If you’ve been working in marketing or communications for any length of time, you know it’s a challenging endeavor. Then the whole content marketing movement came along and made things even harder. And don’t get me started on the rapid evolution of the marketing tech landscape… 😭
Honestly, it’s no surprise that 78% of marketers feel that the market has undergone more changes in the past three years than in the previous 50.
Juggling multiple tools, processes, and marketing channels as the landscape shifts under your feet can lead to chaos, reducing your team’s efficiency and effectiveness. However, the right content operations software pulls together all those loose strings into a single platform. It provides organization and empowers your team to do what it does best: create killer content.
How do you know which solution is right for your team? We give you the rundown of what to look for in a content operations software platform to help you find the best one.
What Is Content Operations Software?
Content operations encompass the system of people, tools, and processes needed to move content throughout its entire lifecycle, from ideation to publication and analysis. Though project management platforms offer some functionality for marketing, they don’t address many of the unique needs and use cases of content development that happen within organizations.
Software that handles content operations provides a variety of solutions that are native to internal content teams, which could fall within marketing, external comms, internal comms, and various other departments. With the right platform, your various teams can have one central hub to plan, collaborate, and move assets through the production process.
A dedicated content ops platform provides the framework for streamlined, efficient content governance and operations. Your team is free to focus on implementing your brand’s strategy, making it easier to reap the benefits of inbound marketing.
What Should You Look for in Content Operations Software?
The right software provides a virtual bridge between the silos that many content-centered teams usually work in. Managers, producers, external contributors, and other stakeholders should have access to the tools and information they need.
No matter the size of your operations, a content ops platform can simplify your life. Here are the essentials you should look for when shopping for the right software for your team.
User-Friendly Experience
The software you choose shouldn’t require a technical degree for users to navigate the system. Look for a platform with intuitive, user-friendly interfaces. It should also have features that enable personalization, so users can adjust their views to their liking, and quickly hone in on the relevant data they are looking for.
Ideation Tools
Every piece of content starts as an idea in someone’s head. But what happens next? Are you old-school and write everything down in your trusty notepad? Maybe you’re more of a whiteboard or note-taking app type of person. These methods have, obviously, worked on an individual level for decades. But when you have a team of 20+, sharing notepads is not what I would call practical.
Right out of the gate, your content operations software should come equipped with super-simple ways for your SMEs, creatives, and stakeholders to both submit, input, and store ideas for future review. Divvy users have several ideation tools at their disposal, whether that be our Parking Lot for centralized idea storage, or our Content Requests Tool for building request intake forms.
Content Planning – Your Content Calendar
Any content operations software worth its salt will have a robust and multi-functional content calendar to bring better visibility across teams. DivvyHQ’s calendar is equipped with all kinds of filters to view campaign and content production schedules any way you want. Whether you wish to take the long view and see what’s coming over the next few months, or dial down to your scheduled social posts for the day, you get to choose.
Campaign Planning & Management Tools
Much of the content creation effort that happens within marketing teams stems from larger initiatives like product launches, events, and promotional campaigns. In today’s multi-channel environment, marketers aren’t creating one piece of content. They’re managing big campaigns with all sorts of assets, produced in various formats, with distribution into specific platforms and channels. Planning and managing all of that can get chaotic real quick.
Hence, your content operations platform should be up to the task. You should be able to quickly set up campaigns with process workflows, build out your production plan of individual content assets, and get to work to hit your launch date.
Collaboration Tools
Collaboration is critical for a successful content operation, and your content operations software should provide a wide variety of in-app collaboration tools. With DivvyHQ, you won’t need to worry about things getting lost in email inboxes, or aligning schedules for in-person or virtual meetings.
We certainly understand the frustrations of missed or overlooked text and email communications. Our platform includes collaboration and messaging capabilities built right into the content workspace. Plus, we have a notification system that ensures no one misses essential deadlines.
Screenshot – DivvyHQ Sandbox > Comments Panel
Workflow Management Tools
Software for content operations isn’t truly viable unless it includes workflow management tools. DivvyHQ’s platform does more than allow managers to assign tasks and deadlines.
It provides visibility and accountability for the entire team. Anyone who needs to know can find out where an asset is in the production process, who is responsible for which tasks, and what’s on its way down the content pike.
Content Creation Tools
The creation of content is quite the unique animal. This mostly stems from the never-ending (and constantly evolving) types of content and formats that can be produced. There will never be a platform that covers all formats, but a good content operations tool should, at a minimum, provide some content creation capabilities in-app.
As a simple example, Divvy’s Content Editor allows users to write just about any form of text. Why have thousands of MS Word docs floating around people’s inboxes when you can just write content directly within the content project? It’s kinda silly when you really think about it.
Screenshot – DivvyHQ’s Content Editor
Asset Storage
Speaking of content documents and assets, you’re going to need a platform that allows you to store your assets and find them when needed. Our cloud-based platform offers unlimited storage. Moreover, we provide the tools to simplify your searches so you don’t waste precious time sorting through thousands of content pieces.
Automation
Automation features can be a HUGE boost to your team’s productivity. Free them up from the mundane day-to-day so they can focus on the critical content tasks. The ability to automate elements of the content production process increases productivity and efficiency, so your content operations software can’t do without it.
Metadata Management
Managing content metadata is critical to assessing the alignment of your content output with your content strategy objectives. When you use DivvyHQ, you automatically get a system that houses key metadata like content topics, categories, target audiences, buyer stages, keywords, and more. This data fuels strategic reporting and makes it easy to find assets that match specific criteria.
Reporting and Analytics
To properly manage and improve the performance of a content operation, you have to have good reporting and analytics tools. For example, you need the ability to measure content performance and conduct content audits efficiently. The software should also produce easy-to-read reports that you can share with internal team members and the C-suite.
Integrations
No matter how good a content operations software product is, it won’t be able to do everything your team and organization needs it to do on its own. Full functionality requires integrations with other tools and platforms your team uses, such as your content management system (CMS). DivvyHQ can integrate with over 1,000 external applications, and our open API paves the way for endless connectivity.
Security
When you work on a platform that operates in the cloud, you need to know that the provider implements the latest security measures. DivvyHQ’s security is top-notch. We take your data and privacy seriously and approach security from multiple angles.
Is DivvyHQ’s Content Operations Software Right for Your Org?
We know finding the right platform is daunting, and you want to make sure you invest in a system that works for you. We want you to feel comfortable with our offerings, so we invite you to request a demo to see for yourself why we’re the best content operations software out there!
