creating a winning content strategy
TRANSCRIPT
Creating a