The Case for a Marketing Content Hub

Fixing these issues in-flight can often be complicated and costly. I

n the end, companies are often left with a compromised project that fails to adequately address the business problem. N

ot only that, time, money, and momentum have all been lost.To educate future clients and prospects’”and to anticipate and avoid the pitfalls described above’”this guide describes the business case for a content hub and compares it with both the traditional DAM business case and the situations we most often encounter when we enter through the DAM door.

From a strategic angle, most companies are now focused on content marketing and omnichannel reach. C

ontent marketing implies that the marketing message is built around fact rather than fiction. O

mnichannel means that a company wants to ensure their message is consistent across every customer touchpoint, and that the full potential of every channel is leveraged using the richest media and content possible.This is where the CMO can be found these days.

Enter the content hub. B

ut let’s size up the challenge first.Marketing content is all over the place. L

iterally. I

t can sit on hard drives. I

n Excel files. W

e have even helped clients who were not certain about the physical whereabouts of the server. B

ut mostly, bits and pieces of marketing content can be found in platforms that are, or are not, owned by the marketing organization.

What’s important here is that we skip domain models that are imposed by technology. W

e are designing the way we want information to be structured, searchable and linked based on the way you do business’”not the way the vendor database was designed.Also, we’re superposing, mixing and matching domain models that traditionally belong in segregated silos and industry categories. C

ontent managed by DAM and PIM and MRM and ERP is all related ’” so it doesn’t make much sense to keep it separated.

Aggregate:Content from the different platforms is aggregated in the content hub. M

aster data ownership for aggregated entities typically stays with dedicated platforms. T

hese entities are aggregated as proxies’”a live-linked instance, so to speak.

Enrich existing entities:Entities that are proxies can be enriched with additional data or metadata. O

ftentimes, an entity is owned by another platform, and it is perfectly logical to keep master data ownership with that platform. H

owever, from a marketing point of view, additional content on that entity may be required. C

onsider, for example, translated benefits for a product. T

his is a typical case where the content cub will enrich an existing proxy entity with additional data.

Add new entities:Entities can be aggregated and enriched based on proxies. I

f new entities are defined, the master data ownership can be assigned to the marketing content hub. T

his is a flexible scheme that allows for an unobtrusive architecture while at the same time permitting the planning of changes without risk, such as the introduction of new platforms and the phasing out of others.

Document relationships:Once we have aggregated, enriched and defined new entities we can also document and articulate relationships between these entities’”relationships that were not available or visible before. T

his is one of the strongest features of establishing a central content hub as it not only brings content together, it also allows you to see and explore the relationships of that content.

Project Management ToolsTools for the project manager should focus on the ability to add structure and to gain insight. A template approach can reflect the best practices provided by the organization and can be complemented by the ability for the project manager to tweak the course of events when defining the project, or even on-the-fly. H

igh-level milestones can be included to enable insight into progress.

Collaboration ToolsMarketing users and their external suppliers who participate in marketing content creation can be supported with productivity tools focused on collaboration. T

his includes the ability to upload, preview, comment on, rate and annotate files; ask questions; and manage task lists.

Editorial Content and ContextThe marketing portal serves two main purposes. W

here the marketing content repository deals primarily with structured data, the marketing portal allows you to add other types of data. I

t adds editorial content and context. A good example of context for structured data is a conventional brand or corporate identity guide. I

nstead of just providing company and brand logos, visuals and graphical devices, they are introduced through their conceptual background and accompanied by instructions on how to properly use them. E

ditorial content is the content that fits the form of text and web pages rather than data or files in a metadata structure. G

ood examples are news items, blog posts or even microsites describing upcoming campaign concepts.

Set up a DialogThe second purpose is to set up a dialog with your marketing community. N

ow that you have a channel where marketing people gather, you should use it. T

he dialog can be a very practical one, but we prefer to focus on the more inspiring part’”remember the mood board we discussed earlier. T

his is the place where we can challenge and inspire marketers and agencies that operate far from the central marketing organization or the cradle of marketing strategies to benchmark their work and learn from peers.

Channel ManagementWhen publishing to downstream systems, the first part of the puzzle to solve is what set of content needs to go where, and in which formats. T

ypical downstream systems can include ecommerce, websites, CRM and apps, as well as external sites or processes. T

his is handled through channel management. E

very subscribing downstream platform is registered in the content hub. A filter is created that covers the slice of content that will be available to this platform. T

his functionality can easily be compared to what would be a functional security configuration for users. A second piece of the filter is to decide on the practicalities on how content’”both files and data’”is delivered. T

his is pretty close to the order processing options on the basket in the human user use case.

