Why it’s best to plan your 2025 content material technique earlier than buying new expertise
Like most people, I hate spending money on some things but love spending on others.
For example, I have been known to overpay for hotels, restaurants, good wine, and good food because I enjoy them. But I’m a Scrooge when it comes to things like cars or DIY tools (screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, etc.).
In marketing, I find most organizations are the same way. They will happily and eagerly buy certain things (and even pay above-market prices). But they will tell everyone to buy other things at the lowest possible cost.
Technology is one of the things that businesses want to buy at a lower cost.
Technology as a guardian
Technology investment is one of the biggest barriers to innovative marketing changes. Inevitably, when teams are excited to try a new approach to their marketing strategy, everyone is excited until it dawns on them: they’ll need to invest in new tools to carry it out successfully. the project.
This is when analysis paralysis sets in. Teams often feel like they can’t move forward with the new approach until they decide to purchase the technology. But they can’t decide on the specific technology until they design the new approach.
“Technology will help enforce standards and the way we work,” they believe. “But don’t we have to create new ways of working before we can create standards? »
It can be complicated.
Now that we’re in the fourth trimester (for many), planning is underway. Budgets are due. New strategies are being developed for 2025. The remaining money must be spent before the end of the year.
Naturally, thoughts turn to technological needs. You may be thinking about questions like:
What technology should we budget for (and why is it AI)? What new tools will help us achieve our plan (and why isn’t it AI)? What cool new capability could we buy with this leftover money (is it AI)?
This year’s technology issues seem particularly complex.
I hear many marketers wonder if a customer data platform will become the next big thing. Others don’t even know what a customer data platform is.
Some are talking about finally moving to a digital asset management (DAM) system. Others wonder if the four DAMs their company already has are enough to achieve the new thing they want.
How about a new analytics solution? Some people I hate Google Analytics 4. But what’s better?
Then there is AI. Is it time to finally invest in an enterprise AI solution? Or should you stick to the ones built into your productivity suites?
And didn’t Product X receive four new updates last week? Wait. Did we forget about intent data? Add this to our tech dream board too!
Before you buy any or all of this, pause. Breathe deeply. Be aware that all of these dreams could quickly become nightmare scenarios if they require skill levels that your business can’t accommodate.
This is one reason why marketing technology decisions can be incredibly frustrating. Everyone wants technology to be simple.
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Warning: think before you buy
Have you heard this aphorism? “A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money.”
This means that when you decide to invest in a boat, you are not only purchasing the boat, you are also committing to everything that goes along with owning a boat. This includes renting a dock, acquiring a trailer, required extensive maintenance, and paying for fuel and other operating costs.
It’s not an exaggeration to adapt this saying to our industry: “Marketing technology is a hole in which the business invests time and money.” »
That’s not to say you shouldn’t invest in it (or buy that boat if you need it or like getting out on the water). Marketing technology can generate extraordinary value. But yeah, no one is excited about writing a check to pay.
The key is to be aware of what you are buying. Any marketing technology worth buying involves all of these elements:
Implementation Training User learning time Ongoing administration
I’ve seen real challenges on this front.
A B2B company I work with has been stuck in some form of software selection or technology implementation cycle since the beginning of the year. The number of creative campaigns he can create is limited, as he has been very busy finding the technology needed to create more creative campaigns.
Ironic.
But if tech purchases aren’t making your 2025 content dreams come true, what should you focus on to make your program successful?
I have some ideas.
Focus on change first, technology second
I have advised my clients and colleagues to worry less about what new technology will be essential for 2025. Instead, I recommend building the muscles needed to evolve content activities towards repeatable processes. Then you can apply technology to support or enforce these processes.
How do you do this?
I find it essential to have frequent discussions with stakeholders about the audience and the customer journey. It’s the only thing that is truly cross-functional, involving not only marketing but also sales, customer service, finance, product, brand and even management.
In other words, your team probably isn’t the only one creating bold new content plans for the year ahead.
Expect to sit in on a lot of meetings to understand what the sales team wants, what the brand team thinks, what the PR team has in mind, and what senior management thinks.
But success is not built on mutual understanding of distinct programs. Teams must come together to develop a collaborative content strategy for customer and public engagement.
To achieve this, focus on these three fundamentals:
1. Orchestrate connected experiences, not siled transfers
Think about planning for 2025 in a way that allows you to decouple customer and audience data management from the content experience. Learn how to create a unified view of your subscribers and customers so that things like “audience,” “lead,” “opportunity,” and “customer” are attributes in a single database rather than in siled compartments.
This likely means technology will eventually play a role. But first, raise awareness of what content is planned, by whom and where it will be distributed.
Almost all companies would benefit from communicating about the content portfolio that will be created rather than conferring on what has been created.
2. Shift to meaning-driven (not data-driven) content operations
What does the email address, first name, and last name of someone who signed up for a white paper mean? If it’s early in the customer journey, the chances are slim to none.
You may be able to draw conclusions about purchase intent based on the topic of the digital asset. But the intention with which this data was provided can completely circumvent this inference. (How much [email protected] or similar email addresses do you get?)
This type of marketing data has no intrinsic meaning. It is simply a collection of facts, figures and attributes. You need more interaction with this person to develop a relationship.
Focus on developing new strategies for finding the emotional value of information given rather than collected.
Think about an email address collected from a secure white paper against that given to subscribe to a weekly newsletter after reading this white paper. How much more valuable is the email address when you know it is given voluntarily, in trust and in the hope of receiving valuable communications from your brand?
3. Organize for agility, not speed
You’ve probably read many essays on how marketing teams need to operate with greater agility. Remember, agility is not about going faster. This involves focusing on high-value, high-priority activities.
The constant pressure for more and more content is born from the fear of moving too slowly. Replace that fear with joy by planning to spend more time developing powerful thought leadership stories and less time creating infinite assets.
Consider how to change your processes to spend more time on planning powerful, meaningful and differentiated content. Once you’ve created these stories, you can decide how to turn them into digital assets.
Can you separate the process of content creation and digital asset production and become more agile? I think you can.
The content marketing dream domain
An “if we buy it, they will come” approach to technology (to paraphrase a famous movie line) rarely leads to success.
However, it is one of the main determining factors in technological choices. Too many companies let their technology purchases determine their future marketing approach.
You can’t measure success by the amount of technology you deploy. It’s like thinking you can get to work faster by buying more cars. You’ll just accumulate more debt and spend too much time managing and maintaining those cars.
What does 2025 have in store for us? More AI? A collapse of social networks? Google search is crashing? Explosion of paid media? The growth of influencers? The return of the metaverse? NFTs? A B2B version of TikTok? We. Don’t do it. Know.
But when you look at your budget, plan, or end-of-year spending, take the time. Before you commit to purchasing a tool, consider what you hope you and your team will spend time and money on this time next year.
Write it down. What does your day look like?
This will help you dream about how to achieve it. You may still hate spending on technology, but the ability to apply it to a better purpose should soften the impact.
It’s your story. Say it well.
Robert Rose advises and leads workshops to help marketing teams align their marketing processes with all kinds of technologies, including generative AI. Contact him to learn more about these programs.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
