Everyone struggles with content management.
It might sound like hyperbole. It’s not.
It’s not creation that’s difficult (although it is challenging).
And it’s not distribution, either (but yes, that’s challenging, too).
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It’s managing content that’s the problem
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You create content, but it’s never used
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A marketing campaign goes live, but it uses an outdated image
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A customer webinar is held, but the sales deck uses the wrong template
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The common thread in all those scenarios?
Content mismanagement.
Do it once, and you can live with it.
But make these mistakes at scale, and you risk losing ad dollars, conversions and customers – to name a few.
All from managing content. (Or a lack thereof).
As research shows that the average worker spends one fifth of their day just looking for lost files, it’s time to take back control and manage your content better.
What is content management?
Content management (CM) is all about how we manage content.
(Said another way – how we organize content chaos).
Do you have a good process for creating, storing, managing and distributing your content?
When we speak of content management, we often think of a content management system (CMS). A content management system allows people to create, manage and modify content on their website and mobile app.
At its core, it helps you take a strategic approach to content management – something that 3 out of 4 marketers currently do (while 24% admit they don’t).
They say data never dies, and that we should view content as something that’s alive.
Content is data, constantly in a loop, constantly out there forever.
It’s something that has a lifecycle. That lifecycle should be managed to the best of our ability in order to be efficient.
And as we want ourselves to be working optimally, we should want the same for our content.
After all, we’re the ones who’ve produced it.
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Otherwise, our performance suffers in terms of how we:
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Reach customers
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Engage customers
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Manage campaigns
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Handle potential transactions
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And all these factors have a significant impact on your business.
In this article we’re looking at the 7 biggest content management challenges facing enterprise companies today. Hopefully by the end of it, you’ll have all the motivation to rethink how you can optimize your content management.
(Note: Digital Asset Management and CMS platforms have a lot in common when it comes to managing content. You can read how they compare (and compliment each other) in our guide here).
How content management impacts enterprises
Content management impacts companies in different ways.
A 2-person start up will have different content challenges than an enterprise with half a million employees.
Does having the right technology help? Of course.
But 42% of businesses don’t have the right tools to manage their content in the first place.
(Only 16% say they do).
The problem only gets worse as you create more content
((Something that 79% of marketers are doing in 2022).
The main difference between smaller companies
and enterprise is scale:Budgets l People l External threats l Volume
Smaller businesses don’t have the luxury of big budgets, so they won’t spend anywhere near the same amount producing content as enterprise companies do. The demand just isn’t there.
But the demand is there for enterprise companies.
And the more content you produce, the more complex it becomes.
That’s why there’s a need to invest in technology that supports their content – and to help them optimize content in the most efficient way, without any redundancies.
Yes, there’s more assets to manage, but it’s also because there’s more people. When you’re dealing with thousands of employees, there’s a lot more things to keep track of.
Not only track – but give access to. People need access to the right assets.
And in real time!
Another key difference between the two – the need for better security regarding your content. Bigger companies are more visible; they’re more at risk.
And then there’s volume.
Smaller businesses don’t have the same time or capabilities to produce as much content as enterprises. Because of this, their content management is less chaotic.
Enterprises can publish a lot of great content – blog articles, white papers, webinars, use cases, social media posts and videos. But they still need to control it.
Experiencing content management challenges?
Let’s chat – we are here to help and inspire.
7 content management challenges enterprise businesses face today
Every business struggles with content operations.
Based on our experience, here’s seven of the most common content management challenges that enterprise companies face.
Inefficiencies and silos within your organization
One of the main challenge’s companies face when dealing with content is volume.
Assets such as images, videos, audio files and documents all play a role in the customer experience.
Yet, even with volume being a challenge, companies still need to produce more content.
This accelerates the tempo of content creation and the need to deliver them into the omnichannel.
You’d think this would lead to increased efficiency, but in most cases, it has the opposite effect. Content is spread all over the place. Leaving you to work in silos.
When different people have access to different things, it’s easy to lose track of content. Important documents are misplaced or put on different devices, shared drives or folders.
This is a common, but nonetheless, annoying issue that many companies face when dealing with content management.
It’s also the number one content challenge enterprise companies face.
The solution?
A single source of truth (SSOT).
When everyone has access to the same database, it’s much easier to maintain brand consistency. But it’s equally as important that everyone has access to the same processes of dealing with content. That way you can avoid mistakes of delivering outdated content that have already been through the loop.
A lack of consistency and process
Another challenge facing content management is how everyone is most likely following a completely different process, leading to high levels of miscommunication.
That’s a problem. Miscommunication in the workplace is a driving force for internal conflict.
And significantly, leads to less efficiency.
(Which inherently means your workflow could suffer.)
One way for you to tackle this challenge is by uniting your workforce. Make sure your team really is one team. Bridge the gaps between those on different teams, working remotely and in different departments.
How? By using cloud-based technology.
Using cloud-based software tools means everyone has equal access. The same access means the same guidelines are automatically served. No more “He said, she said”, and no more chaos.
Poor workflow management
Do you want to know something crazy?
70% of your content ends up untouched.
Pretty unfortunate, isn’t it?
You put all that hard work into creating content and yet most of it is never used or read.
The positive? It means that you have a lot of untapped potential.
Not making the most of what you have could be one of the biggest challenges when it comes to content management.
So, why does 70% of your content go untouched?
Easy. It’s because you have a poor content production workflow.
Nothing is streamlined as easily as it should. There’s zero control over what kind of content you actually have, and different people are sitting on different files.
That’s one of the paradoxes with content management:
You want everything to run simultaneously.
But more often than not there’s too much happening at once.
