Content Marketing is a Juggling Act

Is your strategy and organization up to the task?

Content marketers need to deliver results in an environment that is constantly changing.

Faced with these constant changes, content marketing can either devolve into a series of reactionary random acts of marketing or take the changes in stride.

The difference comes down to your content marketing strategy and your marketing organization. A solid content marketing strategy lets you keep your eye on the ball and a solid marketing organization lets you keep all of the balls in the air, smoothly juggling the changes happening around you.

To see why I’m juggling oranges in the picture, check out Orange Crush, Babcock & Jenkins’ entry for CMI’s Orange Awards.

Is your content strategy and organization up to the task? Consider if you can take changes in these three areas in stride while seamlessly continuing to connect with your target audience.

Internal Influences

You are bombarded by internal changes and you must constantly adapt to them. Does your strategy and organization stand up to the following internal changes?

  • Your budget doubling. Your strategy should be scalable and your organization should be able to flex to changing demands (within some limits). If doubling budget changes your strategy, you just have a tactical plan.
  • Expansion of your offerings into a new market. Does your approach to content marketing give you the flexibility to expand and does your infrastructure position you to expand easily?
  • The departure of a key team member. Is your ability to execute or your vision tied to the knowledge and skill of a key individual? Or is your vision shared across your organization and are your processes structured, allowing the team to step in and new team members to quickly come up to speed?
  • The introduction of new content. Is it seamlessly introduced into your site, your partner marketing efforts and your established drip or nurture email programs? Is the content it replaces easily removed, existing links updated and incoming traffic redirected to the appropriate location?

External Influences

External influences are entirely beyond the control of your company yet you still need to take these changes in stride.

  • Introduction of a new competitive category. Is your strategy and organization nimble enough to respond to not just a new competitor but a new kind of competitor? Can you juggle a change like this without missing a beat?
  • The rise of new channels. As buyers migrate to channels like Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or others, are you rewriting your strategy or smoothly making the move with them?
  • Major consolidation among industry competitors. As your competitive landscape changed, would your strategy suddenly seem incomplete?

Audience Changes

Ultimately content needs to connect with people (your audience), but their situation is constantly changing. An audience-focused content strategy and organization will connect even as the audience’s priorities and situations change.

  • They select a competitor. If your content marketing can keep you in touch with potential future buyers now, you have found your stage zero content opportunities.
  • They need to defend your solution to new management coming into the buying process. Have you accounted for a 360 degree view of your buyer’s environment?
  • Business requirements change. Today, with the onset of big data, IT storage and processing demands are increasing far faster than IT budgets. Can your content marketing shift to handle the next change in your market?

With a strong audience-focused content strategy and organization, you will be able to juggle these changes without dropping the ball.

Your Turn

What changes would you add to the list? Are there any changes listed here you believe are too big for a given strategy and organizational structure to support?

Share your perspective in the comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

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