Job Description: Chief Content material Officer

CMI first described the Chief Content material Officer (CCO) job greater than a decade in the past.

In these days, firms wanted senior leaders to spearhead the combination of “content material advertising and marketing actions” into extra conventional advertising and marketing campaigns.

At the moment, content material management should increase past advertising and marketing (even content material advertising and marketing) to embody an all-communication technique.

Which means in the present day’s chief content material officer (no matter whether or not that’s the title the individual holds) guides the content material that makes up each expertise a buyer, viewers member, or prospect has with a model.

What does that appear to be in follow? I’ll clarify and supply a chief content material officer job description you possibly can copy.

First, although, let’s have a look at the context of what’s modified – as a result of that informs the scope of the brand new content material chief function.

At the moment’s chief content material officer guides the #content material that makes up each buyer expertise, says @Robert_Rose by way of @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing Click on To Tweet

The way it began: Content material serves advertising and marketing

Once we final up to date our view on the chief content material officer function, we described it inside a content material advertising and marketing context. Most individuals who carried out that perform held titles like vice chairman of content material advertising and marketing, head of content material advertising and marketing, editor-in-chief, and even chief storyteller.

Few held the “chief” title, as few firms thought of content material a c-suite perform (like finance, operations, expertise, or advertising and marketing).

Just a few services manufacturers – particularly people who have constructed separate content material or media operations – have adopted the CCO title (Peloton, Dun & Bradstreet, and Ralph Lauren, for instance). Goldman Sachs, AirBnB, and Procter & Gamble have comparable roles however name them vice chairman of content material, head of content material, or chief media officer.

The chief content material officers in these organizations give attention to the inventive side of content material product improvement. In media firms, the CCO is the main inventive voice for the model’s product technique. In product and companies manufacturers, the content material chief is more likely to run the strategic initiative of a media division or head up a centered perform of inventive companies.

However content material technique is just not a separate division at most manufacturers. Neither is it separated from the gross sales and advertising and marketing group.

That should change. And it’s beginning to.

Nearly a 12 months in the past, I wrote about how content material technique and advertising and marketing technique are coming collectively. I requested the query:

What if content material and advertising and marketing as a follow … was handled as vital within the enterprise as its present services or products?

And why shouldn’t it’s? Content material makes up the whole lot of communications from any firm.

At the moment, nearly everybody within the group communicates instantly with audiences, resembling prospects, companions, press, analysts, and staff.

The way it’s going: Content material significance skyrockets

We’ve moved past the necessity to combine content material advertising and marketing into the broader advertising and marketing ecosystem. That occurred.

Contemplate this: 71% of entrepreneurs in our latest B2B analysis mentioned content material is extra vital to their organizations than it was a 12 months in the past.

Content material is a enterprise technique in the present day. Full cease.

However that merger of selling content material, content material advertising and marketing, and content material operations I discussed? It’s created a urgent want to arrange and coordinate not solely what advertising and marketing markets but in addition what gross sales sells, accounts service, PR relates, and HR recruits.

In consequence, content material management appears to be like totally different going ahead. Right here’s how:

The content material chief (whether or not known as chief content material officer or not) should personal communication technique. The content material perform is just not an inner, on-demand content material merchandising machine for the remainder of the enterprise – it’s a strategic contributor to each buyer expertise with the enterprise.

The chief content material officer should lead all operational content material approaches, together with content material advertising and marketing, content material operations, branded content material, native promoting, and anything that drives the creation of media-powered buyer experiences as a enterprise technique.

The CCO should set lead (and measure) experiences that align with and contribute to enterprise objectives. The content material crew of in the present day and tomorrow builds audiences by owned media experiences that may be monetized in a number of methods. They drive the execution of content material for short-term promoting campaigns. They drive engagement and shares on social media and natural search visitors from progressive earned media and word-of-mouth methods. However additionally they assist visibility, transparency, and inner communication of the content material lifecycle – from ideation to creation, administration, activation, promotion, and even archiving. And the CCO leads the event of the infrastructure required to do all of that.

The CCO leads content material for each a part of the shopper’s journey. The content material perform shouldn’t be relegated to top-of-funnel gross sales enablement property. It’s not restricted to Search engine optimization-focused articles driving model consciousness. It’s not restricted to customer-support how-to movies or buyer occasions. The content material perform holds the experience to ship viewers worth at each stage of the buyer journey. And the chief content material officer guides the appliance of that experience throughout the corporate.

Whether or not you name the function chief content material officer, vice chairman of content material, head of content material, or one thing else issues lower than the perform of the place.

Listed below are the brand new necessities for the place. Be at liberty to repeat this description to advocate for a CCO at your model. You may also use it to information your individual improvement if the highest content material place is your objective.

Job description: Chief content material officer

Definition/description

The chief content material officer is a key member of the senior administration crew. The CCO leads the executive, operational, and inventive features of content material as a strategic advertising and marketing and communications perform within the enterprise.

