Gartner defines content marketing platforms (CMPs) as software solutions that support the practice of content marketing. These solutions facilitate creating and curating text, video, images, graphics, audio, e-books, white papers and interactive content assets that are distributed through paid, owned and earned channels. These assets are used to tell stories that help brands engage with and nurture customers, prospects and other audiences. The goal of content marketing is to drive awareness, demand, purchases and loyalty through deeper engagement with customers. CMPs enable the fundamentals of content marketing — specifically, ideation insight, editorial planning, creative workflow and performance analytics to drive a unified strategy and production at scale. CMPs collect and analyze data to inform content creation and reuse, streamline operations and iterate on content to improve marketing effectiveness. These platforms can also generate branded iterations of content for different audiences and enable internal teams, contributors and agencies involved in content creation to coordinate efforts. As a result, CMPs help connect content marketing efforts to business objectives across channels, ensuring organizational alignment and broad scope for managing content. CMPs also drive iterative content improvements, including capabilities to evaluate and test operating models and governance to drive collaboration across siloed teams. This supports faster time to market at scale. Many CMPs complement their software with optional services, such as content strategy development, creative marketplaces, and training to drive adoption and utilization.