Isabel Ruiz

Addressing Why Content Teams Cannot Work in Silos with Isabel Ruiz

The world of content revolves around every aspect of a business. Be it marketing, sales, product, customer, community. And when there is synergy between all these teams is when content really shines. The customer is constantly engaged and prepped to receive sales information and potentially even buy the product or service. 

Isabel Ruiz, Podcast Host at CSM Toolbox Podcast talks to Anirudh Singla CEO, Pepper Content, about how teams should not work in silos if they want they’re content to be effective and impactful in the long run. 

1. We’d love to know more about your journey in content. 

I have a background in customer success management and have been utilizing content for customer communications and engagement, till I joined my new role as Community Manager at CSM Toolbox. Over time, I’ve seen that different segments of your audience have different needs - I have also learned that customers - whether B2B or B2C - are always looking for that one message that will resonate with them. Perhaps email communications won’t necessarily resonate with an enterprise company with SMEs, or a startup won’t necessarily download whitepapers on complex enterprise solutions. 

So, despite not having the title of a content marketing manager, I was able to - with the help of colleagues in copywriting and marketing - learn more about content, repurposing and much more. 

2. What KRAs do you think a content marketer should focus on? 

I might be a bit biased since I always have looked at the bottom of the funnel, but I think KRAs depend what aspect of customer engagement you are working. For instance, if you’re working on acquisition, then its all about retention campaigns, engagement campaigns, and then every individual involved must understand the customers’ journey from the start. How did they find your website, how did they like them, and other similar details. 

It always gives better insight into how to retain or re-engage customers. 

3. How do you manage your content creation vs. distribution strategy?

It’s important to have someone inhouse to address business needs, set up a roadmap and create a content calendar for the quarter or the entire year. I think that’s a good start. And this applies to different teams - not only content. And it also requires synergy between teams - for instance the product team could work with content to plan on new releases, new features, etc. Having an overview of the plan from the start helps. 

4. As a content marketer, if you were to share advice on what content marketers should not do, what would it be?

I think it would be working in silos. The content team must be quite aware of what the sales team might need. And that collaboration helps. Sales should talk to content, content should talk to customer success, customer success should talk to marketing and so on. Similarly the customer success team can get testimonials and quotes from the target audience and pass it on to the content team. Its a win-win situation for all.