What Makes Content Operations Successful? 2023 Update

WHAT MAKES
2 02 3
CONTENT OPERATIONS
U PD A TE
SUCCESSFUL?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of Our Assessment
with Top Content Professionals Worldwide
content-science.com/content-operations-study/
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© CONTENT SCIENCE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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No industry is exempt from digital disruption.Content has become critical to the day-to-day of
every business and organization. This report offers our latest research into successful content
operations.
We first set out to document the state of content
operations in 2015. Since then, the importance of
content has grown as digital disruption
has accelerated.
This report shares our analysis of the data collected
from the more than 125 leading content
professionals with diverse organizations. We shed light
on the current state of content operations
and what differentiates the most mature
and successful.
As you work in the new content era of
business, these insights will help you thrive.
Value of This Report
Recommended Citation:
Content Science, What Makes Content Operations Successful? June 2023, http://content-science.com/content-operations-study/

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Top 12 Takeaways
Our analysis of data from more than 125 content professionals is a treasure trove of insight.
The 12 findings below are among the most notable.
1. The majority of companies are at either level 2 (piloting) or
level 3 (scaling) out of 5 maturity levels.
2. The top three challenges to mature are:
• Content strategies are not standard for the
entire organization
• No direct evaluation of content effectiveness
• No clear content strategy or plan
3. Organizations that report being very successful are more likely
to have a clearly defined content vision.
4. 65% of very and extremely successful orgs regularly evaluate
content and 25% of moderately to slightly to not at all
successful regularly evaluate content.
5. Very successful organizations are more likely to be using ROI to
evaluate content.
6. The top barriers to maturity are lack of communication across
silos and red tape.
7. 29% use machine learning or AI for content work such as
distribution and generation, up almost 10% from 2021.
8. Use of AI for composition / generating content is up 66%
from 2021.
9. 44% report personalizing the content experience for each
user.
10. Teams with content training are less likely than teams
without it to experience challenges. More writer/editors and
CCOs in 2022 compared to 2021, but a lower percentage.
11. The majority of content teams consist of six members or
fewer and have more diverse roles compared to our 2017
study. Continue to see an increase in higher-level content
roles.
12. More organizations have leadership roles such as content
manager and director compared to our 2017 study. Some
organizations have executive level content roles.
Recommended Citation:
Content Science, What Makes Content Operations Successful? June 2023, http://content-science.com/content-operations-study/

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Methodology
Data Collection and Analysis
Content Science promoted its proprietary Content Operations Assessment through a number
of channels and partners from June 4, 2021, through March 8, 2023. The Content Science team
analyzed the quantitative results and qualitative comments for the purpose of this report.
In-depth Interviews
Content Science conducted follow-up interviews with eight respondents from the online self-
assessment to gain additional context and insights. These eight respondents:
Survey
Total respondents: 125
• Are all leaders of their respective content teams
• Represent a wide range of organizations, including large nonprofits, tech startups, and
Fortune 500 companies
• Reside in a variety of countries.
• Respondents are from a wide variety of industries, including technology, finance, health,
nonprofit, and education
• Slightly more than half were from organizations with more than 1,000 employees
Which of the following best describes your role?
Which of the following best describes your organization's sector?
Non-Profit
Higher Education
Government
Corporate
4%
8%
14%
74%
Full-time freelancer /
contractor / independent
consultant
Member of content team
Leader of content team
62%
28%
10%
SAMPLE PARTICIPANT EMPLOYERS

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Content Operations Maturity
Even though digital business requires a sophisticated content
approach, most organizations lack mature content operations.
Yet, most organizations aspire to sophistication. Learn more about
the challenges standing in their way.

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Content Operations Maturity Levels
Which of the following best describes your
organization’s level now?
CURRENT STATE
20%
38%
35%
5%
2%
58% of organizations are at levels 1
and 2.
• Compared with organizations in 2021, more
are at levels 1 and 2.
• Compared with organizations in 2021,
far fewer are at level 4.
2.
1.
4.
3.
5.
1. Chaotic:
No formal content ops
2. Piloting:
Trying content ops in certain areas, such as for a blog
3. Scaling:
Expanding formal content operations across business functions
4. Sustaining:
Solidifying and optimizing content ops across business functions
5. Thriving:
Sustaining while also innovating and seeing return on investment