Studies to

Chief government officer/chief working officer or chief advertising and marketing officer/VP of selling

Place abstract

The CCO’s objective is to safe the creation, coordination, consistency, and worth of content material as a aggressive benefit for the enterprise.

The CCO oversees all advertising and marketing and communications content material initiatives, each inner and exterior, throughout a number of platforms and codecs to drive worth to each the enterprise and the audiences served.

This particular person should have management expertise in inventive technique, coordinated content material operations, channel optimization, model consistency, viewers segmentation, translation/localization, and significant measurement of content material’s worth to the enterprise.

The place is the chief of a content material operation that collaborates throughout a number of organizational departments – together with public relations, communications, advertising and marketing, customer support, IT, gross sales, human assets, and government management. Thus, the CCO ought to count on to have a hand in defining, governing, and deploying the general model’s communication strategy.

Tasks

The CCO owns all operational initiatives concerning the creation, administration, activation, and measurement of content material.

The CCO’s major duty is to find out the working mannequin and content material strategy that may supply the best worth for the group, after which lead its administrative, operational, and inventive features.

• Design and implement content material methods, plans, and procedures that assist and lengthen advertising and marketing and communications initiatives, each brief and long-term, and set up a repeatedly evolving content material follow
• Set complete objectives for efficiency and progress for content material as a strategic perform within the enterprise
• Leverage market knowledge to develop content material themes/subjects, then execute a plan to create the property that assist a standpoint and result in vital behavioral metrics
• Supervise the administration and upkeep of viewers personas, content material inventories and audits, buyer journey maps, Search engine optimization methods, and aggressive audits
• Set up requirements, programs, finest practices, and workflow processes for managing the content material lifecycle, together with requesting, producing, distributing, selling, measuring, and retiring content material, together with guaranteeing all content material is in line with model, type, high quality, tone of voice, and optimized for the varied person experiences and throughout all acceptable channels
• Collaborate with the corporate’s senior inventive crew leaders and channel house owners on all initiatives to determine content material wants and alternatives to make sure effectivity and consistency throughout channels, verticals, and practical departments
• Work with the corporate’s technical/digital groups to implement an environment friendly content material administration system (CMS), digital asset administration strategy, and different important expertise programs (e.g., advertising and marketing automation, e-mail administration, social media administration, analytics, and so on.)
• Create an organizational construction and rent/supervise leaders in all content material verticals; handle the efforts of different crew’s writers, editors, producers, and content material managers
• Conduct ongoing usability exams to gauge content material effectiveness; Collect knowledge and deal with analytics (or supervise those that do) and make suggestions primarily based on these outcomes; work with house owners of content material to revise and measure content material and advertising and marketing objectives
• Set up efficiency objectives and oversee ongoing measurement protocols to judge and optimize content material effectiveness. This contains gathering knowledge and dealing with analytics (or supervising people who do), in addition to making suggestions primarily based on efficiency outcomes
• Guarantee a constant world, enterprise-wide strategy for content material, together with implementing taxonomies, meta tag constructions, structured content material, and localization/translation methods the place acceptable
• Take part in content material growth actions (investments, acquisitions, alliances, and so on.)

Success indicators

Efficiency expectations ought to be primarily based on the continuous enchancment of buyer nurturing, changing, and retention by storytelling and will increase in new prospects introduced into the enterprise by constant improvement and deployment of content material.

The first standards for achievement are buyer and worker affinity, measured by lifetime buyer worth, buyer satisfaction, and worker advocacy. Extra standards for gauging success might embrace:

• Optimistic model recognition and message consistency throughout chosen printed channels
• Beneficial properties in outlined buyer engagement metrics (measured by customers taking the specified motion – conversions, subscriptions, purchases, and so on.)
• Web site and social media visitors progress
• Conversion metrics definition and progress
• Enhancements in optimistic social media sentiment
• Optimistic buyer suggestions and survey knowledge
• Will increase in important search engine key phrase rankings
• Reductions within the time it takes prospects to maneuver by the gross sales/shopping for cycle
• Creation of latest up-sell and cross-sell alternatives by content material evaluation and utility
• A stronger enterprise-wide give attention to driving gross sales, saving prices or creating happier prospects by content material

What we omitted of the CCO description

You would possibly discover that we omitted some issues normally included in job descriptions: schooling necessities and years of expertise.

Nobody school diploma covers every part it’s worthwhile to be a CCO in the present day. A liberal arts diploma would possibly assist. So may a communications, journalism, or advertising and marketing background. Then once more, experience in your group’s business would possibly matter extra.

Equally, the variety of years of expertise in all probability issues lower than what somebody realized and achieved throughout these years.

Does your group have a job that handles all these obligations? What would you add or change about this listing? Let me know within the feedback.

Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute