By Adam 
Good procurement operates like clockwork: constantly running, requiring maintenance and input only once in a blue moon. Because of this, it can be easy to forget that your procurement team is actually the beating pulse of your company. The people who get your business the goods it needs deserve some recognition, and content marketing is the perfect place to give it to them.
Content is a way to connect with your customers by showing them the areas of your business they wouldn’t normally see. Consumers today are more interested than ever in knowing where their products come from — giving your procurement team the content spotlight can help make this happen.
No matter what level of experience your procurement team has with content, they certainly have something to say. Here are 6 ways they can contribute to your business’s content output:
- Company Blog
Nearly every business has some kind of blog or newsletter these days, and it’s no wonder why — few formats offer the same regularity, reach, and friendliness that blogs do. Your procurement team can help with this process by making clear some of the murkier aspects of their jobs: how do they manage logistics? What does it look like to be part of a group purchasing organization? How important is procurement to a business’s operations?
You can also use the blog to showcase employees who may not get enough recognition. Telling stories about the individual people that make your company work can help your customers understand that your business isn’t just a faceless organization: it’s a collection of individuals, just like them.
- Content Strategy Input
The same way that your marketing team thinks about customers, your procurement team thinks about vendors. Procurement specialists need to always be aware of how to keep vendors happy, how to court new ones, and how to maintain existing relationships — sound familiar?
Get your procurement experts to review your content strategy for holes. How could the ways they treat your vendors teach you how to treat customers? This is a relationship that could work both ways, too: talking to them about your best marketing practices could have an impact on them in return.
- Video Content
Videos are one of the most effective forms of content marketing. Allowing your customers to literally put faces to your brand is invaluable.
The keyword here is “faces” plural: it’s easy for viewers to get tired of seeing your CEO over and over again. Humanize your brand by putting members of every team — including and especially your procurement experts — in front of the camera.
There’s no hard prescription on what kind of videos your brand needs to be producing. If you operate in a fairly obscure niche, consider making educational videos wherein different employees explain what they do in your business. You could also experiment with more entertaining content — encourage your employees to get creative, and your audience will notice.
- Insights and Research
Your procurement team is at the cutting edge of some of the biggest developments in the market today: what’s happening to transportation costs? How are vendors reacting to the COVID-19 crisis? Are there any supply chains at risk of fracture? Answers to any of these questions could provide weeks of insightful content for your business, and lead to some very influential pieces in your sector.
- “How It’s Made”
“How It’s Made” stories are so popular there’s an entire series on Science Channel with the title. There’s nothing wrong with hopping on a buzzy trend — why not get your procurement team to make a “how it’s made” video of their own?
The story of your product is probably far more interesting than your customers know, so tell them about it. Every product has a journey that it’s taken, and your procurement team knows that journey inside and out. Content like this can help your customers feel as though they have a deeper understanding of what your products are, where they come, and what precisely they’re paying for when they buy them.
- Partnership Announcements
Partnerships are the name of the game when it comes to procurement. No one wants to be operating off of handshake deals with their vendors, so striking up a strong partnership is just about the biggest win a procurement team can get. Using your content to shout out a certain partner can help cement those new relationships even further.
Your procurement team were probably the ones to strike up the relationship, so it makes perfect sense to let them give insight on the content side of things as well.
Get a member of your procurement team familiar with the partnership to make the announcement before blasting it out on your blog, publishing a press release, and promoting it in as many ways as possible. The more attention you can get around your partnerships, the more interest other companies will have in striking up their own partnerships with your business.
Your procurement team probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of content opportunities, but that’s precisely the point: procurement is one of the most under-promoted aspects of your business, and it’s time for you to change that. Bringing your content and procurement teams together can produce amazing results — but it’s up to you to instigate it.
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