Requirements for Modern Marketing Content Management

To be honest, how many hours does the marketing team spend looking for pictures and texts? What can not be found is replaced by compromise solutions. Some campaigns cause stress because content is missing, can not be completed in time, or releases are delayed. Thus, new solutions must be sought.

In many companies - from large corporations to mid-sized companies - the creation, storage and administration of marketing content has developed in an uncoordinated manner. The processes, service providers, databases and isolated IT systems are interwoven into a complex network that stubbornly defies timid improvement measures.

According to a survey by Media Company, 56 percent of the surveyed companies - more than half - lack adequate IT infrastructures and workflow control via media platforms. About one third (31 percent) sees the complex processes as the biggest challenge according to the Media Company study. Many interfaces and time delays in the coordination between teams and service providers are opposed to the development, production and release of content.

At some point, this condition not only creates unnecessary problems and costs in day-to-day business. It also affects the strategic clout of marketing. In particular, the ability to interact with customers along the customer journey suffers - a major criticism in marketing, as recent studies by Qualtrics and the Brand Science Institute show.

Anyone who chooses to turn the content clutter into a sustainable, centralized solution for consistent product and brand communication - and that can actually succeed - should not compromise on the following seven performance criteria.

1. Content never leaves the central system

From design to final content: Modern Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms provide integration with popular editing applications such as Adobe In Design, Microsoft Office, and others. This ensures that content is stored centrally throughout its entire life cycle, in all processing phases, versions and variants as well as through all release processes. This provides a complete view of the content processes and the state of media production, in which service providers can also be seamlessly integrated.

2. Workflows prevent shadow processes

The central data management over the entire media production and the use of content makes it possible to design processes consistently and to control them automatically with workflows. This applies in particular to release loops and version controls, which are mapped in the system and no longer need to be performed via time-consuming, error-prone "shadow processes" via email or telephone queries.

3. Versions and variants are updated automatically

The different versions and variants of content are linked to the master files. Changes to the master are automatically signaled for corresponding versions and variants. Depending on the workflow, the changes to the master can be automatically transferred to the versions and variants - or they remain locked until they are manually checked and released by an authorized user. This ensures that content across all channels is consistent and legally secure, or that no outdated or incorrect content is played.

4. Atomic content and media-neutral storage for cross-channel content usage

An appropriately aligned content platform makes it possible to store as many content as you like and to create relations between these contents. Thus, for example, in addition to a picture montage, the individual components used therein should be kept centrally and linked together. 

The advantage: Content can be used modularly and demand-oriented individually or in combination and used across channels. This also simplifies the way to a personalized digital communication. In addition, this flexible content approach enables high-quality communication via print products such as mailings and target group-specific magazines to be implemented faster and more cost-effectively.

5. With Print Management at the push of a button to the magazine, catalog or mailing

Topic Print: Linked to publishing systems, the production of magazines, catalogs, direct mailings or product brochures can be partially or fully automated via modern content platforms. This speed advantage makes it possible, for example, to use print media to specifically set buying impulses along the customer's digital customer journey.

6. Central management of content on websites, portals, communities and social media

Today, channel marketing is thwarted by two aspects: Either content is not available in the required variance to meet the different expectations on different channels - content repeats itself. Or the individual channels are recorded separately from each other with content that is only created and maintained on a channel-specific basis - which prevents cross-media communication with customers from the outset, precisely fitting the current decision-making and purchasing process.

By contrast, modern enterprise content management systems make it possible to centrally organize the complex content inventory and production process for all channels, to clearly present the relationships and dependencies of content and to play them out in coordinated campaigns.

7. Translation Management simplifies international communication

Companies that operate internationally should connect their content platform to a translation management system that has a translation memory system connected to it. This ensures that repetitive content and its translation are captured - one sentence is never translated twice. Apart from the time and cost savings, this ensures that defined terminologies are used consistently and that the quality of the texts is consistently ensured.

Media Company's project experience has proven that with a single enterprise content management system - combined with processes that are specific to a business - 50 percent time savings in day-to-day marketing are realistic - depending on their previous condition. The cost reduction in media production and management is between 20 and 40 percent. Not included here is the added value that such a relieved marketing team creates for a company, if it can develop its full creative potential.

Of course, modernization in Content Management means effort. This makes it all the more important to rely on a powerful IT platform solution whose concept and software architecture is future-proof and scalable.