Content operations

top 10 problemsMarketers Face in Building their

1. Your strategY is not connected to Your content operation 2. You don’t have enough content ideas

3. You can’t stop Bouncing Between platForMs 4. Your teaM is drowning in spreadsheets

5. You can’t expand or scale Your content operation Because collaBoration is too hard

6. Your content is regularlY stuck in the approval process

7. You don’t know where all the content is 8. You struggle to schedule a steadY Flow oF content

9. You are puBlishing content, But Your traFFic is low 10. You can’t tell what is working and what is not

© 2012

2© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

“Brands must become publishers!”

is the rallying cry of the content marketing revolution. More and more marketing

departments are joining in the movement, and are creating content focused on their

customers’ interests instead of their own products. They are finding, of course, that

this is a much better way to attract prospects and move them towards becoming

new customers.

But as brands make this transformation, they get stuck in the many operational

challenges of being a publisher. That’s where Kapost comes in: our software

platform manages the content marketing operation from end to end.

I spend most of my time talking to marketers and learning about their challenges

in being publishers. Below I’ve compiled the Top 10 Problems Marketers Face in

Building Their Content Operations as well as the solutions that Kapost offers to

these problems.

Kapost is the world’s leading provider of content marketing software, that enables

brands to produce the content they need to generate and nurture leads. The

Kapost system organizes content marketing into a structure business process—

including planning, production, distribution and analysis—for the full range of

content types—blogs, white papers, video, social media, landing pages, emails

(including integration with leading marketing automation systems.

Kapost software enables its customers to generate more and better content, more

traffic, more leads and more revenue. Kapost serves the world’s leading brands,

including Intel, Cisco, Verizon, Allstate and Eloqua.

To learn more, visit www.kapost.com.

about

3© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

1. Your strategY is not connected to Your content operation

the Best practice for crafting a Content Marketing strategy is well known:

identify your personas, identify your buying stages, understand what the persona’s

concerns and interests are at each stage, and develop content that addresses

those concerns. In this way your content pulls in prospects and carries them all the

way to customer.

But after these strategic content plans are created, they most often then sit in a

power point on a shelf, gathering dust. Kapost’s platform enables you to make your

strategic plan part of your day-to-day operation, with all content collaborators

staying on plan, making sure your content engages your buyers according to your

strategy.

4© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

2. You don’t have enough content ideas

ManY Marketers who jump into content marketing get stuck on a fundamental

question: “What content am I going to create, day after day? What will we say?”

The best practice for generating ideas is to listen to the voice of the customer.

After all, in content marketing, the content you produce will be about their

interests and concerns, not your product. The specific best practice is to establish

a process where by your entire organization--particularly your Sales, Services

and Support teams, the folks who are interacting with customers every day--can

submit ideas into your content operation.

Kapost’s software manages just that process, enabling colleagues to submit ideas

via web-based forms or email, and enabling marketers to easily process those

submissions in a queue. With the platform managing the process, the content

ideas start rolling in, thus unlocking your organization.

5© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

3. You can’t stop Bouncing Between platForMs

to succeed as a modern content marketer, you need to produce many types of

content, including:

• eBooks / White Papers

• Blog Posts

• Emails

• Landing Pages

• Videos

• Images / Infographics

• Presentations

• Podcasts

• Webinars

• Social Media Posts

And these different content types need to be distributed to:

• One or more company Content Management Systems (e.g. WordPress)

• YouTube / Brightcove

• Slideshare

• Eloqua, Marketo

• ReadyTalk / WebEx / Adobe / GoToWebinar

• Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / Tumblr / etc., etc.

6© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

A successful content marketer is then forced to be dancing daily between a dozen

or more systems to upload content, cut and paste, review metrics, etc. Add to the

complexity different logins across an organization with different access rights, and

soon the content team quickly loses sanity.

Kapost however integrates all of these different content destinations into a single

content hub. From just Kapost, all the different content types can be managed,

all of the different destinations can be published to, and all the metrics can be

collected in a central location. Marketing teams can meet the challenge of many

content types and destinations head on, and—with Kapost—they can win.

To succeed as a modern content marketer, you need to produce many types of content and distribute them to many destinations.

“”

7© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

4. Your teaM is drowning in spreadsheets

at kapost, we’ve seen numerous content marketing spreadsheets. Our

customers give us their spreadsheets when they make the switch to Kapost so that

we can import their existing data into our system.

And have we seen some epic efforts! Spreadsheets with dozens and dozens of

columns. Multiple worksheets. Color-coordinated. You name it. We’ve seen it.

But the keepers of these spreadsheet often come to us mumbling and drooling.

They had it all set up perfectly. But they needed the whole team to collaborate on

the spreadsheet. And then a few users came in, changed things around, and now

it’s ruined. And that’s the sixth time it has happened. “Help me,” they beg, “Help

me! I can’t take it anymore!”

Fear not, intrepid spreadsheet dare-devils. You’ve tried your best, but as your

content marketing operation scales, spreadsheet technology can only go so far.

Kapost’s system was built for some of the world’s most power media publishing

organizations (e.g. Time Inc., Mashable, CBS, Gannett), so there’s no content

operation it can’t handle. With Kapost’s content table, calendar, campaigns

and custom field functionality, your content operation will run like a well-oiled

machine.

8© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

5. You can’t expand or scale Your content operation Because collaBoration is too hard

content Marketing has to be coordinated. Different components of

marketing—e.g. demand gen, social, design, retention, PR--need to be involved.

For some companies, collaboration needs to cross product lines, geographies,

even divisions. External freelancers and agencies are often included. Content

succeeds when all groups can work together.

But as more and more stakeholders are included, collaboration breaks down.

It becomes harder and harder to keep everyone on the same page in terms of

plans and deadlines. Information can’t be filtered effectively to meet the needs of

particular groups of stakeholders. So groups pull back into silos, and the content

effort fails the gain the scale and collaboration in needs to truly succeed.

Kapost however can coordinate the content marketing activities of large sets of

stakeholders. The biggest Kapost installations involve hundreds of collaborators.

Information can be partitioned and filtered by any attribute (e.g. product line,

geography) so that users see the view that matters to them. Kapost breaks down

the silos, enables collaboration across groups, and gives your content marketing

the scale and coordination it needs to succeed.

9© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

6. Your content is regularlY stuck in the approval process

For content to go from idea to published and out-the-door, it often has to get

lots of approvals. Copy Editors have to make sure the text is sufficient. SEO experts

need to give it the search green light. Legal must weigh in to be sure it presents no

legal complications. Or, most often, senior Marketing managers need to give it the

thumbs up before it is published.

And all of these steps in the process can clog up a content marketing operation

and prevent it from achieving the velocity it needs to succeed.

Kapost’s content marketing workflow engine can streamline your approval

processes. We set up custom workflows for each of your content types, based

off your needs and operation. As tasks are completed, automatic notifications go

out to the appropriate parties to let them know whose task is next. The Kapost

dashboard always displays what task (and what assignee) each content piece is

currently on so there’s no confusion.

With Kapost, all of your collaborators are well notified, your approval bottlenecks

are broken up, and your content marketing operates as the speed you need to win.

10© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

7. You don’t know where all the content is

successFul content operations publish high volumes of content to many

different locations—blog posts on your site, eBooks on slideshare, syndicated posts

on others’ sites, videos on YouTube, etc.

But this success produces another challenge—where is all of that content?! In

particular, as content is produced, it needs to be re-used in other formats—the

video needs to be embedded in a landing page, the white paper broken down

into a few blog posts, etc.—or by other groups—PR wants to use a presentation in a

release; Sales needs a White Paper to close a deal.

Kapost serves as the single content repository that can your team can use to find

the content they need. With no file storage limit, Kapost holds all of your different

types of content: blog posts, eBooks, White Papers, Case Studies, Videos, etc.

And users can search through the repository through a text search (a la Google) or

through filtering different facets (like Content Type or Product Line, a la Amazon).

11© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

8. You struggle to schedule a steadY Flow oF content

successFul content marketing operations publish a steady rhythm of content.

To attract prospects at the top of the funnel, you need a regular flow of content

published to your website and on to your social channels. To nurture leads through

your funnel, you need to provide a regular cadence of new content for your

demand generation operation.

