They say that money makes the world go round, and that’s mostly true. But the thing that gets that money moving is content. Content gets the word out about products and services. Every official communication between partners, vendors, and clients is made of content.
Content infuses every part of a modern business, from marketing to accounts payable. An issue that can arise is that if you need similar content with regularity, you will traditionally need to rewrite your content over and over again or use a one-size-fits-all template.
To combat the inefficiency of constant rewriting and the impersonal nature of a static, unchanging template, more and more companies are utilizing intelligent content.
What is Intelligent Content?
Intelligent content is content that is treated as the business asset that it is. This means that it is reusable, modular, structured, free of format, and semantically rich. But what do each of those terms mean in this context?
Content is reusable when it can be applied in multiple cases. That could mean a legal disclaimer that can be used in various communications or language that is usable in more than one marketing push.
The best way to ensure your content is reusable is to make that content modular. Think of content modules as individual pieces of content that can be combined to make a complete whole. Those modules can be mixed and matched depending on the needs of the content creator.
Making modular content requires structured, format-free content. That means that content is broken into smaller sections that can be tagged and labeled with tags in the metadata so that the people compiling that content can search and utilize that content no matter what format the final document takes.
The final piece of intelligent content is that it should be semantically rich. That means that the meaning of the content is clear. Organizing semantically means organizing content based on its meaning.
Content that meets these criteria is considered intelligent. Using descriptive, structural, and administrative metadata, intelligent content becomes searchable by keyword, abstract, author, and topic. It is structured so that it is designed to fit with other content modules with minimal editing and can restrict access to authorized team members.
Is Intelligent Content the Same as Content Marketing?
The short answer is no. In fact, they aren’t that similar. Content marketing is a strategic approach that aims to get relevant and consistent content in front of the people for whom it is most relevant. Content marketing may utilize intelligent content, but the two are far from the same thing.
The modular and reusable nature of intelligent content makes it a perfect tool for content marketing. As markets are identified, those markets’ priorities can be well-served by marketing that uses content that specifically addresses those priorities.
This allows your company’s message to be distributed efficiently across multiple platforms and publications that speak to numerous demographics while retaining maximum customer impact.
Can RPA Work With Intelligent Content?
Robot Process Automation (RPA) is one of the most significant technological advances of the 21st Century. RPA is used to complete labor-intensive, time-consuming, and repetitive tasks in a fraction of the time it would take your human team members to do the same thing — freeing them to focus on higher-level tasks.
Because intelligent content uses metadata to categorize content modules, it is an excellent pathway toward automating aspects of content creation. RPA works best with structured data and rules-based tasks. Remember, intelligent content is made up of semantically defined, discoverable, structured content modules.
By incorporating the semantic rules of your intelligent content into the robots automating your process, you can plug the type of content you need into your program and have appropriate content modules selected within seconds.
At that point, it is only a matter of having a content creator make sure that the modules flow together well. This approach also makes content marketing more viable as an approach because unique-to-market materials take very little time to compile, edit, and prepare for distribution.
The great thing about using RPA with intelligent content is that it provides your content team with a tool to do their work more efficiently. They will still generate content modules to store and use as needed, but when it comes to putting those modules together, they can focus on slight edits instead of creating all-new pieces for every single marketing push.
Is Intelligent Content Only Useful for Marketing?
Absolutely not! Intelligent content can be utilized by any department that needs to generate documents. Whether making contracts for vendors or memorandums detailing new company policy, intelligent content can be a valuable tool across departments.
Take accounts payable as an example. Processing invoices can be a complicated process where simple human error can result in significant financial consequences for a company. AP automation focuses on speeding up processing times while reducing potentially costly mistakes. So how could intelligent content help in this area?
One type of metadata is administrative metadata. It is used to determine who has access to which content. By giving your vendors and freelancers access to intelligent content modules, they can easily create invoices that are structured with the rules used by your RPA in mind.
By allowing your partners to create content using your intelligent data automatically, you also create a pathway by which you can automate invoice processing because the invoices coming into your system are generated using the metadata that your RPA is programmed with.
That means that your vendors and freelancers, and partners have a significantly shorter time gap between submitting an invoice and receiving payment which is good for them and gives your company a reputation as an organization that makes getting paid quick and painless — and who doesn’t want to do business with someone that pays their partners accurately and quickly?
The Importance of Intelligent Content
Intelligent content is an essential tool for any business because it makes content creation more efficient and effective across departments. It also opens the door for increased automation in content creation.
From legal to marketing to accounts payable, the structure and discoverability of semantically meaningful content modules provide unique benefits. From improving invoice processing to contract creation to improved content marketing, intelligent content facilitates business processes along multiple vectors.
If you haven’t incorporated intelligent content into your processes, you are already behind the curve. If you have introduced intelligent content to some departments but have not looked into maximizing its usage by incorporating RPA — you are not getting as much out of your intelligent content as you could.
Intelligent content is an extremely valuable tool for your business. Be sure you are getting the most out of it.
