here it is.”
Equally important is the broad communication that it’s available and the plan for distributing it. While film producers (studios) typically promote a film, directors often have creative input into the marketing, trailer, and sometimes distribution.
A strategic content team also should ensure assets get launched appropriately.
5. Measurement: Insight and improvement
This final responsibility may seem, at first, to be the furthest from the director metaphor. Certainly, business content should be evaluated based on how well it was activated, promoted, and used. That usually means the responsibility should lie within whichever function of the business was responsible for distributing and using the content created.
You may be surprised to learn how much technology, data, and measurement processes are used on film productions to create more efficient scheduling, creation, and post-production efforts.
Likewise, the content team should, at the very least, be squarely focused on an efficient and effective lifecycle of content creation, management, production, and distribution.
Content strategy as artful, efficient production
These five responsibilities form the core of a content strategy. In addition to being a creative engine for artful experiences, a functional content strategy guides the entire process of content.
The team sets standards, develops playbooks, molds the scripts, chooses the lenses, fosters the talent, guides the process, and helps structure the output.
Like a movie, television, or stage director, your content team may sometimes, but not always, serve as the storyteller. But it should always, not just sometimes, enable everyone in the company to tell the business’s stories.
Once your team accepts its role as the “director” of enterprise content, it can start influencing vision, words, story, and experience to deliver on a business strategy poised for box office success.
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Get Robert’s take on content marketing industry news (in just three minutes)
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
MARKETING
Ecommerce evolution: Blurring the lines between B2B and B2C
Understanding convergence
B2B and B2C ecommerce are two distinct models of online selling. B2B ecommerce is between businesses, such as wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers. B2C ecommerce refers to transactions between businesses like retailers and consumer brands, directly to individual shoppers.
However, in recent years, the boundaries between these two models have started to fade. This is known as the convergence between B2B and B2C ecommerce and how they are becoming more similar and integrated.
Source: White Paper: The evolution of the B2B Consumer Buyer (ClientPoint, Jan 2024)
What’s driving this change?
Ever increasing customer expectations
Customers today expect the same level of convenience, speed, and personalization in their B2B transactions as they do in their B2C interactions. B2B buyers are increasingly influenced by their B2C experiences. They want research, compare, and purchase products online, seamlessly transitioning between devices and channels. They also prefer to research and purchase online, using multiple devices and channels.
Forrester, 68% of buyers prefer to research on their own, online . Customers today expect the same level of convenience, speed, and personalization in their B2B transactions as they do in their B2C interactions. B2B buyers are increasingly influenced by their B2C experiences. They want research, compare, and purchase products online, seamlessly transitioning between devices and channels. They also prefer to research and purchase online, using multiple devices and channels
Technology and omnichannel strategies
Technology enables B2B and B2C ecommerce platforms to offer more features and functionalities, such as mobile optimization, chatbots, AI, and augmented reality. Omnichannel strategies allow B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience across different touchpoints, such as websites, social media, email, and physical stores.
However, with every great leap forward comes its own set of challenges. The convergence of B2B and B2C markets means increased competition. Businesses now not only have to compete with their traditional rivals, but also with new entrants and disruptors from different sectors. For example, Amazon Business, a B2B ecommerce platform, has become a major threat to many B2B ecommerce businesses, as it offers a wide range of products, low prices, and fast delivery
“Amazon Business has proven that B2B ecommerce can leverage popular B2C-like functionality” argues Joe Albrecht, CEO / Managing Partner, Xngage. . With features like Subscribe-and-Save (auto-replenishment), one-click buying, and curated assortments by job role or work location, they make it easy for B2B buyers to go to their website and never leave. Plus, with exceptional customer service and promotional incentives like Amazon Business Prime Days, they have created a reinforcing loyalty loop.
And yet, according to Barron’s, Amazon Business is only expected to capture 1.5% of the $5.7 Trillion addressable business market by 2025. If other B2B companies can truly become digital-first organizations, they can compete and win in this fragmented space, too.”
