Feeling a little overloaded and under-confident these days? If you’re like a lot of marketers, your answer probably is a reluctant “yes.” Trust me; I understand. Marketers, by our nature or will, are an assured and assertive bunch. We have to be. Our job is to drive growth and that often leaves little room to show anything less than full control over our ability to deliver ROI back to the business.

But for a lot of us, digital transformation is hitting us harder and faster than ever—and that’s creating a lot of complexity under the hood of our marketing campaigns. Our task list is longer, the number of stakeholders we work with is larger, and the technologies we’re using are becoming more sophisticated. Our world is getting more cluttered and, if we have any hope of avoiding an unmitigated mess down the line, now is the time to start cutting a clear path. So where to start?

As my colleague Tim Pashuysen recently noted, 97% of people who work in marketing say content is their biggest concern. Perhaps that comes as little surprise: content is the currency of our profession. Marketing’s responsibility—and, increasingly, the crisis it faces—is to produce a consistent pipeline of high-quality content and getting it into the right channel at the right time.

The need to plan, produce, collaborate, approve, and distribute all of this content has given rise to Content Marketing Platforms (CMPs), which help marketers achieve efficiencies at-scale by eliminating silos in the content production process. Such capabilities are provided by Sitecore Content Hub, which was added to the Sitecore product portfolio as a result of our October 2018 acquisition of Stylelabs, and they’re encompassed by our broader vision to become the only company able to deliver the entire content lifecycle, from planning to publishing to delivering rich, relevant experiences that are tailored to meet customers’ needs in a single platform.

This is why I am proud to highlight that Sitecore was named a Strong Performer in “The Forrester Wave™: Content Marketing Platforms for B2C Marketers, Q2 2019” report. The report evaluates Sitecore’s current offerings, strategy, and market presence against eight other vendors Forrester considers the most significant in the market. Sitecore earned the highest possible score in the evaluation criterion of “market differentiation strategy” and the report noted, “Sitecore presents the most credible vision for supporting omnichannel content, wherein content and assets become reusable and intelligent components of each personalized marketing use case.” 1

As much as we’re grateful for what we believe to be Forrester’s acknowledgment of our strategy and vision, we also appreciate Forrester’s recognition of the capabilities we provide today. As the report stated, “Sitecore’s experience supporting the content needs of large, distributed marketing organizations such as Hilton, L’Oreal and a global leader in beverages has led to market-leading capabilities in asset and campaign management. Furthermore, it is a supremely flexible and versatile part of a marketing technology stack; one customer told us ‘we’re making lots of connections with their API, and it’s very easy to work with.’”

As marketing becomes increasingly multi-channel, real-time, and personalized, it doesn’t also have to become more painful. Solving your content crisis requires the right strategy and technology to support your efforts. But don’t just take our word for it: Forrester wrapped up its evaluation of Sitecore with a little advice of its own, saying, “[Sitecore] is a great fit for marketing organizations that want to be at the forefront of omnichannel content management.”

If you’re interested in seeing how Sitecore can help you streamline your marketing by unifying your assets, teams, and processes across the entire content lifecycle, read your complimentary copy of “The Forrester Wave™: Content Marketing Platforms for B2C Marketers, Q2 2019” report or get in touch to talk to a Sitecore expert today.

 

1 The Forrester Wave™: Content Marketing Platforms For B2C Marketers, Q2 2019, Forrester Research, Inc., May 6, 2019

Matt Krebsbach is Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Sitecore. Find him on LinkedIn.