Managing this cadance—coordinating the production and timing of dozens of

pieces of content on a non-stop basis—is a challenge for most marketers. Often

times content spews forth in bursts, leaving gaps for your audiences. Web traffic

suffers. Demand generation team are stuck will stale content, and lead gen

declines.

Kapost manages and schedules your content operation at three levels, ensuring

a steady flow of content. At the highest level, Kapost schedules your campaigns,

the broad themes of content that you produce across longer periods of time

in coordination with your other marketing activities. At the next level, Kapost

schedules your individual pieces of content, tracking both the due date (of draft

submission) and publish date. At the lowest level, Kapost schedules the individual

tasks required to produce and publish your content pieces.

All of these level are viewable on Kapost’s editorial calendar, along with the ability

to filter by level or by any content attribute (e.g. category, content type, persona,

etc.). Color-coded, the Kapost editorial calendar puts marketers in control of their

content schedule, ensuring a steady flow of content to power your marketing.

12© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

9. You are puBlishing content, But Your traFFic is low

For ManY marketers, becoming a regular publisher of customer-facing content is

their major content marketing focus. But they soon realize that publishing is only

half the battle. Content only succeeds if it generates traffic. And generating traffic

for your content is the other half of the battle.

The best practice for generating traffic is to earn links from Influencers. Influencers

are people or organizations in your topic that have lots of audience: site visitors,

twitter followers, etc. Links from these influencers can send traffic your direction

and can improve your search rank, which sends more traffic.

But how do you manage these Influencer relationships? Kapost’s Audience

Development functionality allows you to track who your influencers are, how

influential they are, and how many links and how much traffic they are sending your

way. The functionality enables you to manage your Influencer relationships, earn

13© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

Publishing is only half the battle. Content only succeeds if it generates traffic. And generating traffic for your content is the other half of the battle.

valuable links, grow traffic, and win on the second half of the content marketing

battle: growing your audience. a steady flow of content. At the highest level, Kapost

schedules your campaigns, the broad themes of content that you produce across

longer periods of time in coordination with your other marketing activities. At

the next level, Kapost schedules your individual pieces of content, tracking both

the due date (of draft submission) and publish date. At the lowest level, Kapost

schedules the individual tasks required to produce and publish your content

pieces.

All of these level are viewable on Kapost’s editorial calendar, along with the ability

to filter by level or by any content attribute (e.g. category, content type, persona,

etc.). Color-coded, the Kapost editorial calendar puts marketers in control of their

content schedule, ensuring a steady flow of content to power your marketing.

“”

14© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

10. You can’t tell what is working and what is not

content Marketing involves lots of steps: creating a strategy; generating ideas;

scheduling, producing, and distributing content; engaging influencers; generating

an audience. If you’ve come that far, congratulations.

But few content marketing operations are overnight successes. Rather they require

continuous improvement that over time yields success. And that improvement

requires insight into what’s working and what’s not.

Using typical analytics tools, marketers can track their overall web traffic as they

always have. But content marketing requires deeper insight in order to see the

trends that point to success. Insight that can answer such questions as:

• Whose ideas are creating the successful content?

• Are you producing a good distribution of content across your different

personas?

• Which channels that you publish your content to are providing the best results?

• Are you producing enough content for each of your product lines?

• Which influencers are providing the most traffic?

• What authors of yours are winning the most links?

• What types of content are attracting new visitors?

• What content is keeping them around and moving them down the funnel?

15© 2012 kapost www.kapost.com

Only Kapost’s analytics can answer these questions, because only Kapost knows

all of the deep meta-data around our content: who submitted the idea; who is the

author; what persona is targeted; what campaign is it part of; what product line

does it relate to.

And it is only through these deeper insights that marketers can see the patterns

around what content is succeeding and what content is not, so that they can refine

their content strategy, improve their performance, and win at the new rules of

marketing: content.

Few content marketing operations are overnight successes. Rather they require continuous improvement that over time yields success. And that improvement requires insight into what’s working and what’s not.

“

”

Brought to You BY kapost

Design anD illustrations by jennifer gunther (@yennygunther)

fin.

Content Marketing expertise proviDeD by toby MurDoCk

© 2012