What are the biggest challenges when working with cross-functional teams in content strategy?

Most forms of content strategy involve creating a clear buyer's journey without gaps or redundancy. The biggest challenge you'll often find when working with other teams is actually achieving this, because content strategists often don't have authority over the entire journey. The best way to get everyone aligned is to create an internal asset calendar with full transparency into what every content source is creating. This creates a shared sense of buy-in and accountability, since no one want to be seen as the one who's letting the content strategy down.

My rule of thumb is - the more people involved, the more difficult it will be. That being said, sometimes it's better to have multiple people involved to increase the quality of the content - you'll often be looking at least a writer and designer. It can be more challenging to convince people outside of marketing that content pieces are important. Sales is focused on sales, PMs are focused on a million things, content is more of a nice-to-have for them. But here's my tip: build relationships all the time. Talk to people in your company, try to speak in all-hands/townhalls, etc. Building relationships and reputation within the company is a major boon when trying to push a complex piece of content across the finish line.

To develop effective content, you need to work with numerous cross-functional teams... all of whom play a vital role in the process, but all of whom will have their own set of priorities. Broadly speaking, Demand Generation teams will typically be interested in content to help drive awareness (TOFU), Product Marketing teams will err towards content that showcases solutions (MOFU), Sales teams will be keen on content that helps accelerate conversations and close deals (BOFU). Your role, as the content strategist is to pull all of these together and ensure you're covering all bases. Content is definitely a team sport. You need to work closely with all of these very knowledgeable teams if you're going to succeed. 🎯

Content frequently gets tangled up in approvals. So, you'll need to either produce slightly more content than you think you really need so you'll have backups at the ready when something is late, or you'll need to be curating assertively so you can drop in third-party news or influencer content if needed.

Yes. There should be a clear and concise strategy around your content plan up front, with communication and buy in on the OKRs from the respective stakeholders and leaders, inclusive of both the objectives/goals, and how we will agree to measure the performance (KPIs).

Conflicts between content stakeholders can arise because different silos have different goals and KPIs. For example, sales wants to sell. Marketing thinks sells to too, well, salesy in a certain marketing asset. Sometimes you won't be able to resolve such a conflict directly. But you can promise sales that you'll make them their own dedicated sales asset in exchange for letting a marketing asset. It may not be "by the book" but it can work.

Among key content stakeholders, content strategists and marketers are often the farthest away from the target audience. Sales, customer service, media relations. They're often closer. So don't just dismiss their objections and concerns outright because they "don't align with the strategy." Listen carefully.