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The year 2018 saw a lot of buzzes talked and created around digital transformation. The digital transformation not only helped brands drive process efficiency but stable customer engagement. The digital transformation is more process-oriented with a complete focus on adopting new processes or revitalising old concepts. The verticals like BFSI, healthcare and e-commerce led the transformation with innovative concepts. The emergence of AI, machine learning and chatbots emerged as a preferred technology adoption. 

Although the digital transformation focused on customer engagement and process efficiency, the need is to take the adoption to the next level with the content transformation. The content transformation primarily talks about how the brands need to change or revitalise their content strategy with a complete focus on customer engagement, branding, competitive advantage and brand building. 

The important aspects of content transformation are:

1. Customers

2. Employees

3. Brand Statement

4. Brand Vision

5. Competition

Every aspect of content transformation interrelated to each other to form a complete chain of content transformation. The content transformation strives to build a strong brand presence while maintaining the synergy between different business aspects.

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Content is the biggest asset for B2B marketing. Recently, I visited a B2B brand to understand their marketing requirement. Although the brand has its presence on LinkedIn, it lacked the content consistency and clear content strategy. During the conversation, I came to know about the brand's sales cycle and understood that most of its business come through the readymade RFPs. And, hence, the brand was not keen about content investment. 

Such situations are so common in B2B marketing and need deal with niche marketing and content strategy. For such brands, content investment is the biggest differentiator. These brands have to understand that precise content strategy, marketing and investment will not only result in lead generation but also in customer engagement. 

A definite content strategy helps in both pre and post-sales marketing efforts. The lead generation is one part of the marketing efforts and brands have to go beyond that. When it comes to B2B marketing, the content can help in different ways, such as

1. Brand Building

2. Competitive Advantage

3. Thought Leadership

4. Knowledge Sharing

5. Customer Engagement

6. Online Visibility

7. Customer Loyalty

8. Improved Exposure

Content is the essence of B2B marketing and needs to be deal with utmost care and importance. Content helps brand establish thought leadership in the market which translates in marketing advantage. This advantage translates into short-term sales cycle and long-term customer engagement process.

By using different content format, brands can maintain synergy between customers and their requirements. The content strategy helps the brand stay innovative to respond to customers' concerns. 

The content consistency makes brand responsive and responsible towards customers. This responsiveness is crucial when it comes to competition. The customers will like to connect with the brand which is responsive and takes a proactive approach in solution provision. 

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The year 2018 saw a lot of buzz around technology, digital transformation in particular. Globally, the brands are contemplating ideas that can streamline their overall digital adoption. The focus has been on both internal and external aspects of the business to understand the pros and cons of digital adoption. Some of the sectors like finance and retail are becoming more aggressive towards digital adoption. 

As we are now moving closer to 2019, the need is to adopt one more transformation process, and that is Content Transformation. The content transformation should become the primary strategy for every business starting in 2019. Be it internal or external, the synergy between digital and content transformation will prove influential for the overall success of the business. 

If we look at the digital transformation, the adoption has been more at the operational level. The brands are adopting digital technologies to streamline their internal processes, sales funnels and CRM. 

The chatbots, the AI or machine learning have become an essential part of the overall business strategy. Now, the key is to combine content along with these key technological aspects. Today, the more focus has been on data, analytics and business insights. Businesses are investing heavily in the technologies that can bring them useful insights into customer behaviour. 

The businesses, moving ahead, should have a formulate strategy that can combine data and content. 

How Can Content Help?

Content Strategy:  Today, most of the brands lack definite content strategy, the primary reason being the lack of resources and capabilities. Moreover, brands are hesitant to invest in content efforts. However, they need to understand that digital adoption is the only half battle won. They need to invest in content if they have to optimise their overall marketing efforts. The concentrated content strategy, focused on customers, will help marketers put more efforts towards brand building.

Content Marketing: Content marketing is an essential element to drive two-way communication between brands and customers. Today's marketing is not about brands it's about customers. Content marketing is an ideal way to reach out to your audience and build on customer conversations. These conversations help brands earn customers' trust, loyalty and business. Content marketing makes your brand customer-centric. 

Content Distribution: Another challenge the businesses face today is the content distribution. The right content distribution will help brands in customer reach, competitive advantage and business growth. The right distribution channels will not only help brands save time but maximise their customer acquisition opportunities. 

In 2019, the brands will have to have a definite and comprehensive content strategy to create a stable brand. The year 2019 will be of content transformation that will decide the course of brands' success via content route.

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No doubt, there is a too much of buzz going around content marketing today. Everyone is talking about what to do and what not to do. Everyone has their own views, objectives and references for content marketing. All said and done, do we really have the best approach to content marketing?

Websites, social media platforms, newsletters, podcasts, webcasts, etc. there is too much content. But how can we really leverage these platforms and sync them all to get the best approach?

Although no approach can be suitable for every situation, however, there has to be a common starting point for everyone, be it a small marketer or a big marketer. Actually, when it comes to quality, the difference between small and big does not matter, what matters is the content.

Usually, consistency is the most common problem that content marketing efforts have to deal with. Generating unique content for too many platforms becomes difficult and thus, marketers tend to get lazy with their content marketing efforts.

Now, talking about the best approach, as I said earlier one size does not fit all. Hence, marketers need to find that missing link which can bridge the gap between them and the target audience. The idea is to engage the audience with the targeted content.

To start with, it is always good to think from the users’ perspective. By stepping into their shoe, marketers will definitely have some pain points highlighted. Here, content marketing can be an effective medium to answer the queries of the users, then giving them insights. The ideal marketing always delivers what users want, and not what a brand wants.