New Research: The Importance of Integrated Content Management
A new report from Digital Doughnut sister company London Research explores what companies could be doing to make their content management more efficient in an omnichannel world. The State of Universal Content Management 2020 report, produced by London Research in partnership with censhare, is based on a global survey of more than 700 brand marketers and agencies carried out in February and early March this year. Here is a summary of some of the major research findings.
Marketers are fed up with wasting time on unnecessary content tasks.
Companies are under pressure to provide consistent experiences for customers and prospects across a growing range of channels and formats in both digital and offline contexts.
Marketing teams are very much at the coal face when it comes to producing and adapting content, but business systems and processes do not always make life easy.
According to the research, three-quarters (74%) of those surveyed believe they could add ‘significantly more value’ to their businesses if the amount of regular content-related admin work they carry out was reduced.
Nearly three in five (59%) claim their businesses waste ‘a considerable amount of time and money’ on content-related tasks, while trying to find content assets which ‘may or may not already exist’ is a source of frustration for over half (53%) of respondents.
On average, more than half of all time spent on content is on ancillary tasks many of which could be automated (52%), and less than half on planning and production (48%).
Integrated and centralised hubs hold the key to content management success.
The report categorises content management ‘leaders’ as those organisations that have an integrated and centralised content management hub, with a focus on the competitive advantages this approach confers on these companies.
The research from censhare finds that leaders are three-and-a-half times more likely than mainstream companies to strongly agree that they are ‘consistently meeting or exceeding their communication goals’ (28% vs. 8%).
Furthermore, leaders are two-and-a-half-times more likely to ‘integrate print and digital workflows for the best possible customer experience’, and three times more likely to say that ‘users can quickly find the digital assets they need and work with them efficiently’.
Disconnected technology platforms will ultimately stand in the way of the ‘single source of truth’ which is necessary for a streamlined approach to content management.
According to censhare’s Head of Marketing, Mathias Wurth: “After the pandemic many brands and agencies will be struggling to recover from its economic impact, looking for ways to become more efficient in their customer engagement while maintaining or even improving its quality. The ability to deliver consistent, accurate, personalised communications has never been more important.”
Content management leaders empower a wider range of business functions.
An array of business functions within the organisation have responsibility for content production, including marketing, digital, content/editorial and product. Technology is crucial for supporting these teams to improve content workflows, processes and ultimately business outcomes.
The research finds that leaders give responsibility for content to a wider range of business functions than is the case for mainstream companies where content ownership is much more likely to reside solely with marketing and editorial.
Large businesses are significantly more likely to have already implemented digital asset management (50% vs. 23% of small organisations) and product information management (43% vs. 16%) solutions.
The report also explores how international brands are set up for content governance, content production and content management, and the extent to which they have a framework in place to manage their content-related activities globally.
Download The State of Universal Content Management 2020 report to learn more.