Streamline decision-making

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Thought leadership projects get bogged down when decisions are made by large committees of stakeholders. Approval cycles drag on for weeks but do nothing to improve the content, and by the time of publication, content is often past its sell-by date. The crisis has empowered companies to sweep some of their more bureaucratic processes aside, and some have set up ‘war committees’, where top business executives make themselves available to decide on messaging and to fast-track approvals.

Accelerate insight generation
Pre-crisis, a lot of brands were already moving away from large-scale surveys that took as long as six months to design and execute. Then the crisis brought fresh urgency to the search for faster ways to generate insight. The easy answer might be to fall back on more opinion pieces, but opinion on its own is rarely as persuasive as analysis based on concrete evidence. The brands that have really impressed have found ways to come up with data-led analysis at speed, and new techniques have included agile survey methodologies and B2B applications for sentiment analysis.

Compress production cycles
At some companies, it used to take two months or longer to get draft content and pass it through list of peru cell phone numbers production and design. As with the approvals process, that kind of delay kills topicality and ensures that those brands will always bring up the rear in the race to get noticed. Leading companies, on the other hand, are benefiting from their investments in better content engine systems. But they have also created frameworks and templates that allow them to create content that is on brand, consistent in its tone and approach and ready-made for rapid publication.

Adopt a multi-speed model
Companies need to develop an ambidextrous approach to their content marketing. The chart in our ebook shows how companies can establish a multi-speed content model that combines a continuous flow of short-form commentary and points of view with more strategic thought leadership investments. Those strategic pieces might be more challenging to plan now, but brands that invest now to develop longer-term thought leadership will be well positioned to help their clients navigate recovery and their return to growth.