Why does Content Engineering Matter?

Content Engineering matters because it helps us to eliminate friction from Customer Experience (CX) and create an Intelligence Customer Experience (ICX.) According to a 2018 Forrester report, 80% of companies believe content supply chain challenges impede their ability to deliver on business objectives. The problem is a content problem. And the answer includes content engineering as a significant ingredient in the formula for success.

Content Engineering is the application of engineering discipline to the design, acquisition, management, delivery, and use of content and the content technologies deployed to support the full content lifecycle (Gollner, 2014).

In the spirit of engineering, Content Engineering leverages authoritative patterns, frameworks and standards to organize, substantiate, and economize its efforts.

Content engineers organize the shape, structure, and application of content ([A],  2018). Engineering content overcomes content supply chain friction, thereby increasing the velocity of content through authoring, management, and publishing parts of the life cycle. Content engineers make possible content personalization, targeting, reuse, and distribution across many channels and devices. They bridge the divide between content strategists and producers, and the developers and content managers who publish and distribute content. 



But rather than simply wedging themselves between these players, content engineers help define and facilitate the content structure during the entire Content Strategy, production, and distribution cycle from beginning to end. Content engineers make sure that correct practices, platforms, and technologies are in place to take the Content Strategy from plan to technically realized reality as a resource to development teams. In short, content engineers hold the keys that unlock both the gates that separate very talented and often isolated members of a content marketing team as well as the full potential of what the team can accomplish.

Content Engineering is so important because it emerges at the intersection of strategy, operations, and implementation. It bridges strategy, technology, operational logistics, development, and omnichannel delivery.

[A] provides services and consulting in Content Operations, Content Strategy, and Content Engineering.