For any business, winning internal buy-in from each department and employee working on a content marketing campaign typically arises as a key obstacle to a successful strategy. According to Dorothy Davis, content director for PennEnergy, clearly defined strategies and goals across her company are among the main reasons its content strategy has worked.
When an organization decides content marketing is the best way to achieve its goals, ensuring each department involved is on the same page provides the stability needed to succeed.
“One of the biggest challenges is getting buy-in from everyone working on the project,” Davis said in an interview with Brafton. “It’s difficult because the way people are trained as journalists and marketers can be very different. It’s important to have everyone sit down and work on the same strategy from the beginning.”
PennEnergy, a resource for global energy professionals, relies on a content marketing strategy to achieve its marketing goals of winning more page views, building search visibility and cultivating stronger brand authority.
Davis, herself, was sold on the concept of content from another team member. “We decided to use content marketing on the recommendation of our SEO team,” Davis said. “It was clear that quality, keyword-rich content was what we needed based on the direction Google’s algorithms were going.”
Davis and her colleagues collaborated from the outset of the project to ensure website content reflected PennEnergy’s brand message. Working with feedback from each department in the organization helped find the right path to success for the company’s customized web marketing strategy.
Her experience is an example that marketers who want to win content buy-in should focus on:
- Fostering cross-department collaboration from the start to direct brand voice
- Setting goals based on multiple team members’ success metrics
- Establishing analytics transparency to determine the right strategy
“It’s important to have everyone sit down and work on the same strategy from the beginning.”
Dorothy Davis
Content Director
PennEnergy
Brafton recently highlighted a report from the Optimization Group that echoed Davis’ thoughts on web marketing. The study said a lack of communication between departments remains one of the great barriers to web marketing success. For PennEnergy, its internal alignment regarding content strategy and goals has helped it avoid these issues. As a result, content marketing stands as a consistent source of website traffic and new prospects.
“We’ve absolutely seen an improvement in the perception of our brand authority as we started creating content,” Davis said. “It’s distinguished us from our competitors, because people come to our site and see that we’re doing more than just trying to sell. They get something from us that they don’t in other places.”
