In an ideal world, the biggest challenge that content teams need to overcome today is nailing the story—getting the messaging exactly right to showcase their brand’s value and delivering it at the right time to the right audience.
Unfortunately, the issues impacting content teams usually have nothing to do with the story itself. They’re often slowed down by siloed business units. They’re usually frustrated by time and resource constraints and are likely grappling with outdated technology… all of which impacts the final deliverable: your story.
Fortunately, these problems have solutions, and when content teams are empowered to take the right steps to refine their ways of working, the outcomes speak for themselves.
What are biggest content challenges facing digital publishers?
Content challenges today aren’t surface level—they run deep, with each issue trickling down into another one.
Here’s what that looks like and how it impacts the way content teams operate:
Challenge #1: Siloed business units
Departmental barriers within an organization are incredibly difficult for content experts to navigate, often resulting in limited or delayed communication between teams, fragmented knowledge across the organization and misaligned priorities between key stakeholders.
If each department operates semi-independently, for example, it becomes difficult for content teams to speak everyone’s language and understand each group’s goals and objectives related to the organization’s overarching content strategy. Yet these teams rely on insights from all departments to create compelling, accurate content and, as a result, have to spend their time pulling bits and pieces of knowledge from different experts to create a comprehensive story. Their days become all about bridging gaps and juggling conflicting demands, taking away focus from effectively executing the strategy.
Challenge #2: Time and resource constraints
Many organizations today are grappling with shrinking teams and overwhelming workloads, but time and resource constraints impact content teams differently than other business units.
Communications and marketing teams are deadline-driven functions that need to prioritize speed and pay meticulous attention to detail. They’re expected to never compromise quality, yet they need to turn around content with the flip of a switch when needed. Getting approvals from all necessary stakeholders can take ages as well, with everyone having differing opinions on the final piece—and then they still need to ensure distribution is done quickly and accurately across various channels. It’s like running the 400-meter hurdles all day, every day.
Challenge #2: Outdated technology
Perhaps the most frustrating challenge, given it’s the most fixable, is when content teams are left to rely on outdated technology to execute their work. While they usually leverage several systems to create, deliver and measure content, the content management system (CMS) is the center of it all.
Unfortunately, many CMSes today don’t offer the necessary features, integrations and automation capabilities that content teams need to effectively and efficiently collaborate. Rather than creating engaging, dynamic content, they’re constantly coordinating with IT to fix bugs and improve workflows. This can impact the team’s morale, cause tension across the business and, ultimately, impact the brand’s perception if the right content isn’t delivered at the right time and place.
How to fix the problem and improve team collaboration
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: most challenges impacting content teams can be solved with the right people, processes and technology in place.
While ensuring your team has the right talent is a tall order (one not necessarily up to the content team itself), the good news is that efficient, effective workflows tend to fall in place when a modern technology platform is adopted. Importantly, the platform needs to be fast, flexible and fully customizable to accommodate the evolving content landscape and your evolving organization. It also needs to integrate with other valuable tools so that content teams always have the insights needed to execute and innovate.
Brightspot does exactly that. It’s a solution that prioritizes speed, collaboration and innovation. It works with and for you, and it helps you sidestep roadblocks, giving you time back to focus on your craft and your brand’s story. With a platform like Brightspot, the everyday challenges content teams face start to ease up, and how they operate becomes easier, smoother, faster and more rewarding.
Here's just a sampling of what you gain:
Solution #1: Streamlined workflows
A modern CMS allows teams to adjust workflows as needed to ensure everyone has adequate access and visibility into the end-to-end content process. Content teams can track and manage versions and revisions within the CMS, for example, to reduce confusion, ensure consistency and enable more effective collaboration so content can be approved and delivered at the right time.
Solution #2: Cross-departmental collaboration
A flexible solution helps enable collaboration in more efficient, concise ways. While content teams may still own the workflow, they can give access and permissions to other stakeholders within the process so they’re notified when they’re next to review something. This helps create greater transparency across the business and ensures everyone is aware of the workflow’s various steps and their role, leading to smoother coordination, reduced delays and happier teams.
Solution #3: Innovative thinking
Content channels and tactics are constantly evolving, and keeping up with the “next big thing” can be difficult when your time is spent army crawling through each day. When content teams are backed by a solution that removes roadblocks and smooths out content creation and delivery processes, however, they have more time to think and plan ahead. They can test and implement new channels, spend more time researching their buyers’ personas and analyze what is and isn’t working for their competitors. Less time ironing out the kinks means more time innovating for your team and your business.
We're here to help guide you toward better solutions with your content programs
When you’re ready to overcome everyday challenges and revamp and refine how your team operates so you can keep focus on telling your brand’s story, let’s chat. Learn more about what a modern, flexible solution like Brightspot can do for you—contact us for a live demo to learn more.
