Content Marketing is one of the best strategies a business can use to reach new leads and create a long-lasting relationship with customers.
That is why marketers around the world choose this technique to increase lead generation and engagement.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 77% of all internet users read blogs, and 61% of them have made purchases because they read a blog post.
That is why Content Operations is such an important part of doing business in the digital landscape. It is the strategy your business needs to make sure content is streamlined and fast-tracked for publication, without losing quality over time.
But how does Content Operations work to create the ideal Digital Marketing strategy?
In this article, we will look into the following questions to help you find all the answers you are looking for.
- What is Content Operations?
- Why are Content Operations so important?
- What are the main elements of a Content Operation?
- How to choose a good platform for my Content-Op?
Ready to start learning?
Download this post by entering your email below
What is Content Operations?
Content Operations, or Content-Ops, are all the efforts that happen in the background of a Content Marketing strategy, in order to make it work seamlessly.
In general, Content Operations involve to some degree people, processes, and technologies. Content-Ops are responsible for creating, distributing, and maintaining content in an organization.
Content Operations, therefore, is the task of:
- aligning content and business priorities;
- making sure all departments collaborate in building a content strategy;
- finding out how to engage users with CTAs and generate leads;
- discovering which assets are ideal for converting clients.
Why are Content Operations so important?
There’s no way to overstate the importance of Content Operations. When effective, these efforts will give your organization a blueprint to follow in order to create content that resonates with your audience.
Every organization that produces content has a form of Content Operations working in the background, but not all of them have effective Content-Ops.
That is: people following streamlined processes and using tech to develop the best content possible for the buyer persona.
A good Content-Ops effort will always ensure that people, processes, and technology are aligned for better results.
With the growing need to build better content to attract potential customers for your business, Content-Ops has quickly become one of the most important tasks in a Content Marketing strategy.
Below are some of the reasons why it is such an important business asset.
Creating quality content for your brand
The main reason a company might need Content-ops is the need to build content that is engaging and offers real value to the consumer throughout the content lifecycle.
As the digital landscape becomes more competitive, high-quality content is what your company needs to make an impression on consumers, and Content Operations is the tool most likely to get you there.
Producing content faster with Content-Ops
Content-Ops is key for business because it establishes processes that make it easier to create content fast.
In a world where things are constantly changing and improving, this is the surest way to deliver content that is relevant to your prospects on time.
Standardizing your content to suit the brand
Creating content that looks and feels like your brand is also important to make sure customers know what they are interacting with.
Another great benefit of Content-Ops is defining the types of content your business produces and why.
This standardization will help you make sure all your content exists for a reason and fulfills its part in the grand scheme of your Digital Marketing plan.
What are the main elements of a Content Operation?
So, what are the main elements of Content Operation, and how do they work together to make sure your company produces better content?
People, processes, and technology are the key to successful Content-Ops.
Let’s have a look at the reasons why!
People
People can be a big challenge for Content-Ops as organizations with little development in Content Operations tend to let users pick and choose how to work on content to best suit their needs.
Defining clear roles for each member of your organization is, therefore, the first step to improve Content-Ops in your business.
When you have clear job descriptions — and no overlaps on how your team works — you can build better content.
Try mapping out your personnel and looking into how each member of your team contributes to your Digital Marketing plan’s success. This will be the cornerstone to successfully pull off Content Operations.
Processes
Workflows and well-organized processes are another of the cornerstones of Content Operations.
Having clearly defined workflows and frameworks will help to keep your content on track and ready to be published at the right time.
Do you know what each member of your team is doing and how? What needs to be done first and foremost?
Defining your team’s workflow starts with looking into every stage of content creation, from planning to publication.
One way to make sure your processes work is to create content style guides for your team.
Defining content types and creating templates are two other great ways to organize your processes.
All those tools will make sure your content team follows a governance model that guarantees content ownership and maintenance. That means it will be able to deliver quality content that can easily be attributed and updated through time.
Technology
Choosing the right tools for your Content-Ops also plays an important part in its success. That is especially hard since there are so many different content tools a company can use to generate similar results.
While niche products might give you the idea that you are building better content, the sheer amount of technical resources available in the market — and the speed with which they are updated — is a challenge for marketers.
Some companies choose to use a single content tool in order to make matters less complicated. Others prefer to build a portfolio of tools, each best for a given task.
In order to guarantee your Content-Ops technology is working as a strategic resource for the company, make sure you check for the following characteristics.
Scheduling
Content is hardly ever published in the order it is produced. Often, it is published following an editorial calendar that will help you build an effective sales funnel.
That’s why a good Content-Ops tool must have scheduling capabilities. This way, it will be easier to produce and share content on your channels.
Task management
Each member of your team plays a part in Content Marketing. Task management in Content Operations tools will help to make sure members of the crew know what they have to do next and have access to the resources they need to do it.
Analytics and reports
A good tool should be able to tell you how your content is doing and how to better it.
Easy to understand reporting functions and analytics tools will make a big difference in how effective a resource is for Content Marketing.
How to choose a good platform for my Content-Op?
Now that you know everything there is to know about Content Operations, it’s time for you to choose a platform to help with this task.
Picking the right platform means making sure you have all the tools at hand to develop a Content Strategy that works.
Here are some tips on how to do just that!
Reach out to other clients
The internet is a great place to find opinions on products and services such as Content-Os platforms.
Figuring out how other clients rank a tool can help you decide if it’s the right one for your business or not.
Search for reviews online and talk to your coworkers about which Content Operations tool they use. This will make a big difference while combing through the options in the market.
Look for automated tools
While looking for a Content Operations platform, prioritize those that offer automation tools to make your job a bit easier.
When you reduce the need to manually perform tasks such as content entry, you facilitate the lives of the people that produce content in your business and reduce errors in the process.
Find a platform that has SEO optimization tools
Your SEO strategy is paramount to guarantee that your content turns into leads and new business opportunities.
That’s why you should always look for a platform that allows for SEO optimization of your content, whether it was produced before or after the implementation of the new tool.
Content Operations is a hot topic in Content Marketing right now, and your business can benefit greatly from Content-ops.
Good Content-ops will help you organize and facilitate content creation in order to grow your audience and get better results with Inbound Marketing and, therefore, should be a priority for any organization.
Did this content help you understand Content Operations better? Are you ready to keep learning and improving Content-Ops in your organization? Check out our jam session “Content Operations: the key to real performance” with Robert Rose for an in-depth look into how to do it!