If other B2B companies can truly become digital-first organizations, they can also compete and win in this fragmented space
Joe AlbrechtCEO/Managing Partner, XNGAGE
Increasing complexity
Another challenge is the increased complexity and cost of managing a converging ecommerce business. Businesses have to deal with different customer segments, requirements, and expectations, which may require different strategies, processes, and systems. For instance, B2B ecommerce businesses may have to handle more complex transactions, such as bulk orders, contract negotiations, and invoicing, while B2C ecommerce businesses may have to handle more customer service, returns, and loyalty programs. Moreover, B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses must invest in technology and infrastructure to support their convergence efforts, which may increase their operational and maintenance costs.
How to win
Here are a few ways companies can get ahead of the game:
Adopt B2C-like features in B2B platforms
User-friendly design, easy navigation, product reviews, personalization, recommendations, and ratings can help B2B ecommerce businesses to attract and retain more customers, as well as to increase their conversion and retention rates.
According to McKinsey, ecommerce businesses that offer B2C-like features like personalization can increase their revenues by 15% and reduce their costs by 20%. You can do this through personalization of your website with tools like Product Recommendations that help suggest related products to increase sales.
Focus on personalization and customer experience
B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses need to understand their customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors, and tailor their offerings and interactions accordingly. Personalization and customer experience can help B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy, as well as to improve their brand reputation and competitive advantage. According to a Salesforce report, 88% of customers say that the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.
Market based on customer insights
Data and analytics can help B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses to gain insights into their customers, markets, competitors, and performance, and to optimize their strategies and operations accordingly. Data and analytics can also help B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses to identify new opportunities, trends, and innovations, and to anticipate and respond to customer needs and expectations. According to McKinsey, data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, six times more likely to retain customers, and 19 times more likely to be profitable.
What’s next?
The convergence of B2B and B2C ecommerce is not a temporary phenomenon, but a long-term trend that will continue to shape the future of ecommerce. According to Statista, the global B2B ecommerce market is expected to reach $20.9 trillion by 2027, surpassing the B2C ecommerce market, which is expected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2027. Moreover, the report predicts that the convergence of B2B and B2C ecommerce will create new business models, such as B2B2C, B2A (business to anyone), and C2B (consumer to business).
Therefore, B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses need to prepare for the converging ecommerce landscape and take advantage of the opportunities and challenges it presents. Here are some recommendations for B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses to navigate the converging landscape:
- Conduct a thorough analysis of your customers, competitors, and market, and identify the gaps and opportunities for convergence.
- Develop a clear vision and strategy for convergence, and align your goals, objectives, and metrics with it.
- Invest in technology and infrastructure that can support your convergence efforts, such as cloud, mobile, AI, and omnichannel platforms.
- Implement B2C-like features in your B2B platforms, and vice versa, to enhance your customer experience and satisfaction.
- Personalize your offerings and interactions with your customers, and provide them with relevant and valuable content and solutions.
- Leverage data and analytics to optimize your performance and decision making, and to innovate and differentiate your business.
- Collaborate and partner with other B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses, as well as with other stakeholders, such as suppliers, distributors, and customers, to create value and synergy.
- Monitor and evaluate your convergence efforts, and adapt and improve them as needed.
By following these recommendations, B2B and B2C ecommerce businesses can bridge the gap between their models and create a more integrated and seamless ecommerce experience for their customers and themselves.
MARKETING
Streamlining Processes for Increased Efficiency and Results
How can businesses succeed nowadays when technology rules? With competition getting tougher and customers changing their preferences often, it’s a challenge. But using marketing automation can help make things easier and get better results. And in the future, it’s going to be even more important for all kinds of businesses.
So, let’s discuss how businesses can leverage marketing automation to stay ahead and thrive.
Benefits of automation marketing automation to boost your efforts
First, let’s explore the benefits of marketing automation to supercharge your efforts:
Marketing automation simplifies repetitive tasks, saving time and effort.
With automated workflows, processes become more efficient, leading to better productivity. For instance, automation not only streamlines tasks like email campaigns but also optimizes website speed, ensuring a seamless user experience. A faster website not only enhances customer satisfaction but also positively impacts search engine rankings, driving more organic traffic and ultimately boosting conversions.
