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We all know that the era of the hard sell is behind us and it’s content marketing that now dominates. Nowadays, says Forbes, you have to demonstrate how your company, product or service improves customers’ lives.

How did we get here?

In the modern era, John Deere’s The Furrow magazine, providing helpful information to the agricultural giant’s farming-industry client base, was the outstanding early example of how content proved more powerful than advertising. Reaching millions, many of whom weren’t in farming at all, The Furrow showed the potential power and reach of what we now call content marketing.

As the world has moved on, the number of channels available to marketers has increased hugely. First radio, then televisions appeared in homes, quickly becoming affordable to the masses and offering new ways of getting your product in front of your potential buyers. The age of multi-channel marketing, with the same products appearing in print, on the airways and on TV screens, was upon us.

Enter the internet, and suddenly marketers had multiple channels within channels at their disposal. As well as multiple social media outlets, there are streaming sites, search engine interfaces, corporate sites and countless other online channels available where marketers can track where their audience is spending its time, who’s engaging and how. Content marketing can now simultaneously reach a truly global audience on multiple platforms, and deliver personalised messages right to them.

Omnichannel challenges

Having so many channels available isn’t without its own challenges, not least of which is penetration in the blizzard of messages. So in-house teams faced with providing content at scale for a global, omnichannel campaign have their work cut out. It can be easy, in the joy of a post-pitch-win celebration or after securing that high-profile, global project, to forget the realities:

Lack of resources – It can be time-consuming and expensive to bring in freelance talent at short notice when you need more capacity.

Timescales – Most teams run necessarily slender, and can’t just lean on people to work through the night to get it done without the quality of their work suffering.

In-house teams’ skills are not all-purpose In an industry where roles are highly specialised, it’s unrealistic to expect Jacks- and Jills-of-all-trades in the same team; your well-trained people need to be able to focus on what they’re good at.

A level playing field? Many in-house teams now have to compete for projects with external agencies. This can be a source of friction, as finding the right balance there isn’t easy.

How to address the challenge of content at scale?

 In-house agencies’ structures are generally tied to business needs. The most common models are an all-internal resource, an embedded external source that effectively operates as an extension of the in-house team, and a combination of the two.

There’s no one-structure-fits-all solution. A major consideration, for example, may be meeting the cultural and logistical requirements of a truly global campaign. An entirely in-house and isolated team is probably not the answer in such cases, where in-country knowledge is invaluable.

In a reflection of marketing trends, a lot of in-house agencies have had to take on new, digital-first responsibilities in the last few years. Budget cuts and a worsening skills shortage have made it very difficult for in-house teams to handle these new responsibilities alone, and partnering with the right specialists to offshore creative production is a proven model.

Outperform your competition

 In the digital-first environment we work in now, customers’ expectations are rising.

They expect personalised content and quickly punish brands that don’t engage effectively. In fact, according to Accenture, 64% of consumers “wish companies would respond faster to meet their needs.”

How to keep pace, connect and convert, and do it better than your competitors?

We’re bringing together some of the world’s leading figures in content production in our Global Event Outperform Your Competition with Content at Scale to talk about exactly that. If you’re looking for insight from the cutting edge of the industry, then join people from across the globe who have already signed up for the event on November 9th.

Sector-leading speakers will pass on their knowledge and experience, and some of the biggest names in global content production will go head-to-head in unscripted debate on the now and next of successfully producing content on a global scale.

Who should attend?

Brand marketers, in-house studio directors, content creators at third-party or specialist agencies; anybody who’s involved in content production and wants to do it more efficiently and effectively than their rivals. We’ll explore production models, talk about how agencies can add value to brands, discover how to achieve global content consistency, examine changing content consumption trends and more.

Create global content at scale, grow your market share and outperform your competitors. Register to attend free, or to receive a recording of the event if you can’t make it at the time.

Saskia Johnson

Author Saskia Johnson

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