One Voice: High-Level Considerations For A Winning Content Strategy

Businesses need to consider new channels, touchpoints, and distribution points to effectively advance their missions.

In a world that is becoming increasingly virtualized, content is the primary means by which a modern enterprise communicates and differentiates its brand and core values to its constituencies–whether customers, clients, employees, or investors. Content delivers meaning and emotion at every point of contact, ultimately defining the level of engagement and impacting success.

Companies know that they simply cannot survive without a strong focus on their content, and they place a high premium on getting it right. Just take a look at the sheer volume of content created and the amount invested. According to the “Accenture Interactive State of Content Study 2015” (PDF):

• 81% of survey respondents said their organization is producing moderate or enormous amounts of digital content and assets.
• 92% said they are producing more volume today than two years ago.
• 90% expect that volume to increase in the next two years.
• 73% are spending more than $50 million on content management alone.

Given how crucial content is today, businesses need to consider new channels, touchpoints, and distribution points to effectively advance their missions. But what exactly can brands do to develop a winning content strategy? Consider the following:

• Seek C-level sponsorship: Companies can’t underestimate the power of executive buy-in. Too frequently, content strategy is still being approached with a bottom-up mentality, where planning is done in silos, constituencies battle for resources, and brand messaging becomes diluted. These emerging governance issues have escalated the need for senior-level sponsorship and guidance.

In fact, our study found that 90% of marketers believe C-level executives are responsible for content strategy, with a surprising 35% citing the CEO.

For organizations to truly tackle the content challenge, the C-suite must make it a priority. Whether it’s sponsoring a content strategy that puts the power in the hands of the organization’s larger marketing team or spearheading specific initiatives themselves, CMOs and other C-suite executives must have a content-first mindset.

• Quality is key, whether it is for your external or internal audiences: Enterprises must address the quality of both customer-facing content and internally focused content. In organizations that successfully execute a sound content strategy, these two audiences are treated with equal importance. To get this right means you need to align internal processes and resources against a consistent set of objectives, plus elevate content management.

When asked why content is so difficult to manage, survey respondents cited a lack of skilled talent, deficiency in technology, and overall process issues. This means that easily overlooked and underevaluated internal decisions, such as hiring skilled employees, investing in the right technology, and developing efficient day-to-day processes, can be the key to success. Without the right resources and plans in place, it’s easy for content to get off-track, off-message, and quickly become ineffective.

• Start with the end goal in mind: To tackle content, the best investment you can make is in your content strategy. All content needs to be tied back to a larger, enterprisewide strategy that, as in the second point, takes into account both internal and external communications. A strong content strategy can help an enterprise evaluate new content initiatives, increase content quality, and increase speed to market.

Content is a vital resource for all enterprises today. But the key for businesses to truly master content is to make sure they take the right steps to develop consistent, high-quality, on-message content for all of its constituencies that effectively drives engagement and understanding. Companies today need C-level sponsorship, a long-term enterprisewide content strategy, and investments in the right talent and technology to master the content challenge and stand out in today’s saturated market.