Workflow by ServiceNow

When ServiceNow launched Workflow in 2018, it was an experiment to test whether the company could engage with C-level audiences around ideas and not just products. Since then, Workflow has become a brand journalism program in the truest sense of the word, where content, data science, distribution, on-site experimentation and agile publishing practices come together to benefit the company.

Workflow has more than 1,000 stories—produced by veterans from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and similar publications—that receive at least some traffic in any given month. And the site itself has become a laboratory where we can measure, test and shape a range of behaviors. This is made possible by a novel system of analytics that focuses on time-based engagement and click-based behavior. We conduct dozens of A/B tests each year to understand how different UX decisions change reader engagement. We promote Workflow off platform through a partnership with Forbes, and on social media. And we work closely with marketing leads in ServiceNow business units to help them create content that engages their target audiences.

Among the strategic priorities for Workflow:
Reach and engage C-level audiences—particularly those outside of information technology—who don’t use ServiceNow’s products.
Track our contribution to sales by measuring indirect conversion, i.e. the number of people who have come to Workflow and then go on to become a qualified lead.
Use content to test ideas and messages. As ServiceNow begins to sell across a wider range of functions and industries, we now use Workflow articles to isolate and learn which topics resonate the most with different audiences.
Use the Workflow platform to respond quickly to business and industry trends so that ServiceNow can emerge as a thought leader on important issues.

Workflow’s impact grows each year. Sessions jumped 50% in 2020 to almost 500,000. The time a typical reader spent reading our content reached more than 2 minutes, almost 4x Chartbeat’s benchmark for North American publishing sites. In 2020, more than 18,000 people who visited Workflow filled out a form on ServiceNow.com, about 15% of the company’s total.