So, you’re left with files here and there, various image banks and folders that very few people, if any, have access to.
Here’s the crux on the issue when it comes to content workflows:
You either don’t see it, you don’t have access to it, or you don’t even know it exists.
So, it’s never used.
That’s a huge opportunity you’re missing out on.
Imagine all of the customer experiences you could be influencing with your unused content.
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A few best-practice guidelines to keep in mind when improving your workflows:
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Learn to push past your content disorganization.
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Bring all your data to the surface and adjust accordingly.
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Adopt processes that everyone is onboard with and simplify the workflows.
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Make sure you’re managing your content in a way that makes sense.
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Content management itself is never the problem, it’s the way in which we run it that is.
Lost data, documents and assets
Another common challenge facing content management today is losing key documents and files.
Data dispersion isn’t a far cry from employee dispersion. Research shows that 69% of businesses experience information loss after an employee leaves the company.
Why does this happen so often?
First of all, important documents could be “forgotten” and left behind by a prior employee’s company.
It goes to show that 49% don’t look into the data that prior employees had access to.
Here’s another scary thought:
47% don’t remove the data that’s used by this employee.
Once they leave or join another team you’re left not knowing where crucial documents are.
Whether the information is protected or not.
It’s clear there’s a lot of potential for better organization when it comes to enterprise content management. And with it, there needs to be a clear content management strategy in order to ensure that your content won’t disappear.
How do you handle this?
In most cases, it’s through access management and permissions.
You can control who has access, and if that person leaves or moves into a new role, you can quickly update their access levels.
High security risks and external threats
Uncle Ben once said:
“With great tech comes great responsibility.”
(OK, maybe we’ve paraphrased it slightly).
We know that in today’s day and age, businesses revolve around how secure your data is.
In 2022, information security should be at the top of every business’ prioritization list. Cyber security isn’t just a threat to your IT department. It’s a threat to your whole enterprise.
Making security adjustments to your content management strategy is difficult – as it means rebooting all your workflows, automations and processes. These things are inevitable if you only acknowledge security after your strategy is set into place.
That’s why it’s key to keep potential security risks at bay from the get-go.
That’s what businesses need to confront more often than not. How well they’re actually prepared for suspicious activity and potential malware.
In addition to extra security measures, enterprises should be looking to tools that can help them avoid false claims and off-label marketing – which is often the result of poor access permissions and internal infrastructure lacking proper rights management.
There’s no need to jeopardize quality control for better security. In fact, the two are often intertwined in digital content software today.
No clear distribution strategy
63% of marketers struggle with content strategy.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to have a successful marketing campaign without any content. Being able to reach your target customer with the right content is often the only way to influence their behavior.
But even if you have the right content, you might not necessarily have the right tools to deliver it. And if you can’t distribute it, then you’re unlikely to generate the results you deserve.
In other words – distribution is its own skillset.
How do you intend to distribute your content?
Again, technology can support you in this process.
Digital Asset Management platforms make it easier to distribute content to the right person, channel and device – externally, and internally. Be it customers, partners, teams, departments or individuals.
It’s one system, designed to manage the entire content lifecycle and helps you deliver consistent communication.
Increased content operations costs
Content is the second highest marketing expense.
The more content you produce, the more expensive it becomes.
And let’s be honest – we’re not going to start producing less, are we?
…Creating content is expensive.
…Managing content is expensive.
…And finding content is expensive.
A typical enterprise company investing in a content marketing strategy spends between $6,000 to $60,000 a month. Which is a lot.
On average, we spend 2.5 hours per day searching for the right content.
Just looking for that one image and document, in the right format.
Sounds expensive?
It is, especially for larger companies – costing more than $2.5 million annually.
Content management today should be all about efficiency. Finding what you need, quickly and increasing time to market.
Unfortunately, most of the work we do in managing content today is spent searching for content, as opposed to using content to positively impact the digital experience.
A big challenge is therefore overcoming this potential waste of time. Your time is invaluable, and should be treated as such.
The time you spend searching for your digital assets and branded content could be cut down immensely by using a DAM solution.
High-tech solutions are the only fix to high-tech distribution.
The role of DAM software in enterprise companies
Content management systems help you control digital content on your website.
Digital asset management systems take it one step further.
For example, a DAM platform controls all of your brand’s digital assets. Whether it be a video, an audio file, templates or logo.
Businesses looking to be seen in 2022 should be all about brand consistency. Powerful tools like a DAM help you to transform your brand assets into brand regularity.
Consistent control leads to a consistent brand experience.
Digital asset management tools cut down on chaos in all aspects of your content management by providing both better brand management and easier ways to organize your digital assets.
You can find files faster, there’s better storage and it’s easier to repurpose existing content across channels – which points directly to how much business value there is to implementing a DAM. There’s better security, too.
Conclusion
You’ve lost control.
The first step is admitting it, right?
Starting your journey to regain control is the best place to start as optimizing content management is at the core of what it takes to run a successful business in today’s digital world.
Content management challenges are expensive and time consuming.
Luckily, you’re not alone.
By implementing the right tool at the right time, not only are you in the forefront of a digital transformation, but you’re also improving company performance.
A DAM platform, like KeyShot, is one of the easiest ways in which you start ticking off the list of challenges you have when it comes to managing your content.
It’s fast, reliable and secure. And, it’s easy to integrate with other content management systems you are currently using – like Optimizely and Sitecore – and a whole host of other apps through our open API.
Enterprise companies like Dura-Line, Danish Crown Foods and Volvo Trucks North America have already begun their digital transformation with Digizuite. Want to learn more about how Digizuite can support your enterprise in content management?
Book a call with us today.
