Digital Content Supply Chain:

Oxford defines a supply chain as "the sequence of processes involved in the production and distribution of a commodity." In this context, the commodity is content — media assets and text.

A supply chain defines how to convert raw materials into delivered products. In the digital realm, the material is intangible, almost ethereal: ideas from marketers, designers and copyrighters, concepts, brand tones and brand stories. The goods to be delivered are images, video and text distributed to electronic devices like computers, phones, watches or even voice-activated devices.

And there is a strong pressure on marketing teams to quickly and cheaply produce and deliver content. A poorly structured DCSC will make this impossible, and the end results will be lacking.

On the flip side, a well architected DCSC will not only reduce time to market of every piece of content, but also increase the value of each piece of content, as content will have higher rates of reutilization, while the content creators will be allowed to focus their time in their key strengths: crafting quality content.

A digital content supply chain is not a product that can be bought off the shelf; it is more the tactical expression of a unique strategy. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution; instead, each organization requires a bespoke approach because the environment in which the digital content supply chain will live is different in every scenario.

This is an important consideration because, depending on factors such as budget, internal capabilities, culture, needs and expectations, the incarnation of the supply chain will be distinct. It is not about buying technology, but rather, it is about the business process that the technology is going to support.

Your digital content supply chain will consist of five key components: production, management, distribution, optimization and orchestration of your content. Each element may require one or more technical platforms, and, sometimes, a single solution can address multiple components. Again, the solution will differ depending on each reality.

Orchestration as the Foundation: How Effective Planning Drives Content Strategy Success

Although content production is the first step in the chain, it’s not where everything starts. Once you are producing content, that should mean that you are already executing a strategy. Thus, everything begins with planning. Planning for budget, timelines, resources, staffing, campaigns and expected outcomes, hence step zero is orchestration.

Planning, or orchestration, is not only a step; it is the connecting tissue that will direct the process from start to end. When executed correctly, it will also allow you to holistically understand where you are allocating resources through the year, quarter, month, or week. To ensure an efficient orchestration of your content assets, you will need collaboration and workflow management tools to take care of it. And, on all stages, orchestration should invite automation. These tools will help you run the “boring stuff” on autopilot.

From Creation to Management: Elevating Content Production and Asset Handling in Your DCSC

The following aspect to handle is content production. You are producing assets, blending existing resources and ideas into text and media by using technology solutions to create and edit images, videos and text. This is the most artistic part of your DCSC, and where magic happens is the core of the process. Your creative, design and copywriter teams should spend the most time creating remarkable content that will keep customers engaged. For this area, we locate all the creative suites to create and edit media.

Then, you have to manage your content assets. In the previous phase, the content creator will place its content into a platform that will facilitate its lifecycle. Enter the digital assets and document managers. Here, the content gets attached metadata aspects such as taxonomy, tags, licenses, expiry dates, formats, etc. These tools also help automate cumbersome processes, such as variations for different channels.

Delivering the Magic: Orchestrating Content and Experiences with Precision and Timing

It’s time for content to be delivered, and we need a platform for that. We land at the time of the enchantment. Like an Olympian who trains for months to shine for a few minutes at competition time, all of our efforts are made so our content — blended with our data — is delivered to the right person, in the right channel, at the right time. This is the domain of content or experience management systems and campaign orchestration systems alongside personalization and testing tools.

Decoding Success: Leveraging Analytics and AI for Continuous Content Optimization

Finally, we have to understand the performance of our content. Discover the hall of analytics and insights tools. The process is a continuum, and we strive to understand better what works and what doesn’t, and we want to do it backed by data. Customers react better to some pieces of content than others, and some assets support conversion better than others. We want to understand why, so we focus on creating those better-converting pieces.

Artificial intelligence is backed at every step. It can help us plan and budget, create content pieces from prompts and automatically create different renditions, crops and variations. I can deliver the best next experience to our client, and it can help us find anomalies in customer behaviors. AI interacts everywhere.