Enterprise-level organizations may benefit from more resources and a larger marketing budget, but that doesn’t mean that enterprise content marketing is any easier to manage than it is for small- and medium-sized businesses.
Content marketing on a larger scale brings its own issues and challenges. Research by the Content Marketing Institute shows that almost three-quarters of enterprise marketers struggle with coordinating their efforts across multiple departments and brands.
Using technology is one way that enterprise content marketers can scale up their efforts, make their processes more efficient, manage their teams, and consolidate workflow across several departments.
The same research showed that over 80% of enterprise marketers used technology for social media publishing and email marketing, and around half used software tools for content management, project management, and marketing automation.
If you fall into the almost 50% of enterprises that are not yet taking advantage of technology for content management purposes, there’s no better time than the present to learn how integrating these tools into your workflow can improve efficiency, and ultimately help to boost profits.
Enterprise Content Marketing Technology: The Options
As you can see from the data above, there are several types of technology solutions that can be used for content marketing in an enterprise setting.
In this article, we’re focusing on the more general management tools that assist in content planning, managing workflow, and automation, rather than tools designed to perform a specific task such as chatbots or email marketing software.
Under this category, the technology can be further categorized into a few main classes:
- Content management systems (CMS) – storing and indexing content data, search and retrieval, format management, revision control and publishing.
- Workflow and project management tools – provide a central hub for project planning, scheduling, collaboration, and communication between team members
- Marketing automation systems (MAS) – automate repetitive tasks such as sending out an email triggered by a specific action
- Integrated content marketing platform (CMP) – an overarching tool that enables marketers to plan and track content, and provides a centralized platform to access content and view its performance.
Of course, some technology solutions span more than one category, and many enterprises opt to include several different tools in their mar-tech stack.
When it comes to integrating your content strategy across the entire organization, using an integrated content marketing platform is the complete solution. A CMP gives you a top-down view on your entire content marketing strategy, while it’s in progress, including tracking your content from initial production to promotion and lead generation.
Other software can be used for tracking and analysis of content performance such as spreadsheets, and other content marketing technology. However, a CMP is designed to integrate with your existing technology and unify processes across all departments in the organization.
The Benefits of Using an Integrated Content Marketing Platform
Implementing such technology offers several benefits to enterprise-level organizations:
- Standardizing processes and streamlining workflow across the entire organization
- Making content production faster and more efficient
- Simplifying communication and collaboration between different teams and departments
- Enabling advanced tracking of each piece of content through to final sales and conversions
- Better aligning of marketing and sales team workflow and goals
- Better insight into content performance
- More insights into audience behaviors and preferences
- Easier to re-purpose content
- Better optimization of content and increased conversion rate.
As Deloitte points out in its report, The Digital Workplace: Think, share, do, using technology effectively in the workplace helps to create a culture of collaboration, connection, and communication, which leads to higher productivity, increased flexibility, greater innovation, and increased revenue.
How to Integrate Technology Solutions Across the Enterprise
So the benefits of using content marketing technology are clear. But enterprises need a technology integration strategy to standardize systems across departments. Without this standardization, if different departments have free rein over the organizational systems and technology they use, it will result in duplication of data and block the flow of information between departments.
For example, it’s fairly common for the sales team to use CRM software and the marketing team to use completely separate marketing automation software. This is not only inefficient, but also results in a worse experience for the customer.
To create this integration strategy, you must first define the needs of both the enterprise as a whole and the needs of individual departments. You can then decide on the tools that will best meet these needs. Here’s a basic step-by-step to get you started.
1. Map Out Business Processes
To properly understand the needs of each department, you must have a clear picture of what their current processes look like.
By observing and interviewing, you can map out these processes, including the initial need, business goals, the activities to reach these goals, and who is responsible for carrying out each activity.
In this mapping-out process, you can often identify inefficiencies in workflows that can be improved, see where processes overlap, and look for collaboration opportunities among different departments.
2. Review Your Current Technology Stack
Your enterprise is almost certainly using technology in content marketing already. The question is whether it’s fit for purpose, and what gaps exist in your current mar-tech stack. Research by the Content Marketing Institute illustrated below shows that only 16% of marketers believe they both have the right technology and are using it to its full potential.
Once you’ve mapped out your existing technology across every department, you’ll have a complete picture of what you’re currently using and what the impact might be of introducing new technology.
At this stage, it’s key to interview the people who actually use this technology to discover their needs and challenges, and find out if they’re happy with the current setup or feel it needs improvement.
3. Look for Solutions to Fill the Gaps
When you’ve identified the inefficiencies and problems with your current technology setup, you can look for software solutions to solve these problems.
In particular, look for where you can integrate technology across different departments. In many cases, this means using a content marketing platform that integrates with your current tools and streamlines content production and promotion.
4. Plan Out Your New Workflow
At this point, you should have a good idea of how well your current system is (or is not) working, and what needs to change.
You then need to make a decision about which technology systems will be replaced and which will be re-purposed to integrate with your new tools and methods of working.
Need Help with Unifying and Integrating Your Content Marketing Technology?
DivvyHQ is a content marketing platform designed for enterprises to manage their content operations, processes and campaigns, and align all their teams to a common goal. DivvyHQ integrates with a wide variety of the most popular content and marketing tools and more integrations are being added regularly. For less popular or home-grown application integrations, Divvy’s open API is available for all Enterprise customers.
To find out more about how we can help with your content marketing strategy, get in touch to request a demo, or start a free trial today.