At Widen, we’ve been following a content marketing model for awhile now. We see more and more of our customers, and future customers, also building their brands with the help of great content.
As a marketing technology company, our specialty is digital asset management, an important component of content management and marketing processes and protocols. Among the technologies we’re developing, we’re creating valuable solutions to the most common problems of marketers and creative groups, as they work to create stronger connections and “remarkable experiences” for their own customer-bases.
For those unfamiliar with the definition, just what is “content marketing” anyway?
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) defines “content marketing” as:
a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Learn more at: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
We’re big fans of the Content Marketing Institute, and we think that if you ask Joe, Robert or the rest of the team over there, they’ll share a similar appreciation of Widen! After all, we sponsored and exhibited our newest innovations at the 2014 Content Marketing World, CMI’s largest content conference of the year. Thousands of marketers and creatives like us and our customers flocked to Cleveland, to see Kevin Spacey and share in valuable learning and networking opportunities rallying around the theme of “beyond storytelling.” (Note: as I write this blog post, I just completed the most recent Call of Duty video game, featuring Mr. Spacey himself … I was just doing a little usability research, I swear!)
We also had Joe Pulizzi speak at our 2014 Widen User Summit in Madison, last October. He shared his talk, Evolution of Content: 5 Elements to Consider. Our customers just loved his valuable points, as he provided several takeaways, including my personal favorite: set your goals for sales, savings or sunshine.
This past week, we saw Robert Rose, CMI’s chief strategist, give a keynote presentation at the BMA Milwaukee luncheon, previewing his soon to be released book, Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing. We’ve loved the relationship era of marketing, as Robert references in his book, as we have built some tremendous relationships with marketers of all shapes, sizes and industries; forming some of our most gratifying professional friendships. Yet, I’m super excited about his concept of the “experience era,” as we marketers and service providers aim to create memorable experiences for our customers. Our pinnacle event of the year, the annual Widen Summit, aims to give our customers an opportunity to immerse themselves in three days of extraordinary and helpful content in an effort to express our appreciation for everything they have done with us this year.
How do we continue to provide year-round? We do it through content; content that educates, inspires and delights!
We’ve assembled some awesome material over the years, from notables such as the Ask Dr. DAM blog series to helpful resources like our 1-page DAM Decision Guide and the DAM Decision Toolkit (featured in CMI’s Visual Content Marketing Lookbook). Then, there’s our education and community site: DigitalAssetManagement.com, a whole website that we’ve had for over ten years to help professionals understand, advance and evangelize digital asset management across their organizations.
Through all of these efforts and advancements, we’ve seen a tremendous synergy (yep, I just used that term) between content marketing and digital asset management.
In Widen’s world, DAM brings together technology and process to help marketing and creative groups operationalize content marketing, by deploying the right visual content and digital assets to the right channel, in the right format, at the right time, for the right audience. Widen gives marketers the ability to use powerful analytics tools showing how audiences are interacting with digital assets over time.
DAM helps streamline the content marketing process, providing visibility as to how digital assets are being used across all content types, mediums and user / customer groups, while ultimately supporting the marketer's desire to create more enduring opportunities to engage customers.
To strengthen our case, we teamed up with Robert Rose to deliver two new white papers that examine how digital asset management supports the ever-evolving world of content marketing. You can check ‘em out for free!
Our first paper is developed for creative pros who often wear many hats, while working through key trends to deliver more effective creative content.
Great Visual Storytelling Takes A Village
How the four Cs—Collaborate, Customize, Communicate, and Connect—help the community of the business manage their digital assets
Our second paper is developed for marketing pros who are constantly looking to advance agile methods to deliver better content marketing.
Digital Assets Should Be Agile, Not Fast
How agile teams, assets, and processes create collaborative content, better brands and faster content marketing
Let us know what you think of our new white papers with the Content Marketing Institute, and if you’d like to hear more from us about the growing harmony between digital asset management and content marketing.
Interested in us coming to speak to your group about these concepts? We’d be happy to talk to you about these or other content marketing trends. We do our best to eat our own dog food!
Check out our new infographic (coming soon), offering a visual explanation of the tie between digital asset management and content marketing.
Request a demo to see how the Widen Media Collective can be your marketing content command center.
Last, visit us at Content Marketing World 2015 in Cleveland in September, the largest content event of the year!