How to Conquer CMO Content Challenges with Better Content Planning

Sometimes it seems like when you leave the office on Friday, you’ve pushed all the week’s marketing challenges up the hill, only to find that the proverbial rock comes tumbling down when Monday rolls around. Just like the mythical Sisyphus, you and your fellow CMOs face a ton of challenges these days.

The good news? You can conquer many of those marketing challenges with more efficient content planning.

Top CMO Content Challenges

In his informative Forbes article, Steve Olenski points out five challenges that face CMOs on those tough Monday mornings:

  1. How to deliver time-sensitive content across channels
  2. Adapting existing content to new formats
  3. How to decide which new content marketing channels to adopt
  4. Adapting to changes in marketing channels
  5. How to keep ahead of technological developments

We would add one more to that list: how to solve all those problems that keep current and potential customers up at night. In today’s customer-focused environment, neglect this challenge at your own peril.

Content planning done right can help you get ahead of these and other challenges so you can unload that rock and take the lead in your niche. Relax. You’ve got this.

Get the Rest of the C-Suite on Board with Content Marketing

Although effective content planning isn’t nearly as expensive as wasting time and money on outdated tactics, it does require some time investment and an effective content marketing platform that can help you execute a content strategy that catapults your company to the next level. Bring the company’s leadership team in from the outset to build enthusiasm for more effective content planning from the top down.

Just cite the facts. They’ll get it when they realize that only world-class content planning can deliver world-class results.

According to a joint Forbes/HubSpot study, content marketing is essential to your company’s growth in a variety of ways:

  1. Developing your brand
  2. Boosting the efficiency of your sales teams
  3. Executing analytics strategies that bring in more revenue
  4. Using a combination of mobile, digital, and social channels to get your message out
  5. Differentiating your brand from others in its field
  6. Communicating the value of your products and services
  7. Selling across channels
  8. Cutting the cost of sales across the board

When the company’s leadership sees how effective content marketing is—and will be in the future, as targeting and personalization technology advances—they will be more likely to throw their full weight behind your new content planning initiative.

Collaborate on Content That Meets Your Target Customers’ Needs

Too many companies are still stuck in silos, so lack of collaboration is certainly one of the biggest CMO content challenges. Not only should you bring representatives from multiple teams into the content planning process, but you should also cut across silos to involve more than only your content team. For instance, if you make a product that involves your engineering team, collaborate with them on some content, especially if the target customer has engineers on its decision-making staff.

If you’re a B2B business or sell directly to consumers through your sales staff, involve the sales team in your content planning. They’re the ones who hear potential customers’ objections and pain points.

Content collaboration is essential for success in solving a customer’s problems and answering their objections.

When your content answers those objections and solves the problems that keep your customers up at night, your sales will likely go through the roof. Such a strategy might be unconventional, but it “primes the creative well” to get your content plan on track for success.

Automate Your Content So You Can Shift Gears for Time-Sensitive Content

Let’s say you’ve dug into the data, collaborated with your teams, and have an effective content plan that delivers actionable content that helps its audience solve its challenges. Now, you need to automate that content so you and your team have the flexibility to create time-sensitive content.

Suppose a discovery about, say, climate change crosses the newswire. Your company happens to make a gadget that helps companies reduce their carbon footprint. An agile, well-prepared team can quickly spin up a press release, blog post, social media posts, and a video or two. If you’ve automated your regular content, your team will be agile enough to accommodate when timely events pop up.

Repurpose Existing Content for New Formats

Let’s say that your content analytics is clearly telling you about a piece or asset that is performing well. With your team, brainstorm new formats that you can use to communicate that message to new audiences.

For example, if you have an ebook that has gained traction with your B2B customers, use that content to create a video that unpacks some of the technical aspects of the paper.

cmo content challenges - ebook download trend report example

On the other hand, if you have a great explainer video that shows how your new product works, turn it into a blog post that customers can read and print out as a reference.

Use Analytics and Customer Data to Identify New Content Channels

Today’s AI-powered analytics can take your customer (and potential customer) data, crunch the numbers, and predict which new content channels might be their favorite hangouts. With data on customers’ online behavior combined with their likes, preferences, and demographics, you can get ahead of the game by finding new audiences of people likely to buy what you sell.

Employ Across-The-Board Testing to Adapt Quickly to Marketing Channel Changes

When you identify new content channels that likely customers will hang out on, it’s a pretty sure bet that you’ll have to adapt your approach to conform to those channels’ guidelines and best practices. For example, when a brand shifts some of its content to Twitter, it must condense it into a tasty bite that will convince people to click on the link to your article.

Snapchat appeals to millennials like nothing else, as Destination CRM’s Sam Del Rowe points out, but with its disappearing content format, you’ll need content compelling enough to win the on-the-spot clickthrough. If your numbers say your best bets for new content are Pinterest or Instagram, you’d better bring your design team in to make your content drop-dead photogenic.

When you post your content on a new channel, ensure that testing procedures are in place so that you can tweak each piece of content to better appeal to your target audience. Performance analytics are essential for any content channel but become critical when you invest your resources in a new channel.

Keep on Top of Changing Technology

One thing’s certain. Content marketing technology is changing at near-warp speed. Stay ahead of marketing technology so you can take every advantage you can get.

That’s where having a content marketing platform that stays on the leading edge of new developments is the secret sauce for success. When you can delegate the tech to a trusted partner and just concentrate on creating content, you and your team will have more time to test, tweak, and post even better content to win customer loyalty in the long run.

Your next step? Request a demo. See for yourself how our software can streamline your content planning for marketing success.