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Should You Add More to Scale Your Content Strategy? [The Weekly Wrap]

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And that’s a wrap of the week ending Aug. 21, 2020

This week I’m asking whether technology or people are more important in content strategy. I talk with futurist Kate O’Neill about whether marketing technology is serving us – or we’re serving technology. And I point to an article that explains what to consider when it’s time for new marketing tech.

Listen to (or watch) the Weekly Wrap

Our theme this week is tools and tech. As time-management expert David Allen once said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it’s hard to eat spaghetti.”

Let’s wrap it up.

Listen to the episode (time stamps apply to both the audio and video versions):

Watch it, too:

One deep thought: (3:44)

Something weird is happening in digital marketing.

I get asked frequently: “How can we scale our content marketing?” and “How do we measure it?”

In our 2020 content management and strategy research, only 10% of the marketers surveyed said their content success comes from their ability to extract meaningful insights from content consumption.

It feels like our content is working. We just can’t pin down how.

So, what is the most important part to get an answer?

More people? New technology? A different process?

New technology is the most common answer. Many marketing leaders believe they are just one app away from figuring out the puzzle of how to scale and measure their digital content efforts. They say things like, “If only we had a DAM (digital asset management) system,” or “If we just bought that content performance system,” or “Just wait until we get that customer data platform.”

Many #marketing leaders believe they are just one app away from figuring out the puzzle of how to scale and measure their digital #content efforts, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

And it’s not just marketers who think this way. The head of marketing at a health care company I worked with last month told me that every time she mentioned a digital content and marketing challenge to her CEO, she got this response: “Isn’t there a tool that can handle that?”

Is it any wonder that companies have almost 100 applications in their martech stack?

Marketers are too busy managing new technology to spend time on creating content.

But scaling content marketing by simply adding more – technology, people, processes – doesn’t work. Scaling requires evolving to add value faster than we take on new costs.

Scaling #contentmarketing by adding more doesn’t work, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

Those two questions I get asked are backward. Instead of asking how to measure to justify scaling to meet content marketing goals, you should ask yourself how you plan to scale your goals to justify what you will measure.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

This week’s person making a difference in content: Kate O’Neill (7:46)

My guest this week is Kate O’Neill, founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic consultancy committed to improving human experience at scale. She wrote a book called Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans, and she hosts The Tech Humanist Show.

Kate is an expert in data-based business models, integrated experience strategy, and human-centric digital transformation. Over the past 20 years, she’s led innovations across technology, marketing, and operations in category-defining companies such as Netflix, where she created the first content management role and helped implement innovative dynamic e-commerce practices that became industry standard.

Here’s a peek at what Kate had to say in our fascinating conversation about humanizing technology:

Once we start to get a cleaner picture of just how much data is being collected and how much is at risk … I think the discussion changes. And the public is starting to catch up.”

As we get a cleaner picture of how much data is collected and at risk, the discussion on humanizing tech changes, says @Kateo via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

Listen in, then learn more about Kate:

One content marketing idea you can use (31:40)

The one article I’d love for you to revisit this week is What to Consider When It’s Time for New Marketing Technology. Marcia Riefer Johnson summarizes advice from martech leader Peg Miller on how to sort out what’s most important when looking for new technology.

Fix process issues before moving to new martech tools, says @PegMiller via @CMIContent. #WeeklyWrap Click To Tweet

Though the article was published in 2017, Peg’s advice is timeless. I hope you’ll check it out.

The wrap-up

I hope you’re enjoying the show. If you have thoughts about what you’d like to hear about or guests you’d like to hear from, let me know in the comments. And if you love the show, I’d sure love for you to review it or share it. Hashtag us up on Twitter: #WeeklyWrap.

To listen to past shows, go to the main Weekly Wrap page.

How to subscribe Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute.

Robert Rose

Robert Rose

Robert is the founder and chief strategy officer of The Content Advisory - the consulting and advisory group of The Content Marketing Institute. As a coach and strategist, Robert has worked with marketers at more than 500 companies including global brands such as adidas, Roche, Salesforce, NASA, and Hilton. Robert is the author of four books. His latest, Content Marketing Strategy, was published by Kogan Page in September 2023, and was called “a rich and much-needed understanding of content marketing" by Professor Philip Kotler. Robert is also an early-stage investor and advisor to a number of technology startups, serving on the advisory boards of a number of companies, such as DivvyHQ, and BrandLens.You can follow him on Twitter @Robert_Rose.