5%
18%
26%
26%
25%
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Content Operations Maturity Levels
What level does your organization strive
to achieve?
ASPIRATION
2.
1.
4.
3.
5.
Most organizations have high
aspirations, with
• 74% striving for a higher level than their
current level.
• 51% striving for levels 4 or 5.
1. Chaotic:
No formal content ops
2. Piloting:
Trying content ops in certain areas, such as for a blog
3. Scaling:
Expanding formal content operations across business functions
4. Sustaining:
Solidifying and optimizing content ops across business functions
5. Thriving:
Sustaining while also innovating and seeing return on investment

2%
17%
46%
30%
5%
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Perceived Content Success
How successful do you consider your team /
organization's content efforts?
SUCCESS Most organizations report only slight to
moderate content success.
Extremely successful
Very Successful
Not at all successful
Slightly successful
Moderately successful

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Correlation Between Ops Maturity +
Perceived Success
Organizations that report being successful with content are more likely to be at a higher content operations
maturity level. None of the organizations that perceived their content operations as extremely successful
were in levels 1 or 2.
Maturity level vs. perceived success
1 2 3 4 5
Chaotic Piloting Scaling Sustaining Thriving
0% 100%
75%
50%
25%
Not at all successful
Slightly successful
Moderately successful
Very successful
Extremely successful

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What Holds Maturity Back
Silos and red tape are the top barriers, which increase with the size of the company. The
percentage of enterprise companies that reported silos increased by 39% since the 2021
study.
Enterprise
(+1k employees)
Midsize
(100 - 1k)
Small
(< 100)
75%
reported lack of communication
between silos
53%
between silos
25%
between silos
55%
reported red tape / bureaucracy
53%
35%
• More than half said that communication across silos is problematic.
• More than half also reported problems dealing with red tape and bureaucracy.
• Nearly 4 in 10 reported not having the tools, technology, resources, and organizational support to succeed.

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What are the top 3 challenges your content team / department faces?
Similar challenges were in the top 3 in 2021, but the percentage who said content strategies were not standard for the entire
organization has decreased by 18 percent, suggesting organizations are starting to create cohesive strategies.
50
40
30
20
10
0
Content
strategy not
standard for
the
organization
No direct
evaluation
of content
effectively
No clear
Strategy
or plan
content
created
and
managed
on the fly
Don’t have
the right
content
roles/staff
Content
not tied to
business
goals and
objectives
Consumer
data is
limited
and
channel -
specific
Technology
not
sufficient to
handle the
complexity
of content
strategy
Bottlenecks
in the
operations
Other-
Write in
(Required)
No or not
enough
content-
specific
training
Bottlenecks
in IT
Technology
not care to
content

12
What are the top 3 challenges your content team / department faces?
Evaluating content continues to be an issue across all companies, especially with very large
organizations and very small organizations. Midsize organizations report more challenges
with standardizing strategy and planning.
Enterprise
(+1k employees)
Midsize
(100 - 1k)
Small
(< 100)
No direct evaluation of content
effectiveness
Content strategies not standard for
the entire organization
effectiveness
No clear strategy or plan - content
created and managed on the fly
effectiveness

There is no doubt that content plays a crucial
role in marketing, but lines are getting grayer
where marketing begins and ends.
In 2023 smart marketing teams will look
beyond just marketing and partner with
teams responsible for the customer
experience (CX).
Content must be interwoven in Marketing and
CX, and it must all work together.
Steven Pritt
VP, Thomson Reuters
“
OVERCOMING SILOS

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Content Roles + Training
Organizations are reshaping their content teams to include more modern
content roles and adapt new process models. Yet, many organizations
struggle to provide content-specific training—even though such training
correlates with content success. Topics covered in content-specific training
have become more diverse.

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Content Teams
TEAM SIZE
How many members does your
team have?
30%
34%
11%
6%
2%
17%
16-20
11-15
7-10
4-6
≤ 3
21+
3%
17%
27%
29%
13%
12%
• Team size varies widely, ranging
from fewer than three members
to more than 21.
• The majority of teams report
having six or fewer members.

