Why your content marketers need autonomy to generate business impact

But instead of penning novels, they create any array of resources — blog posts, ebooks, microsites, whitepapers, videos, webinars, podcasts, and the like — to engage and educate your target audience. 

Since content marketing is about building relationships and trust — rather than direct sales — it’s a long game. And that means it can be easy to overlook the immediate, urgent impact that content marketers can have on your organization’s growth and revenue. 

Especially when your content marketers’ impact is undermined by an all-too-familiar challenge: a lack of autonomy and control over your content. So, let’s unpack the role content marketers play in driving growth, why autonomy is so crucial, and the tools they need to succeed. 

Content marketers are crucial for growing the business

Throughout the buying journey, content marketers play a pivotal role in helping your audience get to know and learn to trust your brand. They work with demand gen marketers to attract leads, nurture prospects with engaging and educational campaigns, lay the groundwork for productive sales conversations, and optimize content for search engines, and drive retention and brand loyalty. 

And that role is becoming more important. As buying journeys become more fragmented and independent, 76% of enterprise marketers report an increased reliance on content marketing within their organizations. 

Especially with the advent of AI, today’s content marketers are under intense pressure to keep up with ever-increasing demands. They’re expected to publish fresh content quickly, create personalized and dynamic digital experiences, generate organic traffic, drive greater ROI from content, and keep existing content up-to-date and visible across channels. 

But too many content marketers lack the autonomy needed to get these important jobs done. 

Autonomy is vital to driving growth — but a constant challenge

Even the most creative and productive content marketer will be hamstrung by a lack of autonomy, especially around the company website. When content teams have to rely on developers, IT, or outsourced teams to create new pages or make changes to the website, their performance will suffer. 

Unfortunately, this is a common scenario — many marketing teams regularly experience roadblocks around creating, publishing, and managing web content. According to our 2024 State of the Website report, 81% of marketing teams say website ownership is a persistent challenge. And 35% of companies report needing two weeks or more to make simple copy edits to their website.

These mind-boggling bottlenecks typically occur because the company’s website is hard-coded or relies on complex databases. In both cases, content marketers have to work with developers or outsourced support to create even simple web experiences or make meaningful changes. 

But regardless of the underlying reason, when development cycles or external teams have to be involved to update the website, content marketers’ performance plummets in three important ways:

• Speed: It takes them longer to create and publish content
• Creativity: They often have to simplify their creative ideas in order to meet development timelines or requirements
• Flexibility: They struggle to be proactive and agile in response to timely opportunities or market demands, such as adding a new banner or landing page

This lack of autonomy can feel incredibly frustrating for talented content marketers, who know their work is suffering because of these technical and procedural limitations. And for most, it’s beyond their control, since marketing leaders further up the chain are typically responsible for decision-making around the tech stack. 

Organizations who want to retain and empower good content marketers need to understand this need for autonomy — and find a better way to equip their teams to do their best work.

How a visual-first, composable CMS keeps content marketers in control of content

This is where a visual, composable CMS can make all the difference. A robust, visual CMS empowers designers and marketers to quickly ship engaging content experiences using a visual editing interface, and gives developers the power of flexible APIs to build custom, front-end web experiences as needed. 

Content marketers — along with the designers and writers they work with — can use these visual-first platforms to build new layouts and styles, create or edit content, and publish straight to the web or share production-ready code. They no longer need to hand off wireframes or diagrams to developers, submit tickets for simple copy changes, or spend their budgets on outsourced technical support. Likewise, developers can focus their precious time on complex, technical initiatives. 

In other words, a visual, composable CMS allows your content team to stay in control of their content. This autonomy helps content marketers create dynamic, content-driven experiences that fuel business growth, fast. Additionally, they can create more unique and memorable experiences, as well as have the agility to make the most of time-sensitive opportunities. 

Let’s dig deeper by following the golden rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell. Here’s how real-life content teams are delivering on their business goals with a visual CMS. 

Smaller Earth Group achieves localization at scale

Cultural exchange organizers Smaller Earth Group originally relied on a custom hard coded website — but as the organization grew to operate across six brands in more than 17 countries, their marketing team needed the ability to localize and refresh content easily. 

After switching to Webflow Enterprise, Smaller Earth’s content marketers were able to:

• Launch 11 locales in two months
• Create a Spanish-language site in three hours (thanks to AI machine translation)
• Save $150k+ on additional developer hires

“Webflow allows us to scale much quicker and put control in the hands of our marketing team,” said Dean Maddocks, Smaller Earth’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Fivetran quadruples content production

When data solution Fivetran launched in 2012, the company’s website was custom-coded and required engineers to build or edit pages — undercutting the marketing team’s agility and efficiency. As the organization entered a hyper-growth stage, they needed a more flexible and scalable approach to executing demand generation programs. 

Once they made the switch to a visual-first CMS, Fivetran’s content marketers drove results like: 

• 98% increase in speed-to-market for content assets
• 4x production increase of SEO articles
• 130+ new web pages launched in one year

“Our ability to refine and scale our demand gen programs was a game changer. With Webflow’s CMS, we were able to put systems in place that improved efficiency, while making our campaigns more performant,” said Cat Origitano, Fivetran’s VP of Product & Portfolio Marketing. 

NCR sees 3x faster time to launch

For years, web development at enterprise tech provider NCR involved disjointed processes between designers and developers working in a cumbersome digital experience platform (DXP). But after using Webflow as a temporary stopgap to create one-off landing pages, the team upgraded to Webflow Enterprise and to build stunning web experiences powered by the visual-first CMS. 

Since then, NCR content marketers have achieved:  

• 3x faster time to launch
• 50% fewer people needed for content production
• 10x cost savings in agency fees

“Upgrading to Webflow Enterprise gave us the peace of mind and power to scale and deliver new web experiences rapidly,” said Dan Dawson, NCR’s Sr. Manager of Digital Properties.

Give your content marketers the autonomy they deserve

The moral of the story: giving your content marketers autonomy makes a huge impact on your business. 

They can increase reach by publishing content at scale that speaks to your prospects and customers at every stage of the buying journey. They can drive growth by quickly responding to urgent needs. And they can improve engagement by flexing their creative muscles — without custom coded experiences restricting ability to scale their output or bring their best ideas to life. 

To learn more about how our visual-first, composable CMS can supercharge how your teams build for the web, get in touch with our team today.