At the beginning of this article, we will ask you the revealing question of the content strategy that you are going to implement. Are you ready? How much did you spend on content last year? Ask this question to the person who is responsible for this work in your business. When they screw you up without answering this question and lead you out, know that you’ve created the most compelling business case for a strategic content strategy. Although it’s a bit hard to quantify the costs in monetary terms, your business probably spends more on content production, management, activation, advertising, and marketing than all other business expenses!
Now how are we going to organize our content activities once and for all? This seems impossible. We are drowning in the sea of content that business produces every year. How can we evaluate all these contents one day?
Table of Contents
Strategic thinking for the content model
As our annual research shows, a successful content marketing program is strategic, involves higher levels, focuses on building new audiences, and uses content at all stages of the customer buying journey. In summary, businesses that are successful in content marketing integrate a series of changes to implement content as a business model.
Evolved content business model
In a book called Killing Marketing, written by CMI founder Joe Pulizzi, the strategic and historical value of owned media (aka your content marketing) is presented in the body of the business. The book identifies this idea as:
In today’s modern world, as the production and distribution of content through technology becomes more like a commodity, the value of original and quality content increases. As a result, reaching more audiences becomes a little more difficult, fragile, and filtered. The ability to create and maintain attention with original content becomes more valuable for business. You can see this on a tectonic scale right now. Amazon, Apple, Google, AT&T, and Verizon are quickly becoming the world’s largest media companies. Why? Because their content gives direct access to the audience, which results in providing great value and competitive advantage.
Of course, it is also possible to observe this issue at lower levels. Salesforce recently bought CMO Club and Girl Scouts created a new media brand for women. No initiative is needed to improve their current product line. Both of these organizations are adding content opportunities for easier access and engagement with audiences without having to rely on rental media. Simply put, all of these extremely successful companies have incorporated owned media as a business model within their company. So, if content marketing works best as an integrated business model, what is the best way to structure it?
Why should content models be important?
During the experiences we have had in working with different companies and businesses in recent years, we have always tried to understand the correct method of mechanizing content marketing for businesses. Recently, we considered a new framework for companies when we wanted to structure their content marketing business model. We were very inspired by Debora Bothun and John Sviokla’s media strategy work presented in 2016.
As they looked at the overall structure of owned media, we looked at four internal business models for content marketing versus two scales. Conclusion? No model is better than the other. Instead, the better conclusion is this: Businesses that integrate content marketing at deeper levels into their strategy have greater clarity about how to balance and prioritize the models they implement.
Each model has a different investment strategy, optimal team structure, discrete valuation objectives, and roadmap. Therefore, determining which model you are following can help deliver a more transparent content strategy. Will we not find this out along the way? Perhaps you should ask, why should we care about these things at all? You might be saying to yourself, we have so much demand and so much content to produce, why spend time planning? Let’s go straight to it!
Well, as it turns out, Steven Sinofsky knows the answer to that question. Steven is a marketing veteran who was previously the head of Windows at Microsoft. Steven is most famous for his famous quote, “Don’t post the original chart”, which is also very good advice. Make sure that what you offer; Whether it’s software like Windows, a device like a mobile phone, or something tangible like content or customer service, it’s built to meet the needs and desires of customers rather than reflecting your internal organizational structure, your silos, your war. Your internal problems and your budgeting problems. This is very logical.
As it turns out, when Steven said don’t post the original chart, he didn’t mean you shouldn’t post the original chart. He meant exactly the opposite of this. This is not a warning about avoiding anything. It is a statement of truth about something inevitable. It is inevitable, inescapable, and predetermined. Steven was deliberately talking about something called Conway’s Law. Melvin Conway was a computer scientist and programmer. In 1968, he noted that organizations that design systems are bound to produce designs that are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
In other words, operational design is product design. The products of marketers are content and communication. Steven and Melvin have told us that since we’re inevitably going to communicate the way we’re organized, it’s best to organize the way you want to communicate with your customers. And act Our experience with this organizational limitation is summed up in what we call Robert’s Communication Razor: “How well a business communicates directly depends on how much importance the business places on its content strategy.”
4 operational content models
Over the years of working with different clients, we have identified 4 different business models. Performer, platform, player and processor.
When a content strategy succeeds, it usually happens in one or more of these 4 content operating models along with two axes. In the Y axis, the focus is more on models internally and audiences are created that can be monitored over time. In the X-axis, models are departmental services that integrate with business services. The easiest and fastest way to explain and interpret models is to look at the output.
Player content model
In the bottom left quadrant, the player model is the most common. Usually, two or three people, although it can be more, are tasked with fulfilling business needs by producing, curating, and marketing content. The player model team creates infographics, e-books, sales sheets, blog posts, and usually letters of introduction to the CEO. This team is a component manufacturer.
Processor content model
In the lower right quadrant, the processor model is content as a service. Internally focused, this model tends toward a more integrated business service that the entire organization uses. Perhaps the team or teams working on SEO or localization strategies, scalability, keynote guides, protocols, and the like fall into this category. They set the necessary standards for how to produce content and manage it in the organization or by secondary agencies.
Performer content model
In the upper left quadrant is the pragmatic model. The focus is on building external audience groups through content products. An editorial team may manage a central resource or a dedicated blog, magazine, or video channel. In this section, the focus is on discrete and deep experiences to build and move the audience.
Platform content model
Finally, in the upper right quadrant, there is the platform or content model as a business model. Content is produced not only as a marketing and sales tactic but may also be an integrated product or business strategy. The platform model can also have its revenue line.
Immature content model
You may find it interesting to look at these four models on a scale of maturity where you start with small steps in the player model and grow to a business with a platform content model. Although this is not far from the truth, as you almost always start with the player model and aspire to reach the platform, viewing these models as different stages is not correct and can lead you astray.
An ideal content operation should be a balanced combination of all four models. The main question has never been which one are you now and which model you want to reach the fastest when you grow up. A smart content strategy is about which balance between the four content models makes sense both today and tomorrow. Maybe when you look at the idealized model of your business goals, you try to tip the balance somehow towards the pragmatic model.
Your content team is more focused on developing content experience products, such as blogs, websites, email newsletters, etc. This is possible with a little effort from team members who target innovative components for content products as campaign-driven content. They do it again, to be balanced. Another team can also ensure that all this content is well structured, translated, and optimized to the highest degree possible.
You can scale and measure your content.
As you might expect, we see the future of strategic content marketing as a scalable and measurable business strategy. As we move into 2020 and the years to come, this vital activity will permeate not only marketing but all other departments of any business. It is the strategic use of content that not only creates larger audience groups and ensures the generation and return of new and old customers, but the profitability of a collection also depends on it.
Content as a distinct business model will transform marketing activity and can move a series or even all marketing activities from the center of costs to the center of profitability. As Joe Polizzi writes in the introduction to Killing Marketing: “This is the future of IBM, General Motors, and Cisco Systems, creating owned media that not only generate new leads and opportunities but is so good that marketing He counts his own money!” This is something you can count on as a long-term career.