Navigating a multichannel content strategy involves numerous challenges and considerations for digital marketing teams. We've engaged with Kentico partners and MVPs to gain insights into these hurdles, offering diverse perspectives that illuminate the landscape of multichannel marketing efforts.
Embarking on the intricate journey of a multichannel content strategy presents digital marketing teams with a myriad of potential obstacles and strategic considerations.
In our exploration of these challenges, we have sought insights from distinguished Kentico partners and MVPs, engaging in a dialogue that sheds light on the hurdles faced by marketing teams in their multichannel marketing efforts. Their diverse perspectives offer a nuanced understanding of the challenges and considerations that shape the landscape of multichannel content strategies and marketing campaigns.
So, what primary obstacles do marketing teams encounter as they embark on adopting a multichannel content strategy?
Lack of insights
Hitting the sweet spot of telling the right message to the right person at the right time on the right channel requires in-depth knowledge of your audience. Not having these insights renders technology useless.
Roel Kuik, Kentico Practice Lead at Aviva Solutions
Lack of cohesive approach
For smaller companies, the primary challenge lies in the lack of clearly defined metrics that are applicable across different channels. This absence of unified measurement standards can hinder effective strategy assessment and adjustment. Conversely, larger companies often struggle with scattered responsibility and lack of overall ownership.
This fragmentation can lead to inconsistencies in messaging and strategy execution, as different teams or individuals may operate in silos without a cohesive approach. Addressing these initial challenges is crucial for successful multichannel content strategy implementation.
Adam Böhm, Division Director at Actum Digital
Lack of unified tone
One of the initial challenges that may arise is the task of establishing and maintaining content consistency. Your company must set its tone for communication, which you can duplicate across all channels, making differences where it is appropriate. Some platforms have slight format and theme distinctions, which are crucial for an overall seamless presentation.
Another thing to keep in mind when crafting your materials is flexibility. The marketing landscape is quite fluid and incorporating trends as you go makes your content automatically more organic and attractive.
Antonie Králová, Marketing & Event Specialist at BiQ Bluesoft a.s.
Lack of focus on content model
Most teams do not provide the content model with the focus it deserves because we naturally focus on the website and its design. This leaves marketing teams with major hurdles. A web-specific channel could trap its content in a system without structure or APIs for reusing the content. Or, even if they have avoided that hurdle, the content could be unintelligible, because it uses types that are only understood by specific website templates.
An excellent answer for many market teams is to use a hybrid headless DXP like Xperience by Kentico and to design a content model that provides content types that are semantic and meaningful in all marketing channels.
Mike Wills, VP of Technology at BlueModus
Lack of agility
The rapid pace of digital change requires marketers to be agile, constantly adapting to new trends and audience behaviors. It's very challenging to keep a pulse on this change, especially when marketers have to manage multiple channels. I think that this hurdle of constant change and ability to react in a timely manner is present every day for most marketing teams.
Brian McKeiver, co-owner at BizStream
Lack of alignment with the needs of the customers
A primary obstacle is ensuring that the content meets the needs of each of the channels and properly reflects the position of the consumer in the purchase funnel. Different channels require very different types of content. Key is to make sure that there is one centralizing thought that leads the overall delivery and that all builds in the different channels reflect this whilst allowing flexibility to meet the specific requirements of both the channel and the position in the purchase funnel.
Monitoring this and making sure that brand values and guidelines are adhered to as well can be a huge hurdle if the correct platforms are not employed and/or managed effectively.
Julien Reiter, CEO at Positive
Navigating the complexities of multichannel content marketing
Navigating the intricate path of a multichannel content strategy demands careful, long-term planning from digital marketers. The marketing challenges they face include lack of insights, consistency, unified tone, and cohesive approach. According to our experts, marketers need better agility, closer alignment with customers, and to design a content model that provides content types that are semantic and meaningful in all marketing channels.
As the marketing landscape continues to transform, these capabilities become the linchpin, enabling digital marketing teams to not only confront the multifaceted challenges but also seize the opportunities that multichannel and omnichannel marketing strategies offer for enhanced brand awareness and impactful engagement.
Choosing a digital experience platform (DXP) or content management system (CMS) with strong multichannel capabilities will support digital marketing teams in their engagement of potential customers through a variety of digital touchpoints (website, email marketing, mobile apps, blog posts. etc), while consolidating multiple platforms into one unified cohesive solution for enhanced efficiency, consistency, and productivity.