Marketing positions have been pretty static over the past 5-10 years. We have however, seen a slight shift that has matched our marketing efforts, the rise of online and digital marketing managers and execs for example, but these job functions require a similar skill set to their predecessors’, only they are doing it online, rather than off.
But it’s 2013 that will see a new breed of marketing professionals escape nomalville, with the introduction of the CMM – The Content Marketing Manager. In my opinion, the CMM will be one of the most important members of any marketing team moving forwards, they will be pivotal to a true multi-channel marketing strategy and without them, you’ll be doing 1 of 2 things; either paying an agency over the odds, or really missing a trick.
So what does the CMM do? It’s all about recycling. some of you may have read my post on 4D marketing, the theory that you can take a single piece of content, (a company overview PDF for example) and then spin the content, audience and media an almost infinite amount of times to create next-generation comms and collateral that engages audiences and yields incredible results. The CMM will sit right at the heart of this process, creating recycled content and providing your agency or your marketing team with fresh content like never before.
Who currently manages your ‘content’? Imagine them as an ice-cream man. You approach their van and what you get is vanilla, that’s your lot, the only option, no flake, no sprinkles, no raspberry sauce, no choice of the 3,000 different flavours and infinite number of combinations that *could* be available, just, well, vanilla. That is how your customers feel when they are reading your collateral… Shit isn’t it?
To put the possibilities into context, think about the following. I have based the below on a typical IT reseller but this model applies to any business:
Take your company overview PDF, tweak the messaging to make it relevant for the 8 vertical markets you sell to (for example, retail, pharma, manufacturing, healthcare, automation etc etc), then tweak it again for all (6 in this instance) of the job functions you want to hit (for example, IT, Customer Services, Finance, C-Level, Marketing, HR), then tweak it again by the media used, in this example I will push this content out in 6 ways – PDF, Infographic, Video, Blog, Whitepaper, Tweets) So, lets run that through…
1 piece of content x 8 verticals x 6 job functions x 6 forms of media = 288 pieces of content from a single source. and that’s assuming we only write 1 blog post and tweet once to each audience.
The end result? Highly targeted, multi-channel, relevant comms and collateral for your customers and prospects. The person responsible for creating this? The CMM. The great thing about this new marketing function is that a number of people already in your team are able to take it on right now. I see aspiring PR Execs moving into this world, or Comms Managers, or even Marketing Managers with limited resource and budget looking to take their communications strategy to the next level. Fancy giving it a go, or a member of your team the chance to show you the value?
Now, go and get yourself an ice cream from the new guy in town. Vanilla is gone, welcome to the world of double choc, triple fudge, giant coned, full of sprinkles heaven. Served with a cherry on top.