Is there room for improvement in your marketing team? Of course there is, because, well, isn’t there always?
As the rate of industry change plows ever onward, the very strategies that put us ahead of the game a year ago might leave us lagging behind today. That’s why the best marketing programs are constantly iterating. They carve out time to look inward—to have real, meaningful, non-project-specific conversations with one another to root out issues and identify opportunities to improve.
That’s because they know you can only pinpoint what exactly your team needs to change (let alone, how to achieve said change) if you know where exactly your team is today.
If you don’t have a clear picture of your current state, you’re left with a wish list—what if sales used our content to accelerate deals? What if we could increase MQL-to-SAL rates? What if we could waste less time on content that doesn’t convert?—even Santa can’t help you with.
Don’t get us wrong: We’re very happy for those over-achieving, time-blocking colleagues. But finding the time to peer over the work piled up on our desks in order to get a holistic view of our content programs can feel nearly impossible. Where should we even begin?
Take 10 Minutes to Look in the Mirror
There are plenty of consultants (we’ve got some great ones, ourselves) who you can pay to help you figure out what ails you, but sometimes it’s best to start with a little self-reflection. That’s what we think, anyway.
That’s why we’ve built the Content Operations Self-Assessment.
The Content Operations Self-Assessment is an online quiz designed to get you thinking about the current state of your content operation in under ten minutes. Yep, you read that right.
Not only will your results grade you on a scale from 1 to 5, but they’ll also diagnose your key challenges and provide recommended next steps.
We can’t magically make these changes for you, of course, but we don’t think you need to devote precious hours to reinvent the wheel when it comes to self-diagnosis. We work with content teams all the time (it’s kind of our job), and chances are, your challenges aren’t anything we haven’t seen before.
How to Get the Most out of Your Self-Assessment
There are three pieces of advice I’d give anyone taking the self-assessment. (Besides do it—I mean, seriously, what could you do with your next ten minutes that would be more productive than this?)
1. Be Honest
It’s tempting to paint a rosy picture of your operation—we are marketers, after all, even when we’re only talking to ourselves—but the only way to get a clear picture of your current state is to be brutally truthful about your strengths and weaknesses.
What if you aren’t sure how to answer a question? Take your best guess and make a note of any areas with which you’re less familiar than you’d like.
Why? Take a look at tip number two:
2. Ask Colleagues to Take it, Too
One of the most common situations our consultants encounter when working with marketing teams is that not everyone is on the same page—by a long shot. One person sees their team thriving, while their coworker three desks over sees a department in chaos.
Registering multiple viewpoints is an excellent way to get a productive conversation going within your team. Whether you start out in total agreement (unlikely) or seeing things completely differently, aligning on your current state is a non-negotiable step one if you want to tackle your challenges successfully.
3. Don’t Let Yourself Get Overwhelmed
Even top-performing teams have room for improvement, so take my word for it: we will have suggestions.
But don’t feel that you have to address things all at once, or even take on anything today. Download your results and save them for tomorrow. You’ve taken the first step, and that, my friend, is not nothing.
Ready?
Take the Content Operations Self-Assessment and take the first step toward real, lasting change.
