All enterprises tend to agree that their corporate website is very important for their marketing. But they also readily concede that they struggle to make their websites interesting and engaging. We should all carefully watch how Coke is trying to crack the coda -- the Coca-Cola company has refashioned its website as an online consumer magazine. Read more here.

While the usual corporate content like exec bios, investor relations, jobs, and press releases will continue to be there, their new and improved website will feature interviews, opinion pieces, blogs and videos on a variety of topics like entertainment, health and sports. Just like a magazine with long-form features, it will have an editorial calendar and a production schedule. The editorial team consists of Coke’s digital and social marketers, and they will also commission freelance contributors and photographers.

While we can expect that the features will reflect Coke’s worldview, the Coke team says they are open to publishing differing perspectives as well.

Content Oriented Marketing

Now, as you can imagine, all of this is an effort to produce original content that draws more visitors to the website, increases repeat visits, and encourages content sharing and perhaps could turn out to be a very good example of content based marketing.

Why is content marketing important? Because for many brands, the online medium (web, social and other digital) has so far only played a minimal or at best a supporting role when it comes to branding. For instance, while the Coke brand has reached me in many ways, online is not so far one of them. Ditto for many other brands. A well-thought through content marketing effort can help change that.

The Technology Side

Let’s think about the practical nuts and bolts involved here from a technology perspective. Such projects call for a lot of flexibility in architecture, workflows, and access and permissions. Unfortunately, most web content publishing tools are developed for moderated, one-way broadcasts by internal contributors. But these type of content marketing initiatives are essentially curated, two-way dialogs between internal and external contributors.

Can your incumbent WCXM and digital marketing tools make that happen? If you have any doubts, we're happy to advise you on your alternatives.