Publish or Perish! How Content Will Impact Your Bottom Line

One of the fundamental takeaways from Forbes’s recent report is that publishing is essential for business growth. We couldn’t agree more. As it turns out, neither could many of the more than 360 marketing executives Forbes surveyed as part of its research.

In fact, 96 percent of them agreed that “the quality and structure of their marketing content is essential to achieving their growth goals and increasingly defines the job of the CMO.” Not only that, more than 70 percent also noted that the “effectiveness of their marketing content directly impacts their ability to drive top-line growth with digital, social and mobile technologies and supports core branding, demand generation and value-selling programs.”

That’s a lot to take in, but what it all boils down to is this: CMOs need to become publishers if they want to succeed. According to the report, that’s because publishing:

• Accelerates growth by fueling modern sales and marketing programs along with sales, marketing, and media campaigns.
• Increases speed and agility by streamlining the process for creating and delivering insights and offerings to customers.
• Increases ROI on marketing technology; sales enablement; and earned, owned, and paid media investments.
• Reduces the time, hassle, and complexity of managing content operations at scale.
• Delivers personalized customer experiences, valuable conversations, and engaging entertainment through high-quality, well-organized content.

Here at Acrolinx, we’d expand on that last point to talk about the critical role that content has to play in building relationships with your customers. As your main touchpoint with them, it’s what personifies your brand and allows you to not only stand out from your competitors but also build a connection to your customers. That alone makes publishing essential.

How Marketing Content Impacts Growth

A major theme that the Forbes report covers is that marketing content can positively impact a company’s growth. In fact, when marketing executives were asked how it achieves this, they cited a number of critical functions that it plays as illustrated below.

From brand enhancement and greater sales effectiveness to communicating value and reducing costs, marketing content is the raw material needed to fuel a variety of strategies, tactics, and approaches. We absolutely agree, though we respectfully point out that there’s a broader view to be taken here.

Beyond Marketing Content

While the Forbes report is focused exclusively on marketing content, the reality is that all of the customer-facing content that a company produces has a role to play in driving growth. That includes content from other teams such as techdocs, product, customer service, and sales. That’s because all of this content lives online and is therefore only a few clicks away from prospects and customers.

For CMOs, this is both good and bad news. On the positive side, it means that they have access to a much greater supply of content to help them grow the business. The challenge, however, is aligning all of those efforts across multiple departments, while also ensuring the quality and consistency of the content. Yet, it’s the CMOs who pull it off by creating company-wide publishing operations, rather than simply marketing-focused ones, who stand to reap the greatest benefits by creating holistic, unified experiences for everyone who engages with their brand.

So CMOs, take note! Publishing is essential. We’ve long been talking about it and are delighted to have the support of Forbes’s latest research to help us make that point.