ACTION STEPS PLAN A PROCESS, NOT A PROJECT hat I find fascinating in this year’s That last part has the deepest implications for the evolving practice research is that, yes, it’s time to of strategic content marketing in a business. After working with Wfeed the giant – but we should be hundreds of enterprise brands over the last 10 years, I’ve concluded: careful not to get distracted by the food, Most businesses think about how they can change content rather than our ability to cook. to fit marketing’s purpose instead of how they might change marketing to fit content’s purpose. ROBERT ROSE Too often, content marketers get wrapped up Chief Strategy Advisor in content creation, rather than their ability Content will never be a sustainable competitive advantage or CMI to lead the efforts to create. differentiator – all content is easily replicable and, at best, only transient in differentiated value. One of my go-to books of the last decade is Rita Gunther McGrath’s, The End of Competitive Advantage. In that book, she illustrates that Instead, consider looking at content operations as the catalyst that all competitive advantage is transient – perhaps now more than can change everything for the content marketing challenges you face. ever. This fact, she contends, is understood. But then “why,” she Recognize that you and the activities you perform are the competitive asks, “hasn’t basic strategy practice changed?” As she says: advantage. Your future success hinges on the ability as a team (of 1 or 100) to be dynamic and fluid – moving in and out of “arenas” (as “Most executives, even when they realize that McGrath calls them) of content and creating temporary advantages. competitive advantages are going to be ephemeral, are still using strategy frameworks and tools designed Here’s the real takeaway: Ask everyone in your business – including for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage, your CEO – if they believe compelling, engaging, useful, and not for quickly exploiting and moving in and out of dynamic content-driven experiences will move the business advantages.” forward. 44