Content is often seen as the domain of marketing and sales teams. But in reality, it has the power to transform results across your entire organization. From engaging prospects to enabling employees, the use cases for content span far beyond lead generation alone.
In this guide, we‘ll explore five key departments that should be making content a priority—and provide actionable strategies and examples for putting it into practice. Armed with these insights, you‘ll be well-equipped to harness the full potential of content as a driver of company-wide growth and success.
1. Marketing: The Content Powerhouse
There‘s no question that content is a critical component of any modern marketing strategy. Research from the Content Marketing Institute found that 72% of marketers say content marketing increases engagement and the number of leads generated. And on average, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing while generating 3x as many leads.
To make the most of your content marketing efforts, it‘s important to diversify your content mix and experiment with emerging formats. Some of the most effective types of marketing content to consider include:
- Blog posts: Hubspot research shows companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month get 4.5X more leads than those that publish 0-4 posts.
- Videos: 87% of video marketers say video has increased traffic to their website, and 80% say it directly increased sales.
- Interactive content: Interactive content generates 2X more conversions than passive content, with popular formats including quizzes, assessments, calculators, and more.
- Personalized content: 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences.
The key is to center your content around the needs, interests, and pain points of your target audiences. By mapping content to each stage of the buyer‘s journey—from awareness to consideration to decision—you can effectively nurture prospects towards a purchase.
Emerging technologies are also opening up new possibilities for content marketing. For example, AI can be used to optimize content, personalize recommendations, and even generate copy. Meanwhile, innovations in video, AR/VR, and voice are creating more immersive and engaging content experiences.
Some key content marketing metrics to track include:
- Organic traffic
- Leads generated
- Conversion rates
- Engagement metrics (time on page, shares, comments)
- SEO rankings
- Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs)
By regularly measuring and optimizing your content‘s performance, you can double down on what‘s working and ditch what‘s not to maximize ROI.
2. Sales: Enabling the Buyer‘s Journey
While marketers may produce the content, salespeople are the ones who actually use it to engage buyers and close deals. Sales enablement content is designed to support reps at each stage of the sales process, from prospecting to pitching to overcoming objections.
Consider these stats:
- Gartner found that B2B buyers spend only 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers, and they complete 45% of the buying process before ever contacting sales.
- Organizations with sales enablement content see 69% higher win rates than organizations that don‘t.
- 95% of buyers buy from providers that offer relevant content at every stage of the buying process.
To support sales teams, marketing should focus on creating content assets like:
| Content Type | Description | Funnel Stage |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch decks | Customizable presentations that highlight key value props and benefits | Middle/Bottom |
| One-pagers | High-level overviews of products/services for quick reference | Top/Middle |
| Case studies | Real examples of customer success to build trust and credibility | Middle/Bottom |
| Email templates | Proven outreach and follow-up messages to engage prospects | Top |
| Objection handling guides | Resources for addressing common concerns and pushback from buyers | Middle/Bottom |
| Competitive battle cards | Quick-reference guides for differentiating from key competitors | Middle/Bottom |
The goal is to equip reps with the right content for every selling scenario, so they can spend less time hunting down resources and more time actually selling. Content should be easy to find, customer-centric, and aligned with the way reps sell.
To further streamline sales content, consider using technology like a sales enablement platform to organize, distribute, and measure the impact of content on key metrics like deal velocity and win rates. Providing reps with real-time insights into which content closes deals is key to optimizing sales performance.
3. Customer Service & Success: Driving Retention and Loyalty
Delivering exceptional customer service is critical to reducing churn, increasing lifetime value, and turning customers into loyal advocates. And content plays a vital role in enabling customer success across all touchpoints.
Consider that:
- For every customer who complains, 26 remain silent. But if their issue is resolved, 70% will do business with the company again.
- Increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%.
- 68% of customers say they‘re willing to pay more for products and services from brands that offer good customer service.
To enhance the customer experience, service and success teams should focus on creating content like:
| Content Type | Description | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge base articles | FAQ-style content on product setup, features, troubleshooting, etc. | Reduces support tickets, enables self-service |
| Video tutorials | Step-by-step walkthroughs on how to complete key tasks/processes | Improves product adoption and usage |
| Help center/community forums | Collaborative spaces for customers to ask/answer questions | Builds community, outsources support to power users |
| Onboarding emails | Triggered communications to help new customers get started | Increases retention, shortens time-to-value |
| Product update newsletters | Proactive updates on new features, releases, best practices | Keeps customers engaged, demonstrates investment |
| Training webinars | Live or on-demand sessions to educate customers on advanced topics | Boosts product expertise and loyalty |
By making it easy for customers to find answers and resolve issues on their own, you can significantly reduce support costs. Research shows that live support interactions can cost $12 on average compared to just 25 cents per self-service interaction.
Along with reactive support content, customer success teams should also focus on proactively educating customers to get more value from the product. Tactics like lifecycle email campaigns, user communities, and events are great for fostering long-term engagement and advocacy.
To measure the impact of your customer content, track metrics like:
- Support ticket deflection rate
- Annual recurring revenue (ARR) and churn
- Net promoter score (NPS) and customer satisfaction
- Product usage and feature adoption
- Referrals and reviews
4. HR & Employee Engagement: Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
Your employer brand is one of your most valuable assets for attracting and retaining top talent. And content is key to showcasing your culture, values, and employee experience to both job seekers and current staff.
Research shows that:
- 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand.
