Artsofte Case: How to Create a Content Marketing Department from a One-Man Band
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2024 4:08 am
Home—Blog—Blog for B2B industry—Artsofte Case: How to Create a Content Marketing Department from a One-Man Band
June 28, 2022 2:00 PM
Artsofte Case: How to Create a Content Marketing Department from a One-Man Band
Svetlana Kovaleva
Expert Content Specialist
Content:
Who are Artsofte?
How to organize a department: editor + copywriters or manager + content mark?
How the lack of system prevents content creation
If everything is delegated, what should the manager do?
How We Built a Content Marketing Department
The fears were not confirmed
Conclusion
The best is the enemy of the good, as the buy phone number list saying goes. And I disagree. Here is my client, the IT company Artsofte, a leader in content among developers. They have their own media outlet, a pumped-up Telegram channel, the guys are invited to be moderators at the largest industry conferences, they hold many webinars and broadcasts. And in general, they generate the most high-quality expert content on the developer market, and their headlines are quoted in their speeches at conferences by other IT solution developers. But Artsofte decided that they needed more, better and higher quality.
I thought, how can I be useful to such content monsters? I dug in, and it turned out that there are many growth points. In this case, you will learn why a systematic approach to content creation allows you to scale its production without losing quality. I will tell you how I helped the Artsofte editor move up a notch and look at content creation as a marketer, and what changes this led to the company.
Who are Artsofte?
I am well acquainted with the Artsofte group of companies. In 2019, I built a content marketing department for one of their divisions, the Artsofte Digital Internet agency. Read about how it was and what results we achieved then in the article “ How to organize a content marketing department: recommendations and experience of one company .”
The Artsofte group of companies employs an experienced editor, Irina Korsun. In 2021, she was responsible for content in the following areas:
Profitbase is a digital ecosystem for developers;
Digital developer — media about digitalization in real estate;
Nopaper is a startup, a mobile platform for EDI (electronic document management).
Irina wrote articles and cases herself, organized and held webinars — she was fully responsible for all content in these areas. The number of tasks was growing, the number of projects was growing, and Irina was not endless. At some point, they realized that they either needed to clone Irina or learn to delegate tasks.
Irina Korsun. Head of Content Marketing at Artsofte
We have always had more ideas for generating content than we had time to implement. We have many projects, additional products are constantly appearing — the state of task overload has become familiar and “normal” for us. I just tried to work more, faster, tried to optimize my work.
In the summer of 2021, we realized that our new startup on mobile EDI was in demand. The pilot project showed good results, it was necessary to release it to the mass market. This meant a lot of content was needed — to explain to the target audience how to use, what is convenient and why mobile document management is needed. The plans were Napoleonic.
At the same time, we needed content for the personal account and dynamic pricing areas in the Profitbase project, plus our Digital Developer media outlet was eating up a lot of resources. I was literally torn apart. We needed multiple scaling and strengthening in content to grow 2-3 times for each project.
We had three options:
Hire a content marketer for each individual project.
Attract freelance writers to help create text content.
Create a content department and hire a staff.
I have never worked in a team. If I needed to make a webinar, I would go, test chatbots for registrations, online rooms, choose the right ones and do it. If I needed to write some article or announcement, I would write it myself. And I didn’t understand how to scale my skills. Do we need the same generalist who can do everything? Where can we get him? Or maybe we need one narrow specialist in organizing events and PR, a couple of authors and me as the head of the department? There were many questions, but no answers at all.
I had no experience in managing employees, I didn’t understand how to organize all this. The last thing we wanted was to find ourselves in a situation where we recruited a department, started working and realized that this option doesn’t suit us, we need to dismiss everyone and start over. We realized that we needed a professional who would help us avoid all the rakes and suggest the best path. We
have known Svetlana at Artsofte for a long time. She got the content release in the digital division on its feet. That’s why we immediately went to her. Of course, ideally, we should have done some research, looked at what other proposals there were, but I was so busy that we neglected this step. Especially since there were no doubts about Sveta.
How to organize a department: "editor + copywriters" or "manager + content marketers"
Irina writes well, knows her audience and is familiar with the company's products. But she never delegated tasks or managed a team. And this was the main problem - how to scale content production without losing quality.
There was a lack of consistency in content production. For example, in 2020 there were 30 webinars, and in 21 - less, there was not enough time. Sometimes business tasks were lost from sight, the idea "let's make an article" appeared, but what tasks it would solve and whether it was needed now - we did not think about.
As a result, there were many activities, the content itself was high-quality, but each piece of content was not seen by the maximum number of people. Initially, Irina assumed that she would be the chief editor, working with several permanent junior authors, and:
will create a content strategy,
will draw up the technical specifications for the content,
edit received materials,
distribute finished content.
