Thirty years ago, marketing content primarily existed on printed materials like magazines and billboards. Today, we see it just about everywhere in our daily lives. Ads on social media serve up relevant advertisements, storefronts flaunt the latest products, and our email inboxes receive a healthy flow of promotional material linked to offers and personalised suggestions of what we might like to consume that suit our interests and choices.
When you think about it, you expect consistent, engaging and personalised experiences across all these mediums, and so do your customers. But, curating and delivering content for each platform, tailored to each individual personal preference, is no easy undertaking. Too often, the management processes include copying and pasting information or making small changes to images and text to suit each channel. Hubspot’s State of Marketing report found that the average marketer spends 6 hours daily manually completing administrative or operational tasks similar to these.
To meet customer expectations and overcome time-wasting challenges, you need a new approach to content management. This is where an omnichannel content platform (OCP) comes into play. With it, teams can plan, curate, manage, localise, and distribute content across multiple channels from a centralised location. This is referred to as headless content delivery. What elements define this solution?
Modular content uses small, independent blocks to build complete assets personalised for various channels. It enables marketing teams to adapt content for relevant channels, such as websites, mobile apps, and social media, without losing consistency. By segmenting content into components like text, images, and videos, marketing teams can tailor their messaging to each platform and enhance consumer experiences while maintaining a unified brand voice.
Modular content offers the following advantages:
A global Salesforce survey found that 80% of customers cited experience as equally important to the products and services provided by a company. For this reason, content personalisation must sit high on your priority list.
Omnichannel content management platforms provide responsive content that adjusts to different devices and platforms to maintain consistent user experiences. The goal is to deliver appropriate content to each customer at the right time on every channel.
Modular content feeds personalisation by reducing the time needed to edit, update and distribute content tailored to individual consumer needs, preferences, and behaviours. Omnichannel content management platforms connect with third-party analytics to help marketing teams understand customer behaviour and segment audiences for targeted content.
In addition to personalised content, you also need localised content for different cities or countries. Content should align with geographical audience segments, including cultural, linguistic, and regional preferences.
Local relevance builds trust and loyalty among global audiences. Omnichannel platforms enable efficient management and execution of localised content strategies, ensuring languages and context remain relevant to the target audience. Rather than creating a new set of content designed for a specific locality, your team can generate localised versions from the original campaign.
Hubspot's State of Marketing report found that only 35% of marketers tailor social media content to each platform. Yet, the most effective marketers create custom content for each channel. The same report also found that marketers cite 'Creating engaging content' as their biggest challenge.
Omnichannel content management is not about a one-time push to publish multiple types of content to different channels. Rather, it focuses on always preparing content so teams can publish on demand and update dynamically without additional steps, systems and people.
Omnichannel content management does not have the limitations of traditional content management systems (CMS) that focus on a single delivery channel. Dynamic multi-channel publishing allows marketing teams to distribute content across various platforms like websites, mobile apps, social media, email campaigns, and in-store displays in one process.
I have talked about how omnichannel content management improves customer experiences, but it also enriches internal systems and processes to enhance employee experiences. These platforms include robust workflow and automation capabilities to improve content creation processes, from planning to publishing, ensuring timely and relevant output.
In an omnichannel context, where content needs regular updates across multiple platforms, omnichannel content management helps maintain consistent production and distribution.
Automated workflows reduce manual tasks and errors, ensuring a smooth flow of content across various channels. This is crucial for businesses managing large volumes of content, as it becomes easier to adjust content and keep marketing content updated.
Omnichannel content management forms the foundation of a successful content strategy. It breaks down the silos between different teams and channels and ensures that content remains consistent, engaging, and personalised.
Omnichannel content management provides marketing teams with the tools to facilitate delivery across multiple channels, such as social media, in-store displays and websites. It connects with third-party tools, like ERP and CRM systems, marketing automation tools, digital platforms, and analytics services to further support teams in optimising the content strategy.
We have over twenty-two years of experience helping our customers manage content, with a combined 100+ years of experience transforming content management and delivery processes. Our experts have implemented omnichannel content management platforms, like Sitecore Content Hub, for customers such as Jetstar Airways, The Australian Ballet, UWA and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. We work closely with you to understand your content management needs and reduce the amount of manual work involved with your business. Please visit our Sitecore Content Hub page for more information.
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