Automation allows for precise targeting, reaching the right audience with personalized messages.
With automated workflows, processes become more efficient, leading to better productivity. A great example of automated workflow is Pipedrive & WhatsApp Integration in which an automated welcome message pops up on their WhatsApp
within seconds once a potential customer expresses interest in your business.
Increases ROI
By optimizing campaigns and reducing manual labor, automation can significantly improve return on investment.
Leveraging automation enables businesses to scale their marketing efforts effectively, driving growth and success. Additionally, incorporating lead scoring into automated marketing processes can streamline the identification of high-potential prospects, further optimizing resource allocation and maximizing conversion rates.
Harnessing the power of marketing automation can revolutionize your marketing strategy, leading to increased efficiency, higher returns, and sustainable growth in today’s competitive market. So, why wait? Start automating your marketing efforts today and propel your business to new heights, moreover if you have just learned ways on how to create an online business
How marketing automation can simplify operations and increase efficiency
Understanding the Change
Marketing automation has evolved significantly over time, from basic email marketing campaigns to sophisticated platforms that can manage entire marketing strategies. This progress has been fueled by advances in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, making automation smarter and more adaptable.
One of the main reasons for this shift is the vast amount of data available to marketers today. From understanding customer demographics to analyzing behavior, the sheer volume of data is staggering. Marketing automation platforms use this data to create highly personalized and targeted campaigns, allowing businesses to connect with their audience on a deeper level.
The Emergence of AI-Powered Automation
In the future, AI-powered automation will play an even bigger role in marketing strategies. AI algorithms can analyze huge amounts of data in real-time, helping marketers identify trends, predict consumer behavior, and optimize campaigns as they go. This agility and responsiveness are crucial in today’s fast-moving digital world, where opportunities come and go in the blink of an eye. For example, we’re witnessing the rise of AI-based tools from AI website builders, to AI logo generators and even more, showing that we’re competing with time and efficiency.
Combining AI-powered automation with WordPress management services streamlines marketing efforts, enabling quick adaptation to changing trends and efficient management of online presence.
Moreover, AI can take care of routine tasks like content creation, scheduling, and testing, giving marketers more time to focus on strategic activities. By automating these repetitive tasks, businesses can work more efficiently, leading to better outcomes. AI can create social media ads tailored to specific demographics and preferences, ensuring that the content resonates with the target audience. With the help of an AI ad maker tool, businesses can efficiently produce high-quality advertisements that drive engagement and conversions across various social media platforms.
Personalization on a Large Scale
Personalization has always been important in marketing, and automation is making it possible on a larger scale. By using AI and machine learning, marketers can create tailored experiences for each customer based on their preferences, behaviors, and past interactions with the brand.
This level of personalization not only boosts customer satisfaction but also increases engagement and loyalty. When consumers feel understood and valued, they are more likely to become loyal customers and brand advocates. As automation technology continues to evolve, we can expect personalization to become even more advanced, enabling businesses to forge deeper connections with their audience. As your company has tiny homes for sale California, personalized experiences will ensure each customer finds their perfect fit, fostering lasting connections.
Integration Across Channels
Another trend shaping the future of marketing automation is the integration of multiple channels into a cohesive strategy. Today’s consumers interact with brands across various touchpoints, from social media and email to websites and mobile apps. Marketing automation platforms that can seamlessly integrate these channels and deliver consistent messaging will have a competitive edge. When creating a comparison website it’s important to ensure that the platform effectively aggregates data from diverse sources and presents it in a user-friendly manner, empowering consumers to make informed decisions.
Omni-channel integration not only betters the customer experience but also provides marketers with a comprehensive view of the customer journey. By tracking interactions across channels, businesses can gain valuable insights into how consumers engage with their brand, allowing them to refine their marketing strategies for maximum impact. Lastly, integrating SEO services into omni-channel strategies boosts visibility and helps businesses better understand and engage with their customers across different platforms.
The Human Element
While automation offers many benefits, it’s crucial not to overlook the human aspect of marketing. Despite advances in AI and machine learning, there are still elements of marketing that require human creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking.