Why such a scheme would not suit them, I explained in detail in the article " 3 reasons why the standard Editor + Authors scheme is not suitable for B2B content marketing ". The main reason is that for the B2B direction, it is not enough to just create articles and cases for lead generation. You need to make lead magnets and hold webinars - use all the tools and formats of expert content. To achieve this, you need content marketers - specialists who understand the product and the market, and not just the creation of texts. The "editor + authors" scheme is not suitable for this.
Irina Korsun. Head of Content Marketing Department , Artsofte
The first question to Svetlana was — what to do? We dug deeper into the tasks of each project, discussed how work with content is currently organized, what works and what doesn’t.
Sveta suggested creating a content department with a manager and content marketers. Not copywriters, not some narrow specialists, but content marketers. This is an important point. Because a content marketer is not about “writing a text”, he is about a complex task. And he can choose the tool that is best suited for a specific situation.
How the lack of system prevents content creation
The main thing that Artsofte and Irina lacked to build a content factory was consistency. I saw my task in this project as helping Irina rise above content creation and see the picture more broadly. From the level of a content marketer . Then she would be able to understand how to organize the work of the department so that all the "pieces of the puzzle" that she already has a perfect command of fit into the overall picture.
What problems did the lack of consistency in working with content lead to:
Content was often created not for a specific task, for example, “to bring 300 leads to such and such a product from such and such a target audience,” but simply because someone thought that writing such an article was a good idea. And if you go from the task, it turns out that for lead generation it is more effective to make a lead magnet or hold a webinar.
Selling inserts in the blog with commercial CTAs (Call to action) did not work. The blog was perceived more as a platform for posting materials, rather than a channel that should bring traffic to product pages. Because of this, the texts were not optimized enough, there were not enough links to products and feedback forms. Irina understood that they were needed, but for this it was necessary to change the blog layout, but her hands never got around to this task. But if you look at it from the point of view of a content marketer, the priority of the task immediately changes. It becomes obvious that visitors get to the page, and then they simply have no chance to convert. They are forced to leave the site. Why then were they brought?
The Curse of Knowledge. Artsofte has been writing about CRM and digitalization of developer transactions for over four years. They thought that absolutely everyone already knew everything about it. We conducted a survey of the audience on this topic, and it turned out that this is not the case.
There was no SEO strategy : articles were written and posted to the blog based on our own ideas of what to write about. But if we want to get search traffic, we need to write for search demand.
Content and advertising were not synchronized. For content to work, it needs to be shown to the target audience, this can be done with paid advertising. For advertising to work, you need to offer to make a purchase to the warmed-up audience. This is why it is important to create content + advertising funnels and combine the efforts of the content and performance marketer. I explain in detail how this works in the video .
June 28, 2022 2:00 PM
Artsofte Case: How to Create a Content Marketing Department from a One-Man Band
Svetlana Kovaleva
Expert Content Specialist
Content:
Who are Artsofte?
How to organize a department: editor + copywriters or manager + content mark?
How the lack of system prevents content creation
If everything is delegated, what should the manager do?
How We Built a Content Marketing Department
The fears were not confirmed
Conclusion
The best is the enemy of the good, as the buy phone number list saying goes. And I disagree. Here is my client, the IT company Artsofte, a leader in content among developers. They have their own media outlet, a pumped-up Telegram channel, the guys are invited to be moderators at the largest industry conferences, they hold many webinars and broadcasts. And in general, they generate the most high-quality expert content on the developer market, and their headlines are quoted in their speeches at conferences by other IT solution developers. But Artsofte decided that they needed more, better and higher quality.
I thought, how can I be useful to such content monsters? I dug in, and it turned out that there are many growth points. In this case, you will learn why a systematic approach to content creation allows you to scale its production without losing quality. I will tell you how I helped the Artsofte editor move up a notch and look at content creation as a marketer, and what changes this led to the company.
Who are Artsofte?
I am well acquainted with the Artsofte group of companies. In 2019, I built a content marketing department for one of their divisions, the Artsofte Digital Internet agency. Read about how it was and what results we achieved then in the article “ How to organize a content marketing department: recommendations and experience of one company .”
The Artsofte group of companies employs an experienced editor, Irina Korsun. In 2021, she was responsible for content in the following areas:
Profitbase is a digital ecosystem for developers;
Digital developer — media about digitalization in real estate;
Nopaper is a startup, a mobile platform for EDI (electronic document management).
Irina wrote articles and cases herself, organized and held webinars — she was fully responsible for all content in these areas. The number of tasks was growing, the number of projects was growing, and Irina was not endless. At some point, they realized that they either needed to clone Irina or learn to delegate tasks.
Irina Korsun. Head of Content Marketing at Artsofte
We have always had more ideas for generating content than we had time to implement. We have many projects, additional products are constantly appearing — the state of task overload has become familiar and “normal” for us. I just tried to work more, faster, tried to optimize my work.
In the summer of 2021, we realized that our new startup on mobile EDI was in demand. The pilot project showed good results, it was necessary to release it to the mass market. This meant a lot of content was needed — to explain to the target audience how to use, what is convenient and why mobile document management is needed. The plans were Napoleonic.
