It doesn’t have to be this difficult.
A new study released by Kapost and Gleanster found that an estimated $958 million is wasted on inefficient and ineffective content marketing.
At the same time, 67 percent of marketers they surveyed said they’ve marked content marketing as a high priority for 2015. Unfortunately, it seems like there’s a disconnect somewhere along the way.
The report outlines some really interesting and useful statistics about what B2B marketers’ biggest challenges are and why they miss deadlines. Going through the approval process is number one, but 40 percent of respondents also cited “general chaos” as a reason deadlines are frequently missed.
Then, the report suggests that a content marketing platform can greatly help large B2B organizations be more efficient in their content creation efforts and hopefully decrease the amount of “general chaos” in an organization. That may be true. But can it really make content more effective? And if you have the perfect platform, does that mean you can replace the humans involved in the process?
Sure, a content marketing platform can help you stay organized; it can be an easily accessible tool that lends transparency to your team and enables everyone to see where content is at in the creation and approval process. But software isn’t going to actually get those blog posts and eBooks approved, which 92 percent of marketers listed as a reason deadlines are missed. Likewise, 82 percent reported communication between stakeholders (or a lack thereof) also contributed to missed deadlines. News flash: that’s also going to take actual human interaction.
More important than a piece of software is a team of experts who can guide content strategy and development, and who know when to make changes and updates along the way.
Increasingly you hear about how someone is building a new app or writing a piece of software that can replace the actions of a human. But software can’t replace understanding the nuances of how industry news affects a segment of your audience, when some internal news prompts for a slight shift in your content strategy, or when it’s time to update buyer personas based on a new product your company is launching.
It makes sense to use a content marketing platform if you’re working with a large content team and you want to keep everyone on the same page. But for the most part, software will only be a companion to someone taking accountability and working in a way that generates results.
In order for companies to stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on inefficient and ineffective content marketing, they should seek content strategy and development experts who understand the process.
Content marketing is still an art and a science. Don’t rule out the human aspect of it just yet.
Image source: “Wasting Money” by http://taxcredits.net/
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Why are B2B Companies Wasting So Much Money on Inefficient Content Marketing?
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