When creating content, a common problem marketers face is solving what assets you have are most up-to-date? This is especially hard if you manage your files in multiple locations. Which videos, logos, images, and graphics are the right ones, on brand, fitting to your tone and voice? Without a source of data truth, you can end up spending hours searching for the right file rather than actually creating.

Avoid the marketer trap of, “the finder of stuff”

Spending hours per day hunting down visual files for people isn’t helping you convert a prospect, speak to your community, engage your readers, or encourage collaboration. It wastes time and undermines collaboration.

In the world of marketing and corporate communications, a source of truth in the form of an asset manager and governance controls ensures you avoid misuse of old files and outdated strategies.

A “Source of Truth,” refers to a central place to store and manage your strategy and content

Content marketing is driven by content of all types: blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, presentations, articles and more—even the content you use to distribute these “content blocks” like social media updates and advertising are part of your assets. You plan out all this content but then, where does all your content go and how does it get repurposed and shared?

The new way: One source of truth

If you currently lack a central asset library your content might be in few places:

  • Mixed into folders on a shared server
  • Your teammate’s computers (maybe even multiple agencies)
  • Archived somewhere
  • Online in your manager’s Dropbox account or Google Drive
  • In an email attachment somewhere….

You can see why this is problematic. You’re unable to get what you need on the fly.

Storing all your content in one place makes repurposing on the fly less hectic, and encourages spending less time on chasing documents

A source of truth minimizes the consequences of scattered assets and potential duplication of efforts. Here’s a few other benefits:

  • Your various marketing, sales and corporate teams are able to access content being used throughout the entire buyer cycle to ensure messaging is aligned.
  • You can get accurate data on how much content you’re producing, by whom and how it’s all performing.
  • Your teams can be inspired by the high performing content of others.
  • Your teams can repurpose content blocks, especially those that are high performing.
  • You spend less time chasing documents and more time strategizing and creating content!

A single source of truth drives collaboration and reduces redundant work. Having a central hub for image storage, collaborative automated workflow for content creation, and a documented strategy accessible by all means your content marketing can be agile and creative, not inefficient.