Six in ten content marketing teams admit to suffering delays to their campaigns and projects and just 7% are “fully satisfied” with their processes as a whole, a new joint study released last week by We are Social Media and Planable has found.

The two companies announced their intentions to collaborate on a comprehensive report in March, and after three months of analysing and dissecting insights and data, the Content Marketing: Behind the Scenes study is the result. The study presents a plethora of interesting takeaways on the success of campaigns.

Enterprises are getting better at supporting higher workloads, as 45% of marketers say they now post 11 updates on social media and publish five or more pieces of content,such as blogs and articles,over a seven-day period, although this figure drops to 33% for in-house marketing teams. However, many still grumble about how they get to that total, with a dearth of collaboration and time-wasting drawing the most ire.

Delays are a common bugbear, as 61% say they have been forced to put back completion dates due to process issues, such as excessive back-and-forth emails and problems with multitasking. The study notes that “future proofing” teams to support better workflows and habits could transform the process entirely.

“Our work grows in complexity every day and the difficulties multiply when our own marketing house isn’t in order. It’s affecting everything. From the success of the work to those lost nights and weekends,” said Miruna Dragomir, Planable Head of Marketing. “In the next phase of content marketing, the winners and the losers will be separated by how well teams work together and how scalable production processes are.”

Currently, the journey from content creation to distribution and publishing takes 5.4 days on average, with about a third of that time devoted to collaboration. However, 35% said their ability to push out work at a faster rate and be highly productive is often hampered by multitasking and email issues.

The report says that brands can truly scale their content marketing efforts by breaking down many of the barriers and outdated processes that are still in place when creating content. This is due in part to workflows not catching up with a new wave of advanced tech and the growing demand for content. However, brands will need to make changes to better manage bigger teams and more complex workflows to achieve success.

“The need for more content is not going away anytime soon. Brands have to be ready to face the continuous increase in demand for more unique and actionable content. The Internet is moving fast, and the brands that will win are those that can get their houses in order and be able to create, approve, and share great content with lightning speed,” explained Geoff Desreumaux, co-Founder and CEO of We Are Social Media.