A pocket knife comprises many tools and uses.
There’s a saw, toothpick, nail file, tweezers, can opener, screwdriver, scissors, corkscrew, reamer, multiple sizes and styles of knife blades and more.
And it fits right in your pocket. No need to dig through the junk drawer or keep an entire tool box in your car.
A content marketing platform (CMP) is a marketer’s pocket knife.
In a single platform, you have multiple tools and functions to plan, create, manage and publish content for all kinds of marketing collateral including:
- Blog posts
- Social media posts
- Automated emails and other marketing automation content
- Ebooks, whitepapers and other gated content
- Photos, infographics, video and other visual assets
- Paid, earned and owned media
- Internal marketing documents
Before I began using a CMP, I had to implement my own content systems, which included using Google Docs, spreadsheets and Word Docs that I saved to the server for teammates to access.
I got used to my system and it worked for me, but when I needed someone to review a post or if I edited a teammate’s piece, exchanging feedback became a confusing process.
Sometimes there would be multiple email chains about the same article. Word docs were passed on with different naming conventions. And when I uploaded the final version to our CMS, other team members would access it and make changes without my knowledge.
Can you relate?
Thankfully, a CMP solved all of these issues, plus provided me with tools I didn’t know I needed.
It became as handy as a pocketknife with tools including an editorial calendar, a creation space, automated workflows, review functions, reports and more, which will improve your creation process and help you see better results.
[Read more: 4 ways to streamline your content production]
These are the top five benefits of implementing a content marketing platform:
1. Organization
We conducted a survey a little over a year ago and found that 86% of our agency clients were using a combination of Word, Excel and email to manage their content. Navigating and maintaining these documents on multiple platforms uses up more time than you probably realize.
If you’re publishing all the types of content listed above, you need a process to keep track of where all your files live, and make sure your whole team knows how to access the files.
Implementing a content marketing platform means you can stop using all those various programs and systems to manage your marketing content. A CMP allows you to save everything to the platform, including a complete version history of the content.
The editorial calendar assists with planning, too, so you can easily see all the content that you need to work on or publish for the week. While most people think of using a CMP for blog posts, the editorial calendar is also extremely handy to schedule ALL content projects—even social posts.
2. Save time and money
We found that users save an average of 74 minutes per piece of content when using a CMP. If you produce three pieces of content per week, that’s 3.75 hours saved each week just by using a more centralized content system.
When you take into consideration how much you’re paying your content creators each hour, this time reduction will save you money as well.
Unfortunately, many CMPs are pretty pricey. BrandpointHUB, however is the most competitively priced CMP, suitable for a solo entrepreneur or a business with several users.
Along with a more organized file system all in one place, you’ll save time with more effective tools for collaboration.
[Read more: 3 costly problems caused by using the wrong content marketing tools]
3. Easier collaboration
In our same survey, we also found that the majority of clients have three or more people involved in the content creation and management process.
Especially if you’re working with a team spread across multiple locations, you’ve probably experienced the struggle of keeping up with a long chain of emails—each one with a new attached Word Doc or spreadsheet.
To prevent email volleys, most CMPs offer a chat box located with each piece of content so that you know exactly where the conversation is happening, and it’s not filling up your inbox.
One of the functions I find most useful is the ability to review all the changes and edits that have been made. BrandpointHUB lists all the edits so you know exactly who made the changes and when.
Customizeable workflows also make it easy to see where each piece of content is in the creation process. Without even sending an email, you know what tasks you’ve been assigned to, when the due date is and who is working on each step of the process.
Some CMPs also have sections for users to add ideas, so everyone on the team can continue to participate in all phases of the process.
4. Transparency
All of the above functions makes communicating with other content creators much smoother, and with automated notifications, it becomes even easier.
If an editor wants another perspective on a post, she can just tag that person’s name in the comments box, and the user will then be notified. The user can view the entire conversation about the piece and its revision history to get a quick snapshot of the post’s progression.
Or if a content manager plans editorial calendar material with proper due dates for the whole month, then anyone on the team can view this and know when they need to complete their tasks and when it will publish.
This can all be done without forwarding an email chain or having to access multiple documents.
Stakeholders can also get access to the CMP to know exactly what’s going on with the content strategy. Your team will be able to stay on top of all your projects and your stakeholders get the visibility they want.
5. Measuring impact
Some CMPs offer metrics reports so you can gauge how your blog and social media posts are performing.
Hook up your CMS and Google Analytics platforms to the CMP and and you can track all your KPIs without leaving the tool.
A quality CMP will also generate easy-to-read reports for you so you don’t have to create and record the metrics in your own separate spreadsheet.
Ready to try a content marketing platform? We’ve got you covered. Start your free BrandpointHUB 14-day trial in just a couple minutes. Learn about its features or sign up now.