Successful marketing automation strikes a balance between technology and human expertise. By using automation to handle routine tasks and data analysis, marketers can focus on what they do best – storytelling, building relationships, and driving innovation.
Conclusion
The future of marketing automation looks promising, offering improved efficiency and results for businesses of all sizes.
As AI continues to advance and consumer expectations change, automation will play an increasingly vital role in keeping businesses competitive.
By embracing automation technologies, marketers can simplify processes, deliver more personalized experiences, and ultimately, achieve their business goals more effectively than ever before.
MARKETING
Will Google Buy HubSpot? | Content Marketing Institute
Google + HubSpot. Is it a thing?
This week, a flurry of news came down about Google’s consideration of purchasing HubSpot.
The prospect dismayed some. It delighted others.
But is it likely? Is it even possible? What would it mean for marketers? What does the consideration even mean for marketers?
Well, we asked CMI’s chief strategy advisor, Robert Rose, for his take. Watch this video or read on:
Why Alphabet may want HubSpot
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, apparently is contemplating the acquisition of inbound marketing giant HubSpot.
The potential price could be in the range of $30 billion to $40 billion. That would make Alphabet’s largest acquisition by far. The current deal holding that title happened in 2011 when it acquired Motorola Mobility for more than $12 billion. It later sold it to Lenovo for less than $3 billion.
If the HubSpot deal happens, it would not be in character with what the classic evil villain has been doing for the past 20 years.
At first glance, you might think the deal would make no sense. Why would Google want to spend three times as much as it’s ever spent to get into the inbound marketing — the CRM and marketing automation business?
At a second glance, it makes a ton of sense.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I and others at CMI spend a lot of time discussing privacy, owned media, and the deprecation of the third-party cookie. I just talked about it two weeks ago. It’s really happening.
All that oxygen being sucked out of the ad tech space presents a compelling case that Alphabet should diversify from third-party data and classic surveillance-based marketing.
Yes, this potential acquisition is about data. HubSpot would give Alphabet the keys to the kingdom of 205,000 business customers — and their customers’ data that almost certainly numbers in the tens of millions. Alphabet would also gain access to the content, marketing, and sales information those customers consumed.
Conversely, the deal would provide an immediate tip of the spear for HubSpot clients to create more targeted programs in the Alphabet ecosystem and upload their data to drive even more personalized experiences on their own properties and connect them to the Google Workspace infrastructure.
When you add in the idea of Gemini, you can start to see how Google might monetize its generative AI tool beyond figuring out how to use it on ads on search results pages.
What acquisition could mean for HubSpot customers
I may be stretching here but imagine this world. As a Hubspoogle customer, you can access an interface that prioritizes your owned media data (e.g., your website, your e-commerce catalog, blog) when Google’s Gemini answers a question).
Recent reports also say Google may put up a paywall around the new premium features of its artificial intelligence-powered Search Generative Experience. Imagine this as the new gating for marketing. In other words, users can subscribe to Google’s AI for free, but Hubspoogle customers can access that data and use it to create targeted offers.
The acquisition of HubSpot would immediately make Google Workspace a more robust competitor to Microsoft 365 Office for small- and medium-sized businesses as they would receive the ADDED capability of inbound marketing.
But in the world of rented land where Google is the landlord, the government will take notice of the acquisition. But — and it’s a big but, I cannot lie (yes, I just did that). The big but is whether this acquisition dance can happen without going afoul of regulatory issues.
Some analysts say it should be no problem. Others say, “Yeah, it wouldn’t go.” Either way, would anybody touch it in an election year? That’s a whole other story.
What marketers should realize
So, what’s my takeaway?
It’s a remote chance that Google will jump on this hard, but stranger things have happened. It would be an exciting disruption in the market.
The sure bet is this. The acquisition conversation — as if you needed more data points — says getting good at owned media to attract and build audiences and using that first-party data to provide better communication and collaboration with your customers are a must.
It’s just a matter of time until Google makes a move. They might just be testing the waters now, but they will move here. But no matter what they do, if you have your customer data house in order, you’ll be primed for success.
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