Building An Organization Fit For Omnichannel Content

Is your company ready for the omnichannel contact strategy it wants to develop? Morag Cuddeford Jones takes a look at the Forrester Research report, which says your company might not be there yet and shows how you can change that.

  1. chevron left iconBuilding An Organization Fit For Omnichannel Content
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Morag Cuddeford-JonesApril 23, 2019
  • Digital Asset Management
  • Product Information Management
  • Content Management

Speaking at WFA’s Global Marketing Week ‘19, marketing magnate, Sir Martin Sorrell, threw out a challenge to clients everywhere: “Clients have to change too. There is no point putting agencies under pressure to change our structures unless client structures change too.”

The fact is that disruption is far more than using a new channel or introducing a new piece of tech. Disruption is fundamental. It can shake the bones of a process from the ground up. Omnichannel marketing is an example of this sort of fundamental disruption. It demands that channels and platforms interact in entirely new ways. And so organizations have to construct themselves and behave in entirely new ways to meet that demand.

In an exclusive censhare download, Omnichannel Strategies Demand A New Content Approach, analysts at Forrester explore the principles companies need to adopt to meet the demands of omnichannel marketing, as well as the wider benefits derived from taking this approach.

Restructure for agility

In the Forrester paper, a survey of 4,299 global business and technology leaders stated that 36% were planning to improve digital sites to increase their influence and brand reach in the market. But, close behind in second place were 33% who stated their plan was to change and/or improve their creative strategy. In fifth place but with only marginally fewer respondents at 30% was the need to develop a stronger integrated plan across channels.

Why the need for restructuring? Because most companies still think of content in terms of its tactical, rather than strategic, application. Which leads them to silo behaviour and data, creating repetitive processes and wasted effort. On the other hand, this behaviour creates a demand for wasteful behaviour – as content is prepared with thought only for its immediate use in a single channel, it’s not fit for purpose anywhere else. To be reused it must be restructured, repurposed and often, recreated again from scratch.

What agility looks like

Truly omnichannel content is structured, from its inception, in a very different way to channel-specific content. Its storage is centralized and it is created, from the ground up, with a view to fitting into several different scenarios. Those variations aren’t ‘baked in’ to the core of the content itself, but modular - to be attached and discarded according to need.

Omnichannel content is also organized according to a set of rules, or an architecture. This is made up of chunks, labels for the chunks and a description for how each chunk relates to another. These three bits of information can then be used in context to adapt content to a range of needs. By introducing a delivery system to the repositories, such as digital asset management (DAM)or product information management (PIM) systems, content can then be moved around on demand.

Understanding the most common uses for content and preparing for them doesn’t remove an element of agility or responsiveness to new, unique scenarios. It’s not baking that intransigence back in. Some content uses will be constant, or at least evolve along recognisable lines – for example, translation. This makes these processes ripe for automation, saving time and effort and allowing resources to be focused more on ‘bespoke’ content applications.

Real world benefits

Reducing wastage puts companies on a clear path to cost savings. Censhare user, Swiss supermarket chain, Migros centralized its product information and used the technology to improve ad distribution and speed up the ad creation workflow. Originally, the creative process was labor intensive with high levels of manual input, making it both expensive and error-prone.

By using an automated system, assets could be communicated to different departments and agencies and the ad output would be uniform. Product information came under tighter control with the centralization of 600,000 pieces of data that could then be shared with agencies and their studios. It drove marketing-related IT costs down by 70% and ad agency costs by 15%.

But it’s not just about driving down costs. Operational efficiencies gained by restructuring to manage omnichannel content more effectively range from improved brand relevance to increased sales. Online shopping channel, QVC aligned its processes and became a customer experience leader while Sephora assembles the most relevant content for customers visiting its site, based on key decision criteria. This highly relevant, real time personalisation has the potential to drive up engagement and ultimately, increase sales.

*Cited inOmnichannel Strategies Demand A New Content Approach

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Morag Cuddeford-Jones
Morag Cuddeford-Jones is a writer, editor and broadcaster. She has been working in marketing, business, and the SaaS space for more than 20 years. With experience interviewing C-Suite executives and working in tech, Morag has gained a unique insight into both the evolving martech landscape and the impact digital transformation has on consumer and B2B brands.

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