Organizations need to continually inspire customers, prospects and associates with content that matches their information needs and their phase in the customer journey. At the same time, operating independently of place and time is more important today than ever, without losing your overview of online communication channels. The Sitecore Content Hub meets this need perfectly, but how do you use this tool in practice? In this blog post, we describe three practical uses of the Hub: a stronger brand, a product catalogue and the coordination of large volumes of content.
A stronger brand: uniform image in all countries
The launch of a new flavor of your soft drink is coming up. You want to set up a worldwide campaign to draw attention to this introduction. You get started six months in advance. Good product shots will be created, a well-known football player has been roped in to give the advertising campaign and commercials a boost, and promotional material and articles for all countries are being prepared. But how do you ensure that the campaign can be rolled out worldwide on time, with the right visuals and texts?
The content hub is ideal for this. You begin by drawing up a campaign strategy and concept. All the relevant marketing managers and creatives worldwide contribute ideas to ensure that the concept hits the spot. You draw up a plan for all parts of the campaign and you keep everyone up to date by email reminders. Then you start production. All the communications are produced, and your suppliers and producers are able to access the content hub and place their output online. The entire approval process also takes place in the content hub. Once it has been completed, all final materials are also placed on the hub. This ensures that only the correct versions for all the different countries are present.
You still have the question of rights to address. If visual material may only be used during the campaign and not afterwards, that means you will no longer have access to these images after the relevant date. You therefore don’t want to face financial penalties for the unlawful use of photos, as they can be a considerable expense. With the content hub, you ensure that your brand has the right image worldwide and that the advertising money you invest is well spent. You are in a position to meticulously measure the exact effect of the various campaign components: how are they performing and how well is this campaign succeeding compared to the previous one?
The product catalogue: covering every nut and bolt
Manufacturers in the technical industry struggle to ensure that their product descriptions, manuals, specifications and safety instructions are up to date and that older versions are not used. Version management is important not only for your own employees and technicians, but also for suppliers, contractors and retailers who need to be able to look up every product. Again, the content hub offers a solution.
Technically complex products consist of numerous parts, all of which must be specified in detail. They also need product texts, manuals and assembly, maintenance and safety instructions – all accompanied with the latest product photos of course. With specifications that change almost daily, it’s good to have a single system in which you can keep track of all changes. In the content hub you can save all the latest versions of documents and specifications. Only those who are authorized to do so can change these files or check modifications. This ensures that all the details of every technically complicated product can be found, and engineers who are often on the road have access at all times to the latest specifications and work instructions via their tablet. Suppliers too can easily find all the product details and adjust their own products accordingly.
Coordinating large volumes of content: the more people involved, the more content
The content hub is perfect for streamlining a content production process involving numerous contributions and contributors. For example, this might be necessary for a bank or insurance company that communicates in different ways with all its customers, or for a trade fair, where dozens of exhibitors may contribute content, or for a content agency that works for a wide range of clients. All are producers of large volumes of content, to which parties outside their own organization also contribute.
The content hub makes things a lot easier for extensive production processes such as these. Take scheduling, for example: you can put everyone who will be contributing to the content on the schedule. As their deadline approaches, they will receive an email. If an organization is working with several parties, for example different clients, they will receive a separate login, so that they only see the content that’s relevant to them. Approval of texts is easy to arrange by setting up a workflow of consecutive steps. The content hub is also ideal for organizations that want to be able to reuse or use content for different target groups.