At the same time, we needed content for the personal account and dynamic pricing areas in the Profitbase project, plus our Digital Developer media outlet was eating up a lot of resources. I was literally torn apart. We needed multiple scaling and strengthening in content to grow 2-3 times for each project.
We had three options:
Hire a content marketer for each individual project.
Attract freelance writers to help create text content.
Create a content department and hire a staff.
I have never worked in a team. If I needed to make a webinar, I would go, test chatbots for registrations, online rooms, choose the right ones and do it. If I needed to write some article or announcement, I would write it myself. And I didn’t understand how to scale my skills. Do we need the same generalist who can do everything? Where can we get him? Or maybe we need one narrow specialist in organizing events and PR, a couple of authors and me as the head of the department? There were many questions, but no answers at all.
I had no experience in managing employees, I didn’t understand how to organize all this. The last thing we wanted was to find ourselves in a situation where we recruited a department, started working and realized that this option doesn’t suit us, we need to dismiss everyone and start over. We realized that we needed a professional who would help us avoid all the rakes and suggest the best path. We
have known Svetlana at Artsofte for a long time. She got the content release in the digital division on its feet. That’s why we immediately went to her. Of course, ideally, we should have done some research, looked at what other proposals there were, but I was so busy that we neglected this step. Especially since there were no doubts about Sveta.
How to organize a department: "editor + copywriters" or "manager + content marketers"
Irina writes well, knows her audience and is familiar with the company's products. But she never delegated tasks or managed a team. And this was the main problem - how to scale content production without losing quality.
There was a lack of consistency in content production. For example, in 2020 there were 30 webinars, and in 21 - less, there was not enough time. Sometimes business tasks were lost from sight, the idea "let's make an article" appeared, but what tasks it would solve and whether it was needed now - we did not think about.
As a result, there were many activities, the content itself was high-quality, but each piece of content was not seen by the maximum number of people. Initially, Irina assumed that she would be the chief editor, working with several permanent junior authors, and:
will create a content strategy,
will draw up the technical specifications for the content,
edit received materials,
distribute finished content.
Why such a scheme would not suit them, I explained in detail in the article " 3 reasons why the standard Editor + Authors scheme is not suitable for B2B content marketing ". The main reason is that for the B2B direction, it is not enough to just create articles and cases for lead generation. You need to make lead magnets and hold webinars - use all the tools and formats of expert content. To achieve this, you need content marketers - specialists who understand the product and the market, and not just the creation of texts. The "editor + authors" scheme is not suitable for this.
Irina Korsun. Head of Content Marketing Department , Artsofte
The first question to Svetlana was — what to do? We dug deeper into the tasks of each project, discussed how work with content is currently organized, what works and what doesn’t.
Sveta suggested creating a content department with a manager and content marketers. Not copywriters, not some narrow specialists, but content marketers. This is an important point. Because a content marketer is not about “writing a text”, he is about a complex task. And he can choose the tool that is best suited for a specific situation.
How the lack of system prevents content creation
The main thing that Artsofte and Irina lacked to build a content factory was consistency. I saw my task in this project as helping Irina rise above content creation and see the picture more broadly. From the level of a content marketer . Then she would be able to understand how to organize the work of the department so that all the "pieces of the puzzle" that she already has a perfect command of fit into the overall picture.
What problems did the lack of consistency in working with content lead to:
Content was often created not for a specific task, for example, “to bring 300 leads to such and such a product from such and such a target audience,” but simply because someone thought that writing such an article was a good idea. And if you go from the task, it turns out that for lead generation it is more effective to make a lead magnet or hold a webinar.
Selling inserts in the blog with commercial CTAs (Call to action) did not work. The blog was perceived more as a platform for posting materials, rather than a channel that should bring traffic to product pages. Because of this, the texts were not optimized enough, there were not enough links to products and feedback forms. Irina understood that they were needed, but for this it was necessary to change the blog layout, but her hands never got around to this task. But if you look at it from the point of view of a content marketer, the priority of the task immediately changes. It becomes obvious that visitors get to the page, and then they simply have no chance to convert. They are forced to leave the site. Why then were they brought?
The Curse of Knowledge. Artsofte has been writing about CRM and digitalization of developer transactions for over four years. They thought that absolutely everyone already knew everything about it. We conducted a survey of the audience on this topic, and it turned out that this is not the case.
There was no SEO strategy : articles were written and posted to the blog based on our own ideas of what to write about. But if we want to get search traffic, we need to write for search demand.
Content and advertising were not synchronized. For content to work, it needs to be shown to the target audience, this can be done with paid advertising. For advertising to work, you need to offer to make a purchase to the warmed-up audience. This is why it is important to create content + advertising funnels and combine the efforts of the content and performance marketer. I explain in detail how this works in the video .