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Correlation Between Content Training + Maturity
Presence of content-specific training by content
operations maturity level
100% of teams at maturity level 5 offer content-specific training.
Only 4% of organizations with no formal content operations offer content-
specific training.
No Yes
0% 100%
75%
50%
25%
1. Chaotic
2. Piloting
3. Scaling
4. Sustaining
5. Thriving

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Presence of content-specific training by top maturity challenges
Correlation Between Content Training + Challenges
Teams with content-focused training are less likely than teams without it to say that lack of
standardized content strategies and evaluating content effectiveness are challenges.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
No clear strategy or plan – Content
No evaluation of content effectiveness
Content strategy not standard for the
entire organization
No Yes

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On what topics does your organization offer content training?
Content Training Topics
Among the organizations offering content-specific training, the topics are still more diverse
compared to our 2017 and about as diverse as our 2021 study.
0
20
40
60
80
Content
writing
Content
design
User
experience
Content
analysis/
data
Content
marketing
Content
Leadership
-
Operations
Content
strategy
and
planning
Other write
in
(Required)

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Content Vision
Most organizations do not have a clear content vision. But the evidence is
clear. Organizations that report the most success with content also report
having a content vision. Learn more about the connection.

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Content Vision
Does your organization have a clear content vision?
Yes
43.2%
No
56.8%
57% of organizations lack a
clear vision for content.
This is down from slightly 63% in
our 2021 study.

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Content Vision + Success
Does your organization have a clear content vision?
• Organizations with a content vision are more likely to report success.
• 100% of organizations that report being extremely successful report having a clear content vision. They also report that
their vision has been clearly communicated.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
No Yes
Extremely
successful
Very
successful
Moderately
successful
Slightly
successful
Not at all
successful

Content is critical to an impactful
B2B experience, so a simple content
vision can help all of the teams
involved in creating, delivering,
promoting and / or governing
content stay aligned during the
complexity of execution. Ben Quigley
Sr Director, The Home Depot
“
VALUE OF VISION

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Content Evaluation + Measurement
Most companies continue to face content measurement challenges. But
organizations that are evaluating content effectiveness are reaping the
rewards. Learn more about what they are.

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Content Evaluation Activity
Does your organization regularly evaluate content impact
and success?
Yes
33%
No
67%
67% of organizations do not
evaluate content.
This is up slightly, from 65% in our
2021 study.

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Content Evaluation Hinderances
Why don't you regularly measure impact and success?
• Vague objectives and goals (75%) is the most common reason for not evaluating content. In 2021, lack of time was the
top reason. That reason decreased by 27% this year, suggesting content teams recognize the importance of spending
time on measurement.
• This finding reiterates the connection between having a vision and strategy and efficiently defining what to evaluate
or measure.
0
20
40
60
80
Vague objectives
+ goals
Lack of training in
analytics, voice of
customer + other data
Lack of time Lack of tools Other

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Correlation Between Content Evaluation + Success
Presence of content evaluation by success level
Organizations that report being extremely and very successful with content are more likely to be
regularly evaluating content.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
No Yes
Extremely
successful
Very
successful
Moderately
successful
Slightly
successful
Not at all
successful

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What Successful Organizations Measure
Content Success Rating By Content Evaluation Data
Successful organizations use a variety of data to measure success, including meeting deadlines, customer behavior
analytics, internal stakeholder satisfaction, voice of customer data, and achievement of milestones.
Extremely Successful Very Successful Moderately Successful
Meeting deadlines
Customer behavior analytics
Internal stakeholder satisfaction
Voice of customer/ Survey results about content
Achievement of milestones
Ability to work with other internal groups
Opinions of higher ups
Rate of creating new content
RO I (direct, assisted, etc)
Number of subscribers(emails, text, etc.)
External stakeholder satisfaction
Media mentions
0 8
6
4
2 10 12 14 16

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Evaluation Tools Used
What tools are you currently using to evaluate your content’s performance?
Organizations report using a variety of tools to evaluate content performance, but web analytics platforms
continue to be most frequently reported.
0
25
50
75
100
Web
analytics (e.g.
Google,
Adobe)
Social
analytics
(e.g. Sprout
Social,
Hootsuite)
Voice of
customer/
sentiment data
(e.g. ForeSee,
ContentWRX)
Media
monitoring
(e.g. Meltwater,
Cision)
Other – Write
in
Competitive data
tracking (e.g.
SimilarWeb Moz)
Content
marketing
platform
analytics
Rating
systems (e.g.
RatingWidget)

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Content Technology
Enterprises face increasing demand to provide the right content to the
right customers at the right time at scale. Learn more about how
organizations are starting to rise to the challenge with more—and more
diverse—technology applications.

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Content + AI
Does your organization currently employ machine learning and / or artificial intelligence (AI)
to help manage and generate content?
Yes, extensively
3%
Some
26%
No
71%
29% are using AI or machine
learning in some capacity related
to content.
This continues to grow and is up from
22% in our 2021 study and 15% in our
2017 study.

