Turning vision into results

Background and challenge

Pure Storage is the IT pioneer that delivers storage-as-a-service in a multi-cloud world. The company is focused on redefining storage, helping customers shift—operationally and culturally—the way they purchase and consume storage for breakthrough innovation and scale.

In early 2020 the Content Studio leader, Lisa Oda, was focused on a journey of transformation to create efficiencies around website, collateral and brand content production. At the same time, there was a vision to develop high-value content—thought leadership—for awareness and increased share of voice.

With only a few team members in place (two writers and one SEO manager), Oda recognized they’d need to bring more of the content production in-house — and fast. “In order to keep up with the demands of the business, we needed to scale the team with experts,” said Oda. “We needed people who knew content development and our business to help us produce quality content within tight timelines.”

But it wasn’t enough just to hire the team—Pure Storage would also need the right tools to enable them to execute.

Her vision? Marketing transformation to structure process—and incoming data—to save time so the team could elevate thought leadership content. “I wanted to implement a system to help standardize and structure content requests. The goal: To break down silos and create a “freeway” through the organization coupled with repeatable processes for ease-of-use and efficiency.” 

What we found along the way was that incoming requests were unstructured, missing key information, or not easy to understand. It required multiple meetings with stakeholders to gather the data, and in some cases created confusion about process flow, review, and approvals. In addition, much of the work was handled offline, with key details locked in documents no one could find or access.

Lisa Oda

Head of content & SEO, Pure Storage

In 2020, the team selected Optimizely's Content Marketing Platform (CMP) to help: 

1. Centralize (and accelerate) the intake of content requests. 

   “With 100+ requests coming in from around the globe every single month — from internal marketing to marketing partners to product — the types of content requests we received ran the gamut,” said Oda. “Our previous free-form intake left a lot to be desired. We were often missing key information, which slowed down our execution… and raised stress levels.”
   After auditing and categorizing the types of requests they would receive most often, the Pure Storage team used CMP to build a set of intake forms. Every request that came in would be perfectly structured, complete with all the information Oda’s team would need to execute immediately (without more back-and-forth).

2. Standardize (and streamline) the execution of content creation/reviews.

   With all of those requests coming in, the team built specific workflows for all of the most common content and creative requests — whether it was a blog post, a thought leadership piece, technical web content, or another type of request.
   “It was a very data-driven approach,” said Oda. “We assessed everything: where the work should start; who needs to be involved; who is the final approver; how much time each person needs to complete their part; where the final assets need to go. We now know exactly what needs to be done and can easily forecast when projects will be complete.”

3. Build key integrations to distribute and measure the value of content.

   The final piece was making sure that the CMP was fully integrated with key tools of the Pure Storage marketing stack — including Bynder to store assets, as well as Marketo and Salesforce to provide critical engagement and ROI analytics.

Results to date

Today, the Pure Storage team’s work isn’t just centralized on Optimizely's CMP. They’ve orchestrated a full, end-to-end lifecycle of content and creative delivery — from intake to production through distribution and ultimately measurement.

As pleased as the team is with its ability to transform the organization into a content machine, the benefits go beyond the tactical efficiency gains.

And perhaps most importantly, Optimizely's CMP has enabled Oda and team to change the conversation internally.

“For us, it was important to be able to speak from a results perspective. How much are we producing, how are we supporting the business, and what’s the impact of that work against the goal of moving prospects through the funnel,” said Oda. “We’re well on our way.”

Content marketing transformation went from vision to reality through the partnership with Optimizely's Content Marketing Platform. It all started with a goal to structure processes — and incoming data — through end-to-end orchestration and has led to more time for more strategic work. A vision turned into a powerful reality.