Content pain points

How can a brand reach its audience? Without being too marketing and sales focused. Without being too dependent on Google and social for reach. Besides, as a brand, you need to prepare for a future without Facebook. Last, not least, you want to be agile and nimble to be able to keep up with the fast-paced always-changing digital industry.

A few familiar pain-points within the C-suite on content

• Having a team of 30+ content producers and content / social media managers is not an exception for a big brand. Without real insights on the effect for the long term business objectives, is the content actually worth the investment?
• Disputes between the marketing, sales, corporate communications and public relations departments. More often than not, the marketing and sales department win the battle for the content. They get the mandate and ownership, with their focus on short term sales-driven KPIs.
• Marketers often focus on the short term shiny award-winning hero campaigns. Based on their KPIs that are given by management.
• The human resources department has similar content needs as the marketing department. To sell the brand and organization to new talent. But, seldom there is a cooperation to create content together.
• The Customer Care department is no part of the content game. They are not involved as a stakeholder in the Editorial Board. A missed opportunity as the (webcare) agents are in the first line of contact with your audience.
• How to reach your audience with the growing 'ad-blindness’ and shorter attention span?
• It is a common practice to develop a digital campaign for one channel. There is no integration between social, Google SEA SEO and website content.
• Huge dependency on Facebook and Instagram for social reach. What if these channels disappear, how to reach your audience in a new way?
• Most digital campaigns are start-stop with focus on marketing events or promotions. There is no long term reusable always-on content for brand building.
• No budget optimization by combining media buying and creative production.
• No real use of Google data to discover needs from your audience
• No use of social algorithms to optimize budget allocation
• When ‘the shit hits the fan’, no profound preparation for crisis communications. How to freeze all your content? There is not one overview of all content published and scheduled, where, by whom and the media budget. And there is no process to restart your content after the crisis.
• How to handle privacy, data and brand safety?

How to solve your content issues

First, start reading these pages and absorb these insights, knowledge, tips, and tricks. Second, create a plan. 'Failing to plan, is planning to fail'. Third, hire the experts, agencies and don't be a cheap bastard. Producing and distributing content costs money. A lot of money. There is no easy nor cheap fix to touch the hearts and souls of your audience. Yet, when done right, content is a valuable contributor to your business objectives. If not, indispensable and pretty essential to differentiate yourself from your competitors. 

Last, not least. Do, or Do Not. There is no 'Try'. Go for it. Don't do it half, because for sure then you will not succeed. Content deserves your full attention.

If not feasible for whatever reason, no offense meaning, then just do not do it. 'Content' is no golden nugget and doesn't solve every one of your business problems. Sometimes, on rare occasions, the best answer is not to 'do content' and focus on your other activities.