This document discusses scaling content operations. It recommends establishing a content marketing lead and center of excellence team to oversee content production, strategy, and analytics. It also recommends building a content marketing supply chain that plans content ideation, production, promotion and measures the impact on business goals like leads and pipeline. Finally, it suggests consolidating content marketing technology to improve reusability, consistency and analytics.

1. Content Operations:
Practical Guidance and Real World
Examples to Scale Your Content Marketing
Pawan Deshpande
CEO, Curata
@TweetsFromPawan
#CMWorld

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Scaling Content Operations
☐ Content Marketing Today
☐ Scaling Content Operations
☐ People: Building a Team
☐ Process: Building a Supply Chain
☐ Technology: Consolidate & Integrate
☐ Takeaways

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Content Marketing is not a Fad. It is a New
Reality of Marketing, and Here to Stay!
71% of marketers plan to increase content
marketing spend.
93% of BtoB marketers use content
marketing.
2/3rds of companies have seen a positive impact
on lead quantity & quality due to content
marketing.
“Compelling, authentic content is what makes social
engagement happen. . . Great content humanizes
brands.” [Jake Sorofman, Gartner]
“Content marketing is marketing. You can’t market
well (or maybe even at all) without content.”
“Most B2B marketers have wised up to the value of
content marketing.”
“Content marketing is in high demand as every
company has now realized they are media
companies.”

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MIKE TYSON:
UNDISPUTED
TRUTH
LIVE ON STAGE
DIRECTED BY
SPIKE LEE

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Doing content
marketing may feel
like you’re on an
island.

10. And as Great as Your Rock Stars are,
Content Marketing Today is Still a Gamble
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And Scale the Content Marketing Function
Beyond the One Man Show?

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Scaling Content Operations
☑ Content Marketing Today
☐ Scaling Content Operations
☐ People: Building a Team
☐ Process: Building a Supply Chain
☐ Technology
☐ Takeaways

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4 Steps to Scale Content Operations
1. Build Support for Content Marketing within
your Own Organization.
2. Establish a content marketing lead and
center of excellence team. [People]
3. Build a content marketing supply chain
including analytics. [Process]
4. Consolidate and integrate your content
marketing applications. [Technology]

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#1: Management Needs to Understand that
this is Not Your Father’s “Content Marketing”
We’ve been doing
content marketing
for years!
Our content needs
to target buyers’
interests & focus
on “their” value
Old world content is:
• Egocentric
• Valuable to the vendor only
• Product Focused
• Boring
Real Content Marketing is:
• Valuable to the buyer also
• Buyer Focused
• Visual & Engaging

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Yes, Many Groups are Producing Content,
But It’s the Wrong Type of Content
“60 to 70% of content produced by
B-to-B marketing organizations
goes unused.” [SiriusDecisions]

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Establish a Clear Definition of Content
Marketing across Your Company
“Content marketing means:
• Having the discipline to avoid marketing fluff
• Being tapped into your audiences’ needs
• Providing value to our audience in a respectful way.”
Greg Estes
Vice President of
Marketing

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Identify Content Marketing
Early Adopters

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Tap into Third Parties
to build Content
Marketing Credibility
• Use analyst firms’ insight
• Conferences
• Competitive successes
• Research studies
• Industry surveys &
benchmarks
• eBooks
• Blogs
• Experts & Consultants
We should do
content marketing. What?
You should do
content marketing.
Yes!
You are so smart.

21. #2. Establish a content marketing lead and
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center of excellence team. [People]

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Most Organizations Produce Lots of Content

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Inconsistent
Messaging

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Inconsistent Quality

26. Underutilized Content
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Scaling Content Operations
☑ Content Marketing Today
☑ Scaling Content Operations
☐ People: Building a Team
☐ Process: Building a Supply Chain
☐ Technology
☐ Takeaways

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Hire a Content Marketing Executive.
You cannot be successful in content marketing without one.
Curata's 2014 Content Marketing Tactics Planner (n=500)
Do you currently have an
executive in your organization
who is directly responsible for an
overall content marketing
strategy?
(e.g., Chief Content Officer, VP or Director of Content)
Yes
(43%)
No
(57%)