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Content Uses for AI
What tasks are you currently using machine learning and/or AI to help complete?
Composition, including writing, localization and collaboration, is the most common application, with 36% of AI /
machine learning users citing it. This is up 66% from the 2021 study. Conversely, distribution (syndicating, targeting, etc.)
is down 50% from the 2021 study.
0
10
20
30
40
Composition
(Writing,
localization,
collaboratio,
etc)
Measurement
(Surveys, web
analytics, etc)
Production
(Sourcing,
optimizing, etc.)
Distribution
(Syndicating,
targeting, etc)
Other – Write
in (Required)
Organization
(asset
management,
etc.)
Conversion
(auditing,
optimizing,
etc.)

We’re seeing the use of AI expand from
turbo-charging intelligent content discovery
and delivery to synthesizing new content. To
realize the potential of AI-generated content,
development teams will need to build user
trust in the content.
Two good starting places:
1. Create an efficient way to make
transparent how each piece of content was
created and 2. Develop robust, rigorous
quality measures to mitigate inaccurate or
otherwise ineffective content.
Toni Mantych
Sr Director, ServiceNow
“
EXPANDED APPLICATION OF AI

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Content Management
Which of the following technologies does your organization use to manage content?
Organizations use a diverse set of tools to manage content from content management systems to web content
management to content marketing platforms. The percentage using open-source CMSs like WordPress or Drupal is
down by 52%.
50
40
30
20
10
0
OTHER Wordpress Adobe
Experience
Manager
Contentful Drupal Acquia Contentstack Optimizely
(Formerly
Episerver) CMS
Sitecore Web
Experience
Manager
Sitefinity BloomReach
Hippo CMS
60
Oracle
WebCenter
Content

34
Other Content Technologies Identified
Participants mentioned a range of technologies that play a role in managing content.

35
Content Personalization
Does your organization seek to provide a personalized content experience?
Almost half of organizations are
trying to offer personalized content
experiences.
This is about the same as our 2021 study.
Yes
44%
No
56%

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What Mature Content Operations Look Like
Get a snapshot of organizations that say they reached levels 4 and 5—
sustaining the day-to-day content demand while also innovating.

A Glimpse into Mature Content Operations
Organizations at maturity levels 4 + 5…
1. Have a clearly communicated vision
2. Evaluate content effectiveness and ROI
78% of mature organizations regularly evaluate content impact and success, compared to only 29% of organizations at
levels 1-3. The majority are using at least six types of data to measure success.
5. Face fewer barriers to success
Zero mature companies report any of these challenges:
• Lack of effective content standards and planning procedures
• Poor communication and collaboration within teams
• Lack of interest in content’s subject matter
• Ineffective decision-making and problem-solving processes
• No empowerment for taking risks
• Lack of recognition and flexibility to respond to change
78% of mature organizations say their team has a clear content vision. And 71% of them note this vision has been clearly
communicated, with the team fully invested in realizing it.
4. Report more success
56% of mature organizations report being extremely or very successful compared with 16% of organizations at levels 1-3.
The majority of mature organizations use a center of excellence concept including community of practice, governance
committees, or council meetings to keep content operations aligned.
3. Use strategies to keep content operations aligned
© CONTENT SCIENCE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 37

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Who We Are
We’re an end-to-end content company that
turns insight about content into impact.
Our purpose is to experience the delight of
enabling worthy organizations to make content
make a constructive difference in how people
feel, decide, act, and live.
www.content-science.com
SAMPLE AWARDS
SAMPLE CLIENTS

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STRATEGY + CONSULTING
With a sophisticated yet collaborative style, we advise, research
and train on content strategy and operations.
STUDIO
Our diverse content creation capabilities serve the entire
customer experience and enable the entire employee experience.
INSIGHTS
What content is working? What’s not? Our CS Lab analysts
can help answer those questions and more.
SAMPLE SOLUTIONS
PRODUCTS
The leader in automating content effectiveness
+ maximizing first party data
Devoted to a variety of on-demand + live
training in modern content skills
Online magazine with free +
premium content
STAFFING
We bring together the right content talent at the right
time to extend your capabilities.
VERTICAL SOLUTIONS
We innovate by taking content insights from the most
successful + applying them to new verticals.
www.contentwrx.com
www.contentscienceacademy.com
review.content-science.com
SEE ALL SOLUTIONS AT WWW.CONTENT-SCIENCE.COM/SOLUTIONS

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