This article is originally published on The Guardian on 11/14/14.
A strong global content marketing operation requires extensive collaboration, close communications and hard compromises
The ultimate goal of marketing is to grow business. For content marketing, the goal is to grow business by creating and sharing educational, entertaining or insightful information with your target audience. Content should make it easy for your customers to learn, search for and purchase your products and services. By being helpful and providing values, consumers reward us with their business and loyalty.
In general, it’s easy to create a content marketing plan for one country or one region. A cross-country or cross-regional plan is tougher, but not too hard if you extensively collaborate, closely communicate and make hard compromises between HQ and the regions or local offices. It may sound like a massive undertaking, but it’s manageable if you can take care of five key elements up-front.
- Align business goals between HQ and regions
It may sound rudimentary, but the headquarters and regions’ goals do not always align. HQs may demand higher sales quotas than the regions are willing to commit to. Conversely, the regions may be planning to grow a brand new market segment or request customization of specific products, even if HQ doesn’t have the bandwidth or resources to support. In-depth conversation to ensure full alignment on business goals is a must before any planning.
