{"id":3777,"date":"2020-07-15T20:27:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T18:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ambogdan.com\/?p=3777"},"modified":"2025-01-04T20:36:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T18:36:33","slug":"content-business-7-reasons-why-companies-fail-to-get-it-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ambogdan.com\/content-business-7-reasons-why-companies-fail-to-get-it-right\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Reasons Why Companies Are Failing to Get the Content Business Right"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Failing to understand content is one of the top challenges companies of all sizes face today. I have seen cases where managers referred to the “content fiasco” and the reasons behind this claim were many, spicy, funny and painful altogether. Personally, I do love everything that has to do with content. Spending many years as a digitalist on both on agency and client-side, gave me a lot of opportunities to dig deeper and deeper in this so-called “content fiasco”.\u00a0 I wrote it with an insider’s perspective.\u00a0<\/p>

Generally speaking, when a company is failing to understand content this happens for many reasons. Some are extremely personal\u2014lack of interest or no passion whatsoever for the job itself, other job priorities. Other reasons have to do with the company’s culture and the lack of digital knowledge within the organization.\u00a0<\/p>

What organizations may or not know is that great user experiences are created through branding, content, functionality and usability. They all go hand in hand. Achieving this can be quite a challenge for companies regardless of their size or industry.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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No.1 \u2014 The Unrecognized Truth: Content Is a Business Asset .\u200b<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In over 20 years of digital experience, I’ve come to realise that the number one reason why companies struggle to deal with content is that they don’t treat content as a business asset. Most leaders know well their numbers as it is a fundamental precept of business. Yet, when it comes to content, in most cases they lack numbers, therefore decisions get postponed.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Content\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Because there isn\u2019t a $1, $5, or $10 denomination stamped on the front of Web Content, it\u2019s often difficult to know exactly how valuable content is to your company.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Bryan Eisenberg<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Keynote speaker, Partner - Buyer Legends<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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I am the first to admit that building a business case for content for top management to approve it is no easy task, but it is not impossible either.\u00a0On the other hand, my first argument to them is simple: content brings your brand to life.<\/strong> This is one statement that can open the conversation about content. And why is that?! Because today’s leaders know better that 10-20 years ago.<\/p>

True and visionary leaders know that in a competitive marketplace, effective product differentiation starts with unmet customer needs. It continues with the goal of creating a product or service that people love. Of course, to get there, you have to get the right mix of technologies, features, functions, design and price right. And yet, in real life, many companies have learned the hard way that even if you get it all right, it is still not enough. This is where communication comes in. More specifically, where a strong brand can make all the difference to market success.<\/p>

Content has an essential role in creating and maintaining a powerful and relevant brand<\/strong>. By the way, that goes for both online and offline content. Not only content tells, your story, but it manages expectations. It answers questions of both your customers and employees ask. Good content inspires, entertains and drives decision-making. Of all these four major areas ensuring great user experiences, content is the one that gets ignored or undervalued most often.<\/p>

Bottom line, when stakeholders within companies do realize that content is actually a valuable business asset, they treat it and manage it accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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No.2 \u2014 The Painful Truth: Content Requires Building a Business Case<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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If there is one thing top management gets is figures! And let’s make one thing very clear! Content investment can be translated in figures<\/strong>\u00a0whether they talk about number of content pages\/ documents to be reviewed, video materials\/ product sheets\/ images etc; number of people required to (re)write the content;\u00a0 days you need to approve the final content with product managers, sales\/ marketing, legal or compliance; and, of course, most importantly, the overall cost of content production or how much you can such a content project can save in other parts of the business.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

As previously stated, building a business case for content<\/strong>\u00a0is not the easiest thing to do<\/strong>. Here are few things I have learned by selling content to top management. It is not a full list and I will also not tackle the details, but hopefully it will give you some useful ideas.<\/p>