Brand Publishing – defined as the production, management, distribution, and optimization of marketing and sales content at scale – has become essential to the future growth of every business and critical to the success of every Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
The Brand Publishing Institute surveyed hundreds of global marketing executives and subject matter experts to identify the ten things a CMO needs to do well to transform their marketing operations to a publishing model. To develop a complete picture of the most recent Brand Publishing trends, performance levels, and management practices, and technology solutions – The Brand Publishing Institute undertook four parallel sets of original primary research in the third quarter of 2015. These included:
- A Forbes Insights survey of 368 senior level marketing executives who have responsibility for content operations to identify trends, benchmarks and best practices for publishing, managing, and distributing content at scale.
- Qualitative interviews with 25 marketing executives from leading global corporations identify trends, benchmarks and best practices for publishing, managing, and distributing content at scale in corporate marketing.
- Interviews with over 50 subject matter experts on Brand Publishing, content strategy, and to identify the ten core competencies necessary to execute a publishing model in a corporate marketing environment.
- An analysis of over 1,000 marketing technology solutions to identify the top 100 Best of Breed Brand Publishing solutions and the handful of technology partners with the breadth of solutions, experience, and execution capabilities to help the CMO define a roadmap for enabling Brand Publishing with technology.
- Extensive secondary research to validate the marketing best practices including, success stories, benchmarks, and documented business impact results.
96% of marketing executives surveyed agree that the quality and structure of their marketing content is essential to achieving their growth goals and increasingly defines the job of the CMO. “The quality and organization of marketing content is critical to achieving our goals – including branding, demand generation, sales and employee engagement,” according to John Costello, the President of Global Marketing and Innovation at Dunkin Brands. For example, over 70% of the marketing executives surveyed believe 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.
Our research found that managing the growing cost and complexity of content operations has emerged as a major problem for marketing executives. Many of those surveyed reported it is a huge challenge to manage the complexity, inefficiency and ineffectiveness of their content operations, despite its growing importance in the eyes of marketing leadership. According to David Master, the CMO of the Janus Funds, “Managing content effectively is the single greatest challenge to our marketing organization.”
To successfully produce, manage, and distribute marketing content at a significant level of scale, marketers will need to rethink their content operations in order to fundamentally shift the content cost and performance curve. “The pressure to differentiate the brand, use more channels, and manage complexity is growing fast – to the point that doing business the same way will not work. Current processes will not scale. You need to adapt and reengineer your processes,” according to Connie Weaver, the CMO of TIAA-CREF
BPI created a white paper that summarizes the ten brand publishing core competencies and the practical steps marketers are taking to better manage their content operations at scale. The full detailed 140 page analysis – which includes 50 best practices for executing Brand Publishing – is available in research reports, executive workshops and online certification programs offered by the Brand Publishing Institute.
About The Brand Publishing Institute
With competencies in publishing and media, digital transformation, modern sales, and marketing and communications best practices, the Brand Publishing Institute is uniquely qualified to help marketing executives lead the transformation of their organizations from an advertising to a Brand Publishing model. Our team includes leaders from the institutions at the forefront of defining and enabling the emerging discipline of Brand Publishing. Our education programs, advisory services, best practices events, and solutions are grounded in the time-tested success and insights from years of publishing, digital marketing, go-to-market innovation, digital transformation and change management experience. The Brand Publishing Institute offers proprietary methodologies and a strategic roadmap for enabling your organization with the skills, processes and systems to generate highly effective marketing content at scale and better support modern marketing. www.brandpublishinginstitute.com
Kathy Baughman, president and founder of ComBlu, is one of the authors of the Brand Publishing research report and a member of the Brand Publishing Institute.
Principal
Engaging your customers is at the heart of successful marketing programs. For more than 20 years, Cheryl has been building and executing content and thought leadership strategies designed to do just that. She is excited to be applying that well-honed skill to a help companies like Microsoft, Cisco, 3M, Intel, Capital One and Barclaycard tap into their stakeholder communities and build sophisticated content strategies.
Her experience base spans a range of industries – from technology and financial services to retail, travel, consumer products and healthcare. Cheryl has served as an integral member of her clients’ marketing teams, providing counsel on marketing and brand strategy, thought leadership, media relations, product introductions, and event management.
Prior to joining ComBlu, Cheryl spent 10 years leading corporate marketing for large, complex organizations.