Content Killers and the Kapost Solution – Q&A with Keith Burrows
I saw a recent post from Feldman Creative, “Content Marketing Killers,” that talks about why content marketing may fail. To be clear, Feldman says he built this piece this from a piece he saw from content marketing guru, Joe Pulizzi. Regardless of who started the list, both pieces ring true for marketers.
Here are a two of my favorite Content Marketing Killers from Feldman:
Disconnected– Content marketing efforts backfire when they take place in silos, that is different departments and entities within your company fail to integrate efforts. You need to tell a consistent story.
Unbelievers– If your C-suite, fellow marketers, or peers don’t faithfully join the party, you’re doomed.
In thinking about the value of content, I immediately thought of Kapost, a content marketing software platform I have used. Check out my recent interview with Keith Burrows @demandgenmaven Vice President of Sales for Kapost.
Q: Kapost is designed to help mitigate some of the challenges associated with content marketing, namely the “Disconnected” and “Unbelievers”. What makes Kapost an essential solution for marketers today who produce content for their organization?
A: Great question and I love both posts because they are true. I think a consistent truth is that technology alone will solve nothing! You have to incorporate proper process and have the right people focusing on the problem.
In regards to the “Disconnected”, we feel their pain. We work with many organizations where Demand Gen, PR, Product Marketing, and Marketing/Brand teams are working in silos. Add in Business Units and Geographic dispersion to the mix and frankly, it’s a mess.
Kapost is built for uniting these teams with knowledge of what is being produced and by whom, shared calendars, workflows/approvals, and listening capabilities to keep everyone informed and driving best practices around content management. The best organizations create editorial boards that combine folks from all of these groups to organize around ideation and work to define Buyer Personas and their purchase journey.
To address the “Unbelievers” – that is tough. Are you going to fight the Internet and expect to win??? Today, 70% of Buyers are vetting their solutions and company prior to ever engaging sales. If your content is not aligned with your Buyer’s Journey, in my opinion, you will lose in the long run.
Why do content marketing leaders use us? Kapost incorporates best practices around Buyer alignment strategy to ideation and organizations, to visualization (think calendars for all content), to workflow/approvals, to multi-channel distribution, and finally, to measurement of what is working. On top of that, we guide our clients via on-boarding and training to help make them successful within 30 days. For this reason, our platform is easily adopted and used. You can learn a bit more about the value of Kapost in our video.
Q: Tell us who typically uses the Kapost solution? Big companies? Small companies? What is the best part about the solution?
A: Our clients are typically a mid-market and enterprise organizations that have at least ten marketers within their organization or agency constituents and content is becoming a priority for them. On the SMB and Agency side, we work with smaller organizations, but content has to be a high priority.
As far as the best part of the solution? We have three aspects that really speak to marketers:
Visualization – Our calendaring function allows marketers to understand what is due, in-production, or being published at any given time. It delivers brilliant insight for the entire organization and enables the user to easily share via iCal, Google calendar, and MSOffice.
Customer workflow and approval process – Allows organizations to customize and automate the approval process. In addition, you can optimize content against your key search terms and distribute via social media in real time.
Analytics – I am database marketer at heart, so I believe if you can’t measure it, it’s just noise. Our platform allows you to see what is working, where you are weak/strong from a content development view, and see progression over time. What’s most exciting is that Kapost is just getting started, and I can’t wait to see how the solution progresses.
Q: How does Kapost work with Marketing Automation solutions (often times the biggest driver for the need for content)?
A: We integrate with Eloqua, Marketo and Hubspot with different levels of integration. The solution manages the approval workflows for emails that are published out of their systems. In some systems we can bring in campaigns and measure lead conversion by content type as well. We find that the demand generation teams are either on the forefront of creation (they start and manage it) or they receive and repurpose and sometimes a combination of both. We help clients manage all these scenarios and guide them with best practices.
Q: You speak to people all day long about how to solve content problems with Kapost. What is the biggest pain point of your typical marketer today? Let’s address the pain points of the Primary Content Creator and the VP of Marketing in an organization.
A: The majority of organizations manage their content creation and distribution process via spreadsheet, email, phone calls and their weekly stand-up. They then distribute the plan via cut and paste and import to multiple systems. Not a seamless process. When organizations are managing multiple content pieces and distribution channels, this process get very painful, very fast.
Our system allows the Content Creator and team to know exactly what they have in queue to work on and what is on the horizon. For the VP of Marketing, it’s about communication to the organization about what the marketing team is doing. Kapost enables you to share your calendar with any part of the organization and showcase what’s effective. Our analytics and visual grids give unparalleled insight into content efforts (again think about the 70%) and this becomes powerful data.
Q: Kapost and Oracle/Eloqua held a big Content Marketing Bootcamp in San Francisco earlier this year. Next one is in Boston, June 6th. What will attendees walk away with after attending the Boston Bootcamp?
A: Best Practices, transformative stories, how to build a content engine and great peer networking around how to optimize their content factory.
Author: Erika Goldwater @Erikawg is the Director of Marketing, ANNUITAS
Keith Burrows @DemandGenMaven is the Vice President of Sales, KAPOST
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