Content operations 101
At the top of the webinar, Iskander asked, “What are content operations?” To this, Sahli responded, “It’s not just technology. It’s the set of processes, people, and technologies needed for strategically planning, creating, managing, distributing, and — really importantly — analyzing all the content types for all channels across an enterprise.”
Wissa added that content ops is a disciplined mapping exercise, figuring out which content will display on which channels. He recommended envisioning the go-live and any required transformations, along with the context like metadata.
“We’re in a very dynamic world where new channels and new content types are coming up all the time,” he added. “We need to figure out what channels we’re creating for and how we get content there — but also how we continue to change and evolve this process over time.”
Exploring different content types
We framed out the conversation by first exploring content types. “For a very long time, when you thought about assets, and content in general, it was very file-based with taxonomies to support it. Alongside that, if you start to think about a specific industry, you also have kinds of content that are related to your business,” Bojorquez explained. That might be product information in the CPG industry or regulatory requirements in a financial or healthcare business.
Throughout our discussion, the panelist identified a wide range of content types, including:
- Webinars
- Emails
- Social media posts
- Digital signage
- Product photos
- Kiosks
- Podcasts
- Product SKUs
- Bios
- Disclaimers
- ID badges
Beyond that, different industries prioritize different content types. Some industries focus on product images, while others put an emphasis on disclaimers and other regulatory components.
But marketers can’t stop there. We also need to think about the associated tasks, projects, and people — and the audiences that ultimately consume the content. For all of that, Bojorquez said, “It’s really important to have systems that can adapt their technology to match your business.”
Planning for new frontiers in channels
Beyond the broad range of content types modern content ops needs to encompass, there’s also the abundance of channels. “Traditionally, there was print, then web, then apps, now it’s moved into third-party,” Wissa explained. He mentioned emerging channels like syndication tools, social media platforms, email communication tools, video marketing, and the metaverse.
Ultimately, Wissa concluded, “Many of the channels are known, but even more are unknown and emerging over time. That’s why agility is important.”
Because channels are continually evolving, Bojorquez said, “It’s helpful to think about the journey that you want the audience to go through, whether that’s a customer you’re selling to or an internal audience that you serve as part of your organization. Then, the more agnostically you can create content — so think of it less as an email and more of it as an object — the more it helps you stage something that’s future-forward.”
As we wrapped up our channel exploration, Sahli said, “Your content operations really need to be planning for things you don’t know.” Organizations need to adopt an iterate-and-evolve content operations strategy
Common content ops problems
Next, Iskander asked the panelists to call out one recurring content ops issue. The panelists identified a lack of resources, organizational energy, and overarching project owners.
Lack of resources
“Getting the technology is the easy part,” Sahli said. “One of the most common problems we see is enterprises wanting the outcome and benefits of great content, but without having the content strategy planning and execution it takes to get there.”
You need to dedicate time, resources, and budget to be successful. It has to be part of your team’s core work. For personalization, for example, you need to dedicate time, people, and money toward segmenting your customers, mapping their journeys, and creating a strategy for evolving content. “Good data,” she reminded us, “is what’s necessary to get good results back.”
For this level of resource allocation, she said executive sponsorship is key. The project vision should be clear and tied to your organization’s overall goals. From there, she said, “You need to balance simplicity with robust functionality.”
Lack of energy and vision
Bojorquez added another seemingly simple but equally problematic obstacle. “Sometimes the biggest challenge is fatigue within the organization,” she said. To overcome this, she recommends connecting across departments and talking to people who have been there long enough to have seen multiple iterations, helping you identify what worked and what didn’t.
Then, use what you learn. To combat and prevent fatigue, you need to prep your organization to implement change. Partners and consultants can help you here.
Lack of dedicated owners
Wissa explained, “Enterprises go out and buy the elements of successful stacks. They’ll have the right pieces but, often, when it comes to implementation and integration, there isn’t an overarching owner.”
You need someone focused to catch issues early before they scale. Enterprises need stack architects and people who can own the project. These key stakeholders will have the time and focus to find the balance between over-architecting and rushing the project.
Getting started with thinking agnostically and developing for emerging markets
Content marketers are at a crossroads. “As channels explode exponentially, we’re forced to either hire more people and create more content and put our heads down and work harder — or take a step back and try to architect and reuse,” Wissa said. “Efficiency becomes more important than ever.”
And that means pulling in data that can help us work smarter. “One common issue we see is that close of the loop, bringing back the feedback once the content is out there to drive transformation,” Iskander explained. “A lot of times we see that the data is there, but it’s in a different department or team.”
Doubling down on the fact that the data marketers need is often already available, Bojorquez pointed to the past. “What you’ve done before can certainly give you a starting point to show how you can adapt in the future. You always want to point to those areas of institutional knowledge,” she said.
Sahli brought it all together, saying, “I know it feels hard — but it is important to have performance informing the kind of content you produce. Even if you’re just choosing a couple of channels, identify KPIs for them and understand what success in those channels looks like to you, whether that’s a conversion, a like, or a view. Even if you start small, you’ll start to see a lot of benefit right away.”
To be successful in content ops, teams need to think through the processes, people, and technologies required. Rather than delivering a specific type of content on a specific channel, a future-proofed content operations strategy requires agnostic thinking with executive buy-in and dedicated project owners.
Ultimately, the marketing organizations that succeed will be the ones that dedicate the resources required to develop an agile and channel-agnostic content ops strategy. As Sahli said, with consumers’ insatiable demand for content, “If you don’t have a content ops strategy, you’re going to be wasting a lot of money and not getting the revenue that you could get by having the right kind of content.”
