A couple of years ago, I researched content marketing maturity in the enterprise. We identified five phases of maturity, the highest one being the very aspirational level of actually monetizing content; organizations from Red Bull to Coke to Kraft have been able to actually sell their content marketing.
That’s clearly not going to happen for every brand practicing content marketing, nor should it. A far more attainable and worthy goal is phase four of our maturity model: fostering a culture of content. That is, evangelizing the importance and impact of content marketing not only across all sectors of the marketing division, but across the enterprise itself. It means getting senior management, sales, customer service, operations, product, HR, IT, and the rest of the company (as well as partners, such as agencies) educated and informed about content.
Many misunderstand this as a “find the bloggers” initiative. And sure, it’s always great to identify, inspire, and encourage the development of content creators who have real domain knowledge and expertise, not to mention channels of communication into relevant sectors and target markets.
But a genuine culture of content goes far beyond enabling and empowering content creators outside of marketing.
It’s about education: what content can achieve and how those achievements might benefit them. This means fewer calls to customer service, for example, if that department can help surface issues and problems that can be addressed with content (with the additional benefit of savings).
It’s about finding more content or topics for content, perhaps from an offsite, conference, or convention where marketing isn’t attending but customers or executives are.
It’s about employee advocacy. Employees can showcase an organization as a great place to work or provide behind-the-scenes expertise where it’s needed around products (or projects).
It’s about executive buy-in. When the C-suite understands content and the role that it plays, it is more willing and able to get behind programs that spread content culturally. (This is why Nestlé’s Pete Blackshaw, global head of digital, arranged a Silicon Valley “field trip” for that company’s senior leadership — to imbue them in the culture and potential of digital communications.)
This week, at Content Marketing World, Kraft Food’s Julie Fleisher discussed company-wide initiatives around content, such as building a software platform that integrates with enterprise functions around data and CRM, and also an educational program spanning hundreds of employees and a few dozen agency partners to boot, to get everyone on the same page around content.
We’re going to see many more enterprises rally around the culture of content, creating training and evangelism programs to spread the word and foster participation. This will result in better marketing and hopefully, more openness and transparency insofar as consumers are concerned.
What has your company done lately to foster a culture of content? I’d love to hear your stories.
This post originally published on iMedia Connection
Image credit: Caitlin Yardley Cell Theory: Culture Dish III 2009