Brands

Around the Room: Content Marketers’ Biggest Challenges

It’s not easy being a storyteller—especially when you’re a brand that’s just starting to catch on to the importance of digital exposure and forming that elusive brand newsroom. At the Contently Summit last Wednesday, publishers and content marketers came together to network, inspire, and commiserate about the biggest challenges of being champions of content marketing. We caught up with the crowd to find out what some of those challenges are.

Heather Pemberton Levy, founder at Story Comes First:

“Getting the full organization to understand the role that content marketing plays and how it fits with the brand campaigns and with other advertising and PR initiatives. And with B2B: Where does it fit with PR, how is it distinctive, and how do you get existing marketing departments to support that integration within the enterprise?”

Andrew Dent, CEO and publisher at Family Traveller:

“Finding great coders, great tech, driving traffic to the site, and keeping cool ideas in front of clients for content, which is why I’m here.”

Eliot Yaxley, sales director at Moat:

“Getting prospects on the phone … and supplying them with good information.”

Sachin Shah, publisher solutions at Polar.me:

“Connecting with the right publishers who meet our platform, to spread the net wide and hope that they are doing some sponsored content and that they will use my platform.”

Dennis Walton, managing partner at Ax Semantics:

“We are a German company that’s trying to open up to the States. So, how do we do an international expanse and how do we scale our product?”

Daniel Willson, technical intern at Wakefield:

“The pain, the pay, and the pace.”

Andrea Yamartino, senior editor and communications strategist at McKinsey & Co.:

“Meeting all the deadlines.”

Fanny Lakoubay, founder at Solr Media:

“It’s a lot more sales work than expected, and it takes more time than the straight-up digital marketing.”

Caroline, intern at Atavist:

“I have to compile this big spreadsheet, so the biggest challenge is just to make sure I haven’t missed a box.”

Bill Keys, Poems While You Wait:

“Finding a spot that works because there’s no consistency … Sometimes, because I do it a lot, I feel lost in the improv of it. I’ve just gotta trust that I’ve got everything I need when I don’t have a sense of it.”

Kari Mitchell, director of digital marketing at HZDG:

“The most difficult [challenge] is that most of our clients have no idea about digital, even the big ones. It’s taking a little too much time for people to get up to speed. … I’ve been doing that for 5 years—educating clients—and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this has already been around for so many years!’”

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