- Companies with strong employer brands see 50% more qualified applicants and take 1-2x faster to hire.
- Highly engaged teams result in 21% greater profitability, with 59% less turnover.
To boost recruiting efforts and keep employees engaged, HR teams should develop content like:
| Content Type | Recruiting Benefits | Engagement Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Employee spotlight blog posts | Showcases diverse voices and career paths | Recognizes contributions and milestones |
| Day-in-the-life videos | Provides authentic look at company culture | Connects employees across teams/offices |
| Benefits/perks guides | Communicates total rewards to attract talent | Ensures employees make most of offerings |
| Onboarding/training resources | Streamlines new hire experience | Enables continuous learning and development |
| Leadership comms (town halls, AMAs, etc) | Demonstrates commitment to transparency | Fosters two-way dialogue and alignment |
| Employee newsletters | Promotes referral programs and hiring initiatives | Keeps teams informed on company news/events |
By leveraging employee-generated content (EGC) like testimonials, social media takeovers, and guest blogs, you can maximize the reach and authenticity of your employer brand messaging. Encourage employees to get involved by recognizing and rewarding their content contributions.
To keep a pulse on the effectiveness of your HR content, be sure to track key metrics like:
- Job post engagement (clicks, applies)
- Offer acceptance rate and time-to-fill
- Employee net promoter score (eNPS)
- Retention rate and turnover
- Internal content engagement (opens, likes, comments)
5. Executive Thought Leadership: Building Market Authority
Establishing your C-suite leaders and subject matter experts as go-to thought leaders can have a huge impact on your brand awareness, credibility, and overall market authority. Research from Edelman shows that 58% of decision-makers spend more than one hour per week reading thought leadership, and 55% say thought leadership has influenced their purchasing decisions.
Some of the most impactful formats for executive thought leadership content include:
- Bylined articles in industry publications
- Guest spots on popular podcasts
- Keynote sessions at conferences and events
- Industry reports and data-driven studies
- LinkedIn posts and engagement on trending topics
- Interviews and expert commentary in earned media
By sharing their unique insights and expertise on the issues that matter most to your audience, executives can position your company as a trusted resource and partner. This content can be repurposed across multiple channels to maximize reach and impact.
To amplify executive thought leadership content, consider:
- Developing an editorial calendar aligned with key themes and events
- Pitching contributed content to target media outlets
- Leveraging paid social and PPC to boost visibility
- Featuring thought leadership in nurture campaigns and sales collateral
- Encouraging execs to engage one-on-one with audience (ex. social selling)
Measuring the ROI of thought leadership can be tricky, but some metrics to track include:
- Share of voice relative to competitors
- Inbound media and speaking requests
- Feedback from sales on impact in deal cycles
- Social media/website traffic and engagement
- Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) sourced
Ultimately, effective thought leadership is about building trust and credibility with your audience. It‘s a long-term investment that can pay dividends in terms of brand affinity, market leadership, and revenue growth.
Aligning Content Across the Organization
As these use cases illustrate, content has the potential to drive significant business results when leveraged effectively across departments. But to maximize its impact, organizations need an aligned content strategy and operational model.
Oftentimes, content production happens in siloes, with each department creating assets independently to meet their own goals. This leads to inconsistent messaging, duplication of efforts, and a disconnected customer experience.
Instead, organizations should establish a central content function that works cross-functionally to develop and execute an integrated content strategy. This may take the form of a dedicated content team or a strategic leader like a Chief Content Officer.
The role of this content CoE is to:
- Develop standards and guidelines to ensure consistent voice and messaging
- Identify and prioritize high-impact content opportunities across the business
- Coordinate resources and workflows to streamline production
- Implement technology and tools to enable content creation and distribution at scale
- Establish KPIs and reporting to measure content effectiveness
By breaking down silos and fostering ongoing collaboration, organizations can deliver a more cohesive content experience across all touchpoints. Some best practices to consider:
- Unite teams around common content goals aligned with overarching business objectives
- Standardize content workflows using shared tools like content calendars and style guides
- Provide training and enablement to empower employees to create on-brand content
- Enforce brand guidelines and legal/regulatory requirements through review processes
- Organize content in a centralized, searchable repository for easy access and reuse
- Leverage technology like content marketing platforms, DAMs, and project management tools
The Future of Content: Trends to Watch
Looking ahead, emerging technologies and shifting consumer behaviors will continue to shape the content landscape. To stay ahead of the curve, organizations must continually adapt their strategies and experiment with new approaches.
Some key content trends and predictions for the coming years:
- Hyper-personalization at scale, powered by AI and machine learning
- Expanded adoption of interactive and immersive formats (AR/VR, voice, etc.)
- Growing demand for video, with short-form emerging as a key growth area
- Emphasis on content accessibility, inclusivity, and representation
- Increased focus on content atomization and modular, remixable assets
- Integration of user-generated and influencer-driven content
- Emergence of AI-assisted content creation and curation
- Continued blurring between B2B and B2C content strategies
Regardless of how these trends play out, one thing is clear: Content will only continue to grow in importance as a driver of business success. By putting content at the center of every department, organizations can build deeper relationships with audiences, enable employees, and ultimately fuel company-wide growth.
So if content isn‘t already a C-suite priority in your organization, now‘s the time to make the case. Armed with the strategies, examples, and data in this guide, you‘ll be well-equipped to evangelize the power of content across your entire organization. The question isn‘t if you should be leveraging content beyond marketing and sales—it‘s how quickly can you get started.
