Four months earlier than its January 2022 debut, GO! Magazine was solely an thought.
The content material group at Pega thought {a magazine} may work effectively as a pure extension of the model’s profitable Future of Work content material marketing campaign.
No one on the group knew journal publishing, however that didn’t cease them.
Two weeks after they pitched the concept, GO! Magazine moved ahead. Impressively, the group stayed on schedule and printed the digital and print variations of the now award-winning journal as deliberate.
“In hindsight, it was ridiculous and crazy, but amazing that we managed to do it,” says Nick Lake, senior director of world advertising and marketing at Pega.
That bold content material mission was one of many causes Nick was not too long ago named 2022 B2B Content Marketer of the Year.
GO! Magazine is the publication the tech world didn’t realize it wanted, in accordance with Pega’s Content Marketing Awards submission. Topics lined in the inaugural situation cowl themes necessary to the model and its potential prospects: automation journeys, IT unicorns, citizen builders, learn how to lead higher, inclusivity in the workforce, decoding the bias of AI, and Pfizer’s frictionless drug-development mission administration system.
GO! took prime honors for greatest new publication design and greatest general design. The mission additionally earned finalist honors for greatest new print publication, greatest general editorial, and greatest distribution of a know-how publication. The group’s Tech Trends 2025 report earned a finalist nod for greatest use of unique analysis in content material advertising and marketing. Future of Work earned finalist mentions for greatest B2B branded content material marketing campaign and greatest built-in content material advertising and marketing program (print/digital).
But the GO! story started a number of years earlier than its quick-to-market debut.
Taking a brand journalism launch from idea to published in four months felt ridiculous, crazy, and amazing, says @NickLake1 via @AnnGynn and @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
(*120*)In the start
When Nick joined Pega 4 years in the past, the corporate didn’t have a devoted content material advertising and marketing program. “We had a lot of content, but we didn’t have any kind of structure or process or governance around it,” he explains.
It fell to Nick to develop a program and deal with the problem downside. His first step? Conduct a content material audit. He discovered Pega wasn’t completely different from many corporations – many of the content material produced didn’t get used.
Under Nick’s management, that’s all modified. Content doesn’t get created if it doesn’t serve a goal. And that goal should align with Pega’s technique and messaging.
“The quality of an organization’s thought leadership content is the most visible representation of the brand. It’s what potential clients make decisions based on,” he says.
By organizing and constructing a strategic content material group, Nick helped others in the corporate acknowledge how crucial content material is to the enterprise. It acts because the gasoline to energy the model’s go-to-market packages.
And Nick’s function? “Sometimes, my job is to be a creative person. And sometimes it’s to be a traffic cop (to the rest of the organization),” he says.
A strategic content team is critical to business – it’s the fuel that powers go-to-market efforts, says @NickLake1 via @AnnGynn and @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
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(*120*)Pega challenges the standard
Powering the corporate’s advertising and marketing isn’t a easy feat. The model’s low-code, AI-powered decisioning and workflow automation platform competes for patrons towards high-profile, big-name manufacturers with larger budgets. “As a challenger brand, Pega needs to do things differently and show up differently,” Nick explains.
At the identical time, the content material market is noisier than ever. “The pandemic was a massive wake-up call. Organizations had to accelerate their transition to digital marketing,” Nick says. “The bar has gotten higher over the last couple of years.”
So Pega adopted a test-and-learn mentality to assist it zero in on content material that breaks by means of the noise. “We’ll try things. If they don’t work, we’ll fail fast. But if they do work, we’re going to double down,” Nick says.
One of the group’s first tries got here in the type of Pega’s Future of Work report, primarily based on the corporate’s unique analysis. When that labored effectively, Pega spun off gated stories centered on area of interest audiences with the Future of IT, Future of Operations, and Future of Marketing. This fall, they’ll add the Future of Customer Service to the content material ranks.
These aren’t your normal state-of-the-nation stories, which cowl what’s occurred or taking place as we speak. Instead, they illuminate what 3,000 senior managers and frontline IT workers say they count on will occur – and what to do about it.
The Future of Work content material marketing campaign works effectively, attracting the audiences Pega values and incomes nice engagement from these readers.
(*120*)Go for GO!
The success of Future of Work gave the content material group the credibility to attempt GO! Magazine, which is localized for six international areas.
Meeting the bold launch timeline took collaboration and creativity in downside fixing.
Nick employed a contract managing editor with journal expertise (and a community of world-renowned journalists on the prepared) to guide the content material. She shortly put her connections to work on the journal’s function tales.
These tales embrace interviews with many Pega shoppers. “We wanted to make sure that we had a great voice for clients through this magazine,” Nick says.
But the group knew that each one work tales and no enjoyable would make GO! a uninteresting learn. So the journal additionally consists of horoscopes and different gentle content material (like learn how to make a stress ball).
An in-house inventive group created the content material’s robust visible id. They additionally developed a thematic design system so every web page unfold may work by itself digitally and movement collectively for the print journal.
Creative expertise alone received’t get {a magazine} from thought to publication in 4 months. Nick credit Pega’s advertising and marketing mission supervisor (Kate Sutherby) for guaranteeing all of it got here collectively so shortly. “We needed someone with that really robust set of project management skills to help us hit that deadline,” Nick explains.
(*120*)Putting the content material to work
Moving the needle on model consciousness and engagement by means of content material is just half the job. Nick acknowledged the necessity to allow salespeople with the content material, too.
GO! Magazine’s data-driven views on what’s taking place and the place the market’s heading give the gross sales group a strategy to showcase the Pega distinction in shopper conferences.
“Hopefully, those clients or prospects are more inclined to work with us because they see we’ve got insights to bring to the table – a more consultative approach,” Nick explains.
Pega opted to print 1,500 copies of the inaugural GO! Magazine to be used in gross sales conferences. “It’s about getting the magazine into the hands of salespeople and sales enablement kits … If you’re physically giving it to them, it’s a visible reminder of the brand and the strength of the brand,” he says.
It additionally distinguishes Pega’s content material from many rivals’ all-digital method.
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(*120*)Powering forward
Building a strategic content material advertising and marketing program at Pega wasn’t an in a single day success. But it’s been impressively fast. From the technique applied just a few years in the past to the four-month GO! Magazine launch, Pega is discovering its content material not solely is used but it surely’s a key differentiator in a crowded market. It additionally stands tall inside the group.
“What started as a team to create content and a structure around that content is now a hub team in the marketing organization. We’re the engine house,” Nick says.
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Cover picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute