• Content operations is an essential role within B2B marketing organizations of all sizes
  • There are four essential jobs that don’t get done in organizations lacking a content operations function
  • These four jobs are the librarian, air traffic controller, inventory specialist and analyst

Content operations is an essential role within B2B marketing organizations of any size and scope. Content marketing, inbound marketing, digital marketing, social media marketing, cloud file storage and other evolutions over the last five to 10 years have resulted in a content explosion. This leaves the majority of sellers and marketers drowning in a sea of content – thousands of assets cluttering their view of the one asset they need at a particular point in time.

content operationsThat is, of course, unless the organization has a content operations function. Among many strategic responsibilities and deliverables, there are four essential jobs that don’t get done in organizations lacking this function:

  1. Librarian. A B2B organization without a content operations function is like a library without a librarian. Imagine if authors just came by the library and put their books wherever they felt was best. That findability nightmare is manifested in organizations lacking a content operations leader to develop and implement a user-centric universal taxonomy and a consistent approach to metadata across content repositories.

  2. Air traffic controller. A B2B organization without a content operations function is like an airport without an air traffic controller (and perhaps missing a control tower altogether). Campaign managers, product marketers, program managers and all other “pilots” in the organization are trying to land their planes on the same audience runway, so crashes abound. In these organizations, a single audience is subjected to an onslaught of colliding tactics and messages, often doing more harm than good. With a content operations leader in the control tower, a content blueprint (master editorial calendar) provides visibility and transparency across execution areas that target a mutual audience. This protects that audience from an irrational and unpleasant experience.

  3. Inventory specialist. A B2B organization without a content operations function is like a warehouse without an inventory specialist. Content is marketing’s product, representing a large percentage of marketing program and personnel investment…but many organizations have zero handle on the state of their inventory. A content operations function leads the charge on the enterprise-wide content audit, with the objective of eliminating obsolete inventory and ensuring that existing inventory is catalogued, organized and packaged for optimal activation.

  4. Analyst. A B2B organization without a content operations function is like a research firm with no analysts. Our value as analysts is not our individual wisdom, but rather our vantage point and ability to capture and share the wisdom of the crowd. In most organizations today, best practices and common pitfalls are floating around, but no one is responsible for observing, analyzing and sharing them with upstream and downstream content stakeholders. Organizations with a content operations function have content analysts who are able to gather and socialize best practices to be repeated and pitfalls to be avoided for upstream content creators and downstream content users.

Let us know what you think. Leave a comment below.

Be sure to register for our upcoming webcast titled Operationalizing the SiriusDecisions Content Model.