Connectors and APIsKey to the ontent Hub concept is that it should have a can-do attitude when it comes to connecting. T

he primary feature for connecting other platforms is an application programming interface (API). W

e have set the standard at a full CRUD, Hypermedia, Richardson level III API. L

et’s elaborate on that.CRUD (Create-Read-Update-Delete) - means that the API supports both reading and writing entities or data to the repository.Hypermedia ’”or RESTful’” APIs use URLs to connect other platforms, much like one would navigate a browser to a webpage. T

he Hypermedia API is to enterprise software platforms what USB is to electronic devices. Y

ou can reasonably expect other platforms to be able to connect to it.The Richardson maturity level III means that the data in the repository is fully discoverable through the API. T

his has the important quality that third parties working on integration points need little or no introduction to the capabilities of the API because they can simply see what is available.

QualityAlthough quality seems like a parameter that’s harder to quantify, let’s just look at some examples. B

etter briefings, more efficient review and validation rounds are easy paths toward better quality and higher effectiveness in marketing deliverables. O

n another level, more accessible brand guidelines and assets, well-defined localization processes and access to validated marketing content and source files prevents improvisation and leads to a more consistent end result.

SpeedTime-to-market is the operational parameter that reflects the agility of your marketing organization and the ability to turn innovation or market insight into revenue. T

he content hub supports, streamlines and structures the entire marketing creation process with tools that organize your strategic marketing efforts, production and publication.

CostCost is the most direct and visible parameter when ROI comes to mind. W

ith tools to take the friction and inefficiencies out of your marketing processes, both internal and external costs are immediately reduced. A

fter the initial production, costs are again reduced by providing a place to efficiently store, find, distribute and reuse valuable marketing assets.

Operational Excellence and ValueThe key approach to ROI provided by the content hub is balancing and optimizing the triangle of quality, cost and speed through optimizing marketing operation. W

e call it “operational excellence’ in marketing operations. W

ith operational excellence in sight, your marketing organization is ready to contribute value to the company. S

hareholder value directly related to the marketing domain includes brand value, corporate image, support for revenue growth, as well as contributions to corporate governance aspects in the marketing domain.

Strategic ValueGains through a better ROI are great. A

dding value to the company is even better. B

ut operational excellence can also allow you to succeed in strategic goals that transcend both. K

nowing your speed to market with a controlled cost and quality level can allow leadership to make informed decisions to undertake certain initiatives or strategies. B

alancing cost and quality means that scaling out marketing operations becomes predictable. T

his is where operational excellence becomes a tool in the decision making process in the boardroom.

From a functional point of view, a typical DAM project will cover a relatively manageable scope of use cases: upload, store and add metadata to files; review and validate; manage the lifecycle; search and preview; transform and distribute. T

hat’s it.When we look at the value it brings, there is certainly a clear and undeniable ROI in a DAM project. B

ut the scope is too narrow to catch all of the value. A

nd what’s worse, it misses most of the strategic value we discussed above.

What the DAM Business Case Is MissingLet’s summarize some of the elements we elaborated on earlier that touch on the additional aspirations or challenges we usually hear in the margin of typical DAM projects:There are three main categories of concern here: dealing with content marketing and omnichannel, making collaboration more efficient and creating and setting up a dialog with a marketing community.

Content Marketing and OmnichannelThe scope of content marketing obviously goes beyond media files. I

t is about all kinds of content, both file-based and non file-based. O

n top of that, primary marketing content is usually scattered throughout the organization, and marketing has a tough time finding a place to store new content.This is where the content hub’s capabilities kick in to aggregate content, enrich it, store new content in a client-driven domain model and document relationships between all of the entities. E

ntities themselves are channel agnostic, which helps to create cells of content that are well-structured and classified, but generic enough to be reusable.The channel management functionality then allows you to get that content out to downstream systems, complementing the UI driven search and download option, or the automated layout of documents.

CollaborationThere is still a lot of friction and excess in marketing creation and publication processes. T

raditional tools focus on work in progress, mostly with annotation tools for media files, or on rigid BPMS-driven workflows. I

n our opinion, marketing first requires project management tools that offer insight and overview to the marketing project manager, as well as productivity tools to empower the marketing team.

Dialog With the Marketing CommunityAn impressive community is out there, collaborating around your brand or marketing campaign. B

ringing them together and setting up a dialog is the foundation for launching conversations with both practical and strategic goals.