Content leaders' strategy for success in a connected world

About 88 per cent of marketers report that they are using content marketing.

Especially in industries like real estate and hospitality where the most well established companies seem to dominate in the country, marketing well can be the most vital of competitive advantages to smaller or new companies.
And because UAE is one of the most digitally connected countries in the world that also currently has the highest mobile penetration rate in the region, understanding the relevance of SEO and staying on top of search engines is growing to becoming the most sought in marketing objectives for most companies.
"If content marketing is conducted well it will allow any company to own the digital space that is most important to it," says Ben Goodman, of Nexa digital marketing agency. This approach means that speaking to people about exactly what they want to hear by answering their questions using carefully crafted content that is not, usually, sales driven.
"You nurture them through an information process that breeds trust and success," he adds.
About 88 per cent of marketers report that they are using content marketing, and 76 per cent plan to create more content than they did last year, but only 30 per cent consider their content marketing effective, according to a recent report from the Marketing Profs and Content Marketing Institute.
As the relevance of content marketing grows, many businesses are now focusing on setting up their own content strategy departments instead of just occasionally relying on agencies and consultancies.
But with its growth, there also rise the challenges in-house content strategy leaders are now being forced to regularly combat.
Because the content strategy leader often has to work closely with multiple organisational departments and external partners, ensuring consistent messaging and branding regardless of the medium through which content is delivered is one of the most difficult challenge faced. 
To overcome this, the content strategy leader should facilitate the final version of any content being consolidated, updated, and located in all departments of the business to ensure consistency. They must also conduct a content audit where they take inventory of all content on the company's website, as well as all internal and external content and then analyze and assess its effectiveness.
Another particular challenge, especially in growing companies, is how difficult it can get to align all the departments in using the same content tagging and messaging methods. Content strategy leaders should overcome this by coordinating and building consensus across the organizations and departments. It is critical that the content strategy department is aware of these challenges and focuses on ensuring consistency and understanding of the concept before further investing into content production.
This is because, at the core of it, the main objective of any content strategy leader should be to "create comprehensive, enterprise-wide visibility for the strategy, people, processes, technology and measurement that contribute to improved content lifecycle management," says, industry analyst, Sirius Decisions.
There is little question that so long as content marketing and the strategy around it are aware of these challenges, the landscape around it will only get more advanced leaving the designated content strategy leaders of any business with much room to experiment and grow over time.
However, by addressing these issues and acting swiftly to effectively tackle them, content strategy leaders will find themselves in a position to create, manage, and distribute content that wins.
The writer is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. Views expressed are her own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy.