Content Marketing is here to stay. It's an undeniable fact, backed up with some pretty definitive statistics. Consider that 86% of organisations use content marketing while 90% of consumers find custom content useful. In light of those numbers, you'd assume that marketers would be soaring the heights of excellent content marketing, right? Not so.
It's a sad truth, but an average of 60 to 70% of content misses its intended target, and a study by CMI revealed that only 38% of marketers consider themselves effective at content marketing. Those are sobering numbers boding poorly for ROI, and highlighting a desperate need for content marketers to up their game. But as any content marketer knows, the path of taking content from idea to asset can be a tricky one.
Excellent content creation is a process helped along by many creative geniuses, whether it's designers or writers, and content marketing has to happen at a consistent rate and level of quality to be effective. Juggling multiple people and loads of content is enough to give anyone a headache. Being able to produce large content volumes relies heavily on developing a system to manage these elements successfully. What's a marketer to do?
Managing your content marketing is infinitely simpler when you use a content marketing platform, because it acts as a hub for all your content marketing activities, from the creation stage to measuring your results. This simplifies your content marketing on many levels, and offers some clear enhancements to the process. Here are three ways using a content marketing platform can improve your marketing.
Content marketing platforms take the hassle out of content creation, distribution and organisation, by providing a centralised location for each of these areas, and tools to help manage them with ease. This eliminates those pesky spreadsheets, multiple systems, endless post-it notes (and whatever else you might be using) that formed the base for managing your content marketing.
Naturally this means less confusion, wasted time and duplicate work. It also reduces labour costs, and makes it possible to produce better content in less time.
Content marketing is sometimes viewed as an intangible discipline, largely due to a mistaken belief that insufficient measurable data exists to gauge its success. When marketers believe the latter, a dangerous precedence for mediocrity is set. After all, without quantifiable results and constructive feedback, how will you know where your content marketing efforts are lacking?
To reap the rewards promised by content marketing requires the same level of results-orientated focus from marketers as needed from their coworkers in other departments, such as HR and Finance. Using a content marketing platform ensures marketing managers and marketers are always up to speed with one another's workflows, and can see the results of their efforts.
It's no secret that measurement is a pain point to many marketers. According to CMI, only 21% of marketers say they're successful in tracking ROI on their efforts. A common obstacle facing marketers struggling to quantify the ROI on their efforts is a lack of tools to measure their content's effectiveness. Which is precisely where utilising a content marketing platform comes in.
The analytic capabilities built into a content marketing platform provide marketers with all the data they need to calculate their ROI by highlighting the metrics that matter, and showcasing their results within a quantifiable framework. This data is invaluable in pinpointing areas needing improvement, or areas where content has triumphed.
Utilising a content marketing platform like HubSpot isn't a miracle cure for shoddy content marketing. Rather it's a step towards improving your content marketing processes and creating and an environment conducive to the growth and success of your content marketing efforts.