31. Hire a Content Marketing Executive
“Everyone is responsible for content, but
someone needs to be in charge of content
operations in order to leverage and get
the most value out of our content.”
#CMWorld
Heidi Melin, CMO of Plex Systems

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Content Operations:
The Nerve Center for B-to-B Content

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Objective #1:
Break down the walls
between the different groups

34. Objective #2:
Enable rest of the organization to be great
content marketers
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35. Objective #3:
Provide infrastructure
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(e.g. technology, writing services)

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Case Study: An Enterprise-Class
Center of Excellence Team
• $1.5B revenue life sciences company
• Objectives: Create content that . . .
• Appeal to prospects
• Enables great customer experiences
• Supports the field
• Key success factors
• Accountability (22 person team)
• Alignment
• Monthly content audit
• Content technology manager
• Success to date
• Higher quality content
• Improved productivity
• Significant improvement in sales enablement
Kathleen Pierce,
Director of Commercial Content Operations

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Scaling Content Operations
☑ Content Marketing Today
☑ Scaling Content Operations
☑ People & Organization
☐ Process: Building a Supply
Chain
☐ Technology
☐ Takeaways

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Analytics
Strategy
Publishing Production
Strategy
Production
• Editorial Calendaring
• Assignments
• Curation
• Sourcing
(agencies, contributors,
freelancers…)
Analytics
Publishing
• Scheduling
• Promoting
• Influencers
• Social Media
• Sales Enablement
• Newsletters
• Website
Content Marketing Supply
Chain by Curata
• Engagement
• Marketing Pipeline
Impact
• Sales Pipeline Impact
• Revenue Impact
• Root Cause Analysis
• Campaign Management
• Content Auditing
• Buyer Stage & Personas
• Ideation
• Keyword Research
• Content Repurposing

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Dumb Idea? _
The Infographic of Infographics
Results:
312 Social Shares
3,854 Page Views
979 Leads Influenced
$363K Pipeline Influenced

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Ideation
imitating the best

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But, do so ethically
1. Reproduce only a portion of the original
content.
2. Always cite your sources.
3. Prominently link to the original source.
4. Annotate your content with your own
perspective.
& 8 more best practices….
http://bit.ly/CurationEthicsEbook

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Keep a place for your best ideas.
Make an email address ideas@yourcompany.com or via Chatter

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Form a “Shark Tank” to vet ideas.
Social Media
SEO CM Lead

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Keep Random Acts of Content
Source of Innovation
Let you react to current events
Newsjacking

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Created
Content
Content Marketing
Team
65%
Curated
Content
25%
Syndicated
Content
<10%
Source: Curata 2014 Content Marketing Tactics Study
Sourcing
Internally &
Externally
Tap Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com (CC BY 3.0)

49. Spend 20% of your time on titles
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The Power of a Great Title

51. Market your Marketing
“Companies spend millions of dollars on content
that is never viewed or downloaded.”
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Market Your Marketing
Earned Media:
• Result of owned, paid
and other marketing
• Other properties
Paid
Earned
Owned Media
(Online &
Offline)
Owned Media:
• Web site
• Blog
• Microsites
Paid Media:
• Display ads
• Search ads
• Paid sponsorships

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Influencer Marketing
Content Promotion & Content Creation

54. • Book Review
• Interview Blog Post
• Webinar
• Signed Book Giveaway
#CMWorld

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Scaling promotion
through all channels
QUICK AND EASY PROMOTIONAL
TOOLS
(Gaggle, Boom, etc.)
YOUR PERSONAL NETWORK
(add Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook logos)
YOUR SALES/SALES ENABLEMENT TEAM YOUR MARKETING DATABASE
49% of companies send a newsletter at least to
promote their blog. [Curata]
SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM
56% of companies rely on their social media team to
promote their blog. [Curata]

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“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted;
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the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
John Wanamaker

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“I think that we’re making an impact?”
+
Curata
Blog, 43%
CCM, 11%
Curata.com
, 34%
LinkedIn
Pulse, 8%
SlideShare, 4%
Lots of Page Views & Shares = Lots of
Demos
Lots of great
content
Curata’s Head of Sales

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”85% of B2B marketers fail to connect
content activity to business value — and, as
a result, fail to retain customers or win their
long-term loyalty.”

