If you stepped into my home at any given time, you would inevitably see a relatively tidy, clean space with lots of natural light and all new furniture. That’s not to say I’m a minimalist. There’s no shortage of stuff, namely in the form of gear—piles of running shoes, a couple snowboards, mountain bikes hanging from the ceiling. But, it’s clean. Everything has its place, so I can find what I need, when I need it.
My home wasn’t always this way. When I first moved into my spacious, one-bedroom condo, I had no kitchen table, no pretty bed frame, no real shelving. Just a whole lot of gear, a bed, and a few odd pots and pans.
I tried to make do with little. Who needs grownup things like a table when there are mountains to explore and trails to run? But, alas, I found my day-to-day life (e.g., eating breakfast on an area rug, having friends over for dinner), wasn’t conducive to having no furniture. I’m a working professional, after all. Living without organization or furniture just wasn’t scalable, or enjoyable, for my lifestyle.
Where am I going with this? This story is pretty demonstrative of how I feel about my life planning marketing content before and after adopting the Kapost marketing platform.
How Kapost’s Platform Made My Content Creation Process All Grown Up
The Mess
When I started content marketing, I worked as a hybrid writer and editor for a B2C tech startup. We produced A LOT of content—I managed a team of 80+ freelancers, wrote my own content, and single-handedly maintained the SEO strategy for the blog. We were churning out about 50 blog posts a week with no plans of slowing down.
Creating prolific content was fun and fast-paced. We were scrappy, communicating mainly via email or phone with the majority of our freelancers. We ran campaigns the “old fashioned way” (spreadsheets, shared docs, email chains, etc.) and managed workflows using a hybrid of a popular MRM tools paired with paper to-do lists.
This project management process worked: we grew blog traffic, brought in a lot of new registrations, and increased revenue. All was good.
But, I constantly felt like the plan was on the brink of collapse. And trying to onboard new hires was a mess because our process was so ad hoc. I really needed some furniture.
The “Will It Break” Game
As a small team, we had to continue to prove our value in order to earn more resources and budget. And, we were determined to drive results.
So, in an attempt to tame the beast and scale our content production, we decided to start using a variety of free and/or cheap WordPress plugins.
We QA’d each tool on the stage site, praying we wouldn’t break anything. Will this SEO tool break our feature image automation? What about this social sharing button? Will that break something else?
Most of the time, we came out just fine. I learned a lot about what it meant to be scrappy and prove the worth of marketing—specifically content marketing—at a growing company.
Regardless, the hodgepodge of plugins felt like I was building my life around cheap, Ikea furniture. I was so frustrated by having to navigate so many different plugins on top of the behemoth spreadsheets and a barrage of emails from freelance writers. I wanted to take my content to the next level and get out of email hell.
Making the Transition
When I first got the offer from Kapost, I think I was more excited about using the platform than starting a new job. I was so ready to throw my spreadsheets in the digital trash and never look back.
I had seen the platform from a far and longed for the day I could be a user. It’s no wonder to me that teams ask their CMOs to get them Kapost for Christmas. For content creators, it’s that good.
Why I Love Kapost
It may seem bias for me to talk about how great Kapost is, I do work here after all. But, I truly know what it’s like to try and scale a process without a content marketing platform. Zero fun. And other content marketers share my feelings. Just as IBM, LinkedIn or Lenovo.
Having Kapost is like the day I purchased a real table—made of real wood and didn’t require assembly.
When it comes to the “Why Kapost?” question, there are three key things that stand out in my mind:
For one, workflows and content calendars allow for people to set realistic deadlines and then meet them. Anyone on an integrated marketing team can tell you about a time when their project was bottlenecked because of someone else’s failure to deliver on time. Those same people can also tell you about a time when they were left scrambling to meet a deadline.
The workflow functionality allows you to see what’s coming up in your queue and prioritize your work. Additionally, if I see someone is bottlenecking a project, I can cue them with an “@mention” and set a “smart deadline,” so my deadline is controlled based on when they complete their step in the process.
Second, content scoring. By integrating Kapost with our marketing automation software (Marketo) and CRM (Salesforce), I can take a look at how specific pieces of content perform. I love no longer using SQL queries paired with spreadsheets to score and analyze my content. I can do it all right in Kapost.
This allows me to easily make informed decisions about what types of content boosts traffic or creates MQLs, so I’m empowered to hit my number each and every quarter.
Third and finally, Kapost makes my life easier. I feel enabled to succeed in creating the best content and marketing campaigns possible. When you’re running around with your hair on fire, creating effective, creative copy or mapping innovative strategy is hard. This issue is a bit like Maslow’s Hierarchy—reaching your potential as a marketer is pretty darn difficult when you can’t smoothly get through your day-to-day responsibilities.
Invest in Stuff That Lasts
Kapost has allowed me to be a better marketer, plain and simple.
Using spreadsheets for your content management is the equivalent of dorm room furniture in a historic craftsman. When it comes to planning and organizing marketing content, Kapost is what keeps my workflow tidy, and more importantly, optimized, so I can focus on creating content that supports business growth.
If you want your marketing team to get out of disorganized, brute force content creation, Kapost is an investment worth making.