Learn how content became a staple inside one of the world’s largest financial organizations

Challenge:

When Royal Bank of Canada decided to invest in content marketing, it knew that scaling at the right pace would be crucial. As one of the largest financial institutions in the world, RBC employs more than 85,000 people, serves 17 million clients, and earned $12.9 billion in revenue last year.

“We needed to make sure there was a consistent flow of content,” said Caroline Paxton, senior director of social media, content & strategic initiatives for RBC. “When it comes to competing for attention, we’re really competing against all media organizations, whether it’s national newspapers, the BuzzFeeds of the world, etc.”

At first, RBC started with a modest goal: have each division publish one piece of content per week. But the long-term plan envisioned dozens of teams creating content, all of it driving toward a cohesive strategy that ties the brand together and helps the business.

For such a large enterprise business, the logistics of that system can be overwhelming. So how did RBC figure out how to scale while so many other brands are still struggling?

Solution:

A big part of RBC’s content success stems from its data-driven approach. RBC’s first move after partnering with Contently was to conduct a content audit. The brand worked with a content strategist to crunch the numbers, which revealed that RBC had a huge opportunity to educate and entertain consumers at the top of the marketing funnel before promoting its products.

“Quality and quantity are equally important to us,” Paxton said. “Across the organization, there was interest in leveraging the Contently platform to augment, expand, or continue with existing content strategies.”

RBC’s personal and commercial banking division was the first to start creating content through the Contently platform. Over time, many other groups joined, including, Insurance, wealth management, and even RBCxMusic, a platform that connects Canadian music fans with music experiences.

Every time a new department joined, it was responsible for defining its own audience as well as producing and distributing its own content. That strategy helped RBC grow at a steady pace since new departments had their own goals that laddered up to corporate goals. Today, the blog is full of stories that cover everything from retirement advice and business news to home ownership tips and education reports.

Perhaps most importantly, RBC worked out a way for a single member of the legal team to review all content for the sake of familiarity. The move was easy to make, since RBC could integrate that person right away using Contently’s custom workflow feature. Over time the legal and marketing teams worked together to outline a system that helped eliminate hours of gridlock. They created a document full of key “watch-outs” that the content creators could reference regardless of the subject matter.

The simplified review process paid big dividends. In some cases, it used to take weeks for RBC to take its content live. Now, some teams can create content at the speed of news, publishing effective stories within a day or two.