WORKWEEK

At the large tech companies I’ve worked at, my content marketing remit has been the same: drive traffic and drive pipeline. 

Now, to accomplish that, I need my content to be distributed far and wide across all of our channels. 

That brings me here: content marketing should sit at the center of most marketing organizations. Content should support the goals of all the marketing teams, serve as an aligning function, and help bring a consolidated and powerful voice to market––all while driving traffic and driving pipeline, both in the long and short-term. 

I was about to write, “that’s easier said than done,” but it actually took me quite a few words to write it out. So, it’s just as complicated as it sounds. 

And you cannot do it alone. 

The more successful my content teams have been has always been correlated with how well integrated we are into larger strategic conversations, and how trusted we are as partners and experts. 

This is to say: just because content should sit at the center of an organization, doesn’t mean content folks get to sit in that center and dictate what they think content “should” be. 

No, content needs to work for the employees of the company, helping them to hit their goals, while simultaneously hitting its own goals (again, traffic and pipeline). 

So, if you are struggling to get help distributing your content, lean in. Figure out what those folks are really asking for. What goals are they really trying to hit? 

• More brand awareness?
• More traffic? 
• More leads?
• More opportunities?
• More revenue?
• All of the above? 

Get really, really clear on what they are asking for, and then propose content programs that deliver. 

Your content program should always include top, middle and bottom of funnel content––which will hit most of those goals. 

Here are a couple of suggestions depending on your company’s stage of growth:

Most content teams will be asked to drive both traffic and pipeline––and because not all content does both (rarely does any content do both), you need a full funnel strategy to accomplish the task at hand. But how you distribute your resources across the funnel will depend on your company’s stage of growth and its most pressing priorities. This is how you begin to move the content team to the center of the organization and make it a strategic go-to-market arm.