Rebecca Lieb shares findings from her recent research report on how content marketers should go about selecting content marketing tools. With input from 143 ecosystem contributors, we'll explore the plethora of content tools available, how the market is evolving, and how marketers should think about content tool selection.

1. Content Marketing Software Landscape:
Marketer Needs & Vendor Solutions
Content Marketing World @cmicontent / #cmworld
Rebecca Lieb, Industry Analyst @lieblink
Sept. 10, 2014

2. Growing channel and media
complexity + increasing adoption
of content marketing

3. Result: A complex, disparate
content marketing software
ecosystem

5. Organizations lack a cohesive,
coherent, strategic approach to
content.
70%
of marketers surveyed lack a consistent
or integrated content strategy.

6. Trends driving market complexity
∙ Content creation pressure
∙ Lack of strategy begets tool proliferation
∙ Lack of enterprise integration
∙ Misaligned buyer needs vs. planned
investments
@cmicontent / #cmworld

7. Buyers’ Needs Don’t Match
Planned Investments

8. Tangled and Emerging Vendor
Landscape adds to the complexity
• Solution proliferation
• The landscape is bifurcated
• Content marketing evolution is driving
consolidation
@cmicontent / #cmworld

9. Media Convergence Drives
Content Stack Evolution
@cmicontent / #cmworld

10. By 2016, there will be “content
stack” offerings in the marketplace
— end-to-end solutions akin to ad
stacks.

11. @cmicontent / #cmworld

12. Currently, no single vendor has an
end-to-end solution.
Eventually, a few will partner,
merge, acquire, and/or collaborate
to create a total solution.

13. Technology Decisions Must
Begin with Use Cases

14. Altimeter recommends taking the
following three steps to determine
your content marketing tool stack:
1. Determine your content marketing use
cases.
2. Plan for integration and evolution.
3. Identify and prioritize vendors based on
those use cases.
@cmicontent / #cmworld

15. Three Common Content Marketing
Scenarios Drive Tool Selection
@cmicontent / #cmworld

16. Feed the Beast
Is your organization struggling to keep up with
the unrelenting demands of regularly creating
quality content for one or more channels?
•This scenario is about mastering the foundational use
cases in content marketing: efficiently creating and
collecting content at scale
@cmicontent / #cmworld

17. Refine
 Is your organization struggling to apply process
to creation and production?
•In this scenario, roles expand, intelligence &
optimization increase:
• Analytics, audits, channels, audience, personas, repurposing,
optimization, etc.
@cmicontent / #cmworld

18. Govern
Does your organization need to formalize and
communicate content strategy throughout the
enterprise?
•This scenario is characterized by scale, and the ability to
create experiential, cross-channel, transmedia content
while ensuring compliance
@cmicontent / #cmworld

19. Determine Content Marketing
Use Cases & Sub-categories
@cmicontent / #cmworld

20. Gather Cross-Functional Requirements
Solicit stakeholders’ and end user requirements,
input, collaboration
•Workshops
•Workflow requirements
•Permissions
•Employee empowerment & adoption
@cmicontent / #cmworld

21. “We did a series of workshops with the
content creators and manipulators…
So much came down to workflow,
particularly around transparency and the
ability to understand what’s happening
with content at any given point.”
-- Meg Walsh, Senior Director of Digital
Strategy & Distribution at Marriott
International

22. Altimeter recommends taking the
following three steps to determine
your content marketing tool stack:
1. Determine your content marketing use
cases.
2. Plan for integration and evolution.
3. Identify and prioritize vendors based on
those use cases.
@cmicontent / #cmworld

23. 10%
of marketers say their content
marketing technologies are “fully
integrated across people,
processes, and platforms.”

24. Integration needs are essential,
and tripartite:
1.Integrations with systems. This includes legacy
and often future platforms, such as data and analytics,
CRM, and inbound marketing.
2.Integration with the organization, such as
internal communications, corporate intelligence and
internal networks.
3.Integration with processes, including
workflow and organizational structure. This may
include taking outside partners and/or agencies into
account @cmicontent / #cmworld

25. Marketers’ top ranked content
marketing software integrations
Q. Which of these would be most valuable when integrated with content marketing
solutions? Which would add the most value to content marketing strategy? (Forced
Rank)
Source: Altimeter Group Content Marketing Survey 2014, Base: n=80 marketers

27. 40%
of the content marketers we
surveyed report that the lack of
inter-departmental coordination is
leading to disparate tools used.

28. Altimeter recommends taking the
following three steps to determine
your content marketing tool stack:
1. Determine your content marketing use
cases.
2. Plan for integration and evolution.
3. Identify and prioritize vendors based on
those use cases.
@cmicontent / #cmworld

29. “You can’t retrofit activities to
the tool; you have to align the
tool with your activities.”
--Kristina Halvorson, CEO &
founder of Braintraffic

30. How to Identify & Prioritize Key
Criteria
 Understand priority use cases & sub-categories
 Identify priority integration needs
(immediate and long-term)
 Map these needs in a checklist to help
prioritize your most important buying criteria
@cmicontent / #cmworld

31. Content
Marketing
Needs
Checklist

32. How to Prioritize Vendors
 Now, assess which vendors satisfy the
requirements of priority use cases
 Shortlist 3-5 vendors
 Consider full suite vs. multiple point
solutions
 Leverage Altimeter Group’s Vendor Use
Case Matrix to aid
@cmicontent / #cmworld

33. Individual
Vendor
Capabilities

34. Content Tool Best Practices

35. I. Train staff
∙ Educate staff on content strategy, and train to
leverage tools
24%
of the marketers we surveyed say employees
are formally trained and empowered to publish
on behalf of the brand.
@cmicontent / #cmworld

36. II. Avoid redundancies
∙ Eliminate redundant toolsets with overlapping
secondary or tertiary features
∙ Integration helps drive “one version of the truth”
vs. “multiple realities that don’t align when
viewed in aggregate.”
@cmicontent / #cmworld

37. III. Build for speed
∙ Real-time Marketing requirements require speedy
deployment
∙ Rapid personalization, delivery, and the ability to build
content based on buzz are primary considerations
• Speedy implementation, set-up,
training, and ease of use are key to
adoption

38. IV. Consider IT support (or lack
thereof)
∙ Assess the level of support needed for software
implementation and ongoing support
∙ Many solutions today bypass IT for day-to-day
publishing needs
@cmicontent / #cmworld

39. V. Scale towards the future
∙ Monitor emerging technologies and potential
integration needs
∙ Mobile
∙ Real-time marketing
∙ Localization in international markets
∙ Native advertising
∙ Sensors, beacons, etc.
∙ Adopt a test and learn approach
@cmicontent / #cmworld

40. Thank You
Rebecca Lieb
Industry Analyst
@lieblink
Altimeter Group provides research and advisory for companies
challenged by business disruptions, enabling them to pursue
new opportunities and business models.
Disclaimer: Although the information and data used in this report have been produced and processed from sources believed to be
reliable, no warranty eXpressed or implied is made regarding the completeness, accuracy, adequacy or use of the information.
The authors and contributors of the information and data shall have no liability for errors or omissions contained herein or for
interpretations thereof. Reference herein to any specific product or vendor by trade name, trademark or otherwise does not
constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation or favoring by the authors or contributors and shall not be used for
advertising or product endorsement purposes. The opinions eXpressed herein are subject to change without notice.