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I just know this eBook is
doing well.
Look at how many
shares we got!

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As content marketers…
We need to understand what’s
working and what’s not.
So we can do more of what works.
And less of what doesn’t.

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Content Marketing
Consumption Sharing
Retention Engagement
ROI
Performance Operations
Cost Production
Marketing Pipeline
Impact
Sales Pipeline Impact
Top of
Funnel
Middle of
Funnel
BOFU

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Q2 2014 Curata Blog
Engagement
Marketing
Pipeline Impact
• To what extent is our content impacting sales’ pipeline?
• Content impact by stages within the pipeline?
• Which writers are performing the best?. . . And Why?
Sales Pipeline
Impact
Content Campaign
Reuse
Index
Social
Shares
Page
Views
Leads
Touched
Leads
Generated
Pipeline
Influenced
Revenue
Influenced
Content Marketing Tactics 90% 3,542 15,535 987 76 $463,000 $98,000
2014 Blogging Study 45% 2,435 6,387 767 89 $123,000 $13,000
Scaling Content Operations 15% 1,232 1,321 328 24 $95,000 $28,000

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Continuous Improvement:
Tactics Campaign Best Performers
Shares: 1,353
Writer: Michael Gerard
Earned: SF.com Blog
Leads: 22 generated, 632 touched
Editor: Alex Barca
Writer: Susan (Freelancer)
Owned: Curata Blog
Pipeline Influenced: $232,000
Writer: Pawan Deshpande
Owned: Curata Blog

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Wait, We’re Not Done Yet . . .

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The Content Marketing Quota
Alexandra Barca
Content Marketing Specialist
Total Bonus Compensation
25% Company Financial
Performance
25% Marketing
Overall Performance
50% Alex’s
Content Marketing
Performance

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The Content Marketing Quota
Alexandra Barca
Content Marketing Specialist
Alex’s
Content Marketing
Performance
25% Earned
Media
75% Owned Media

68. 25% Marketing
Impact
#CMWorld
The Content Marketing Quota
Alexandra Barca
Content Marketing Specialist
Alex’s
Content Marketing
Performance
25% Earned
Media
50% Engagement 25% Sales Impact
25% Marketing Impact
75% Owned Media

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The Content Marketing Quota
Leads to:
• Better topic selection
• Better call to actions
• Closer collaboration with sales
• Closer collaboration with social media &
demand generation
• Personal empowerment & gratification

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Scaling Content Operations
☑ Content Marketing Today
☑ Scaling Content Operations
☑ People & Organization
☑ Process: Building a Supply Chain
☐ Technology
☐ Takeaways

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Case Study: IT’s Increasing Role in
Marketing Technology
• ~$13B revenue, 4,000 properties
• Objectives:
• Partner with the digital organization to build a modern, digital
marketing platform
• Eliminate duplication of efforts and drive consistency
• “Content reusability is critical to our success”
• Key success factors
• CMO considers content to be a strategic asset
• IT reports into Marketing, striving to be experts on content modeling,
management and strategy
• Recently hired a VP of Content Marketing
• “Our team is in the enablement business”
Technology
Meghan Walsh
Senior Director of
Digital Data Strategy & Distribution, IT

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Scaling Content Operations
☑ Content Marketing Today
☑ Scaling Content Operations
☑ People & Organization
☑ Process: Building a Supply Chain
☑ Technology
☐ Takeaways

75. #CMWorld
4 Steps to Scale Content Operations
1. Build Support for Content Marketing within
your Own Organization.
2. Establish a content marketing lead and
center of excellence team. [People]
3. Build a content marketing supply chain
including analytics. [Process]
4. Consolidate and integrate your content
marketing applications. [Technology]

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Contact Information
Email: pawan@curata.com
Twitter: @TweetsFromPawan
Web: curata.com

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Comprehensive Guide to
Content Marketing Analytics
A comprehensive guide to the metrics that will
help ensure your content marketing initiatives
are effective and driving key business
outcomes.
Download here
http://bit.ly/cmw14metrics
With advice from over 20 of today’s top marketing
experts on what they believe to be the most
important content marketing metric.