This week’s blog was inspired by the Sitecore Symposium session Sitecore on Sitecore, where the panel dissected the ways Sitecore’s marketing team utilized Content Hub to improve and manage content effectiveness, omni-channel deployment, and solve their very own content crisis.
In true Content Bloom fashion, we had to dive deeper. We wanted to better understand their path to optimization and how they discovered an “ideal solution” to a common yet complex business challenge.
Luckily for us, Jason Masini, Director of Content Marketing and Social Media at Sitecore, agreed to share this journey with us.
From insights to powerful tips for managing the intricacies of an end-to-end content cycle, you’ll learn the significance of combining the right platform and digital tools for reinforcing effective branding across all channels.
What question are you asked most often and why do you think that is?
JM: Well, when I first started at Sitecore in December 2018, I would often get asked, “Where can I find X piece of content?” Because assets were scattered on different platforms, or they were difficult to find on a file-sharing site, they just didn’t know where to start. Now that we have Sitecore Content Hub as our central repository for all our assets including guides, videos, and infographics, everyone in the organization knows that they can simply do a search in there and find it pretty quickly.
What makes up the Sitecore life cycle and in what way is it similar to other companies?
JM: Most every company has a content lifecycle. From ideation to planning, creation, review, publishing, and analyzing, content plays a role in every organization’s marketing efforts. What makes Sitecore’s end-to-end content lifecycle unique is that we have the only platform that can seamlessly tie all those things in a single platform.
From your experience, what mistakes do companies often make when identifying gaps and implementing solutions?
JM: When we were going through the process of our website relaunch in Summer 2019, identifying gaps was one of the aspects our research and analysis. Working with skilled partners was crucial as we built our personas and mapped the customer journey to see how our customers were working their way through our funnel. It’s nearly impossible to feel like you’ll ever have all your content gaps filled, but by evaluating the areas where you’re strong, and the areas that need improving, you’ll be able to identify and prioritize the most important places to start.
We’re seeing the ways marketing is being fused with IT. Is it important to remove that dependency? Why or why not?
JM: The relationship between Marketing and IT needs to be strong. With so much of today’s marketing being driven by digital experiences, we need to have a solid relationship with IT so we can have the martech tools at our disposal to deliver them to customers. So many companies these days are going through their own digital transformation. Aligning closely with IT early in the process of any martech changes ensures they’ll be on board and the implementation will go a lot smoother.
Would you say that the majority of marketing issues stem from a technology gap, rather than a content gap?
JM: They go hand-in-hand. Without the right technology, you can’t deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. But without enough content, you can’t personalize the experience and make the customer feel like your brand truly understands their wants and needs. So it’s really important to have a technology that allows you to streamline your content efforts and make getting new content out the door as efficiently as possible.
What, in your professional opinion, is the best method for driving success?
JM: From my perspective leading a content team, the most important driver of success is collaboration and communication. When you have strong teams that trust each other, have the freedom to be creative, and keep each other informed, you eliminate a lot of problems because everyone is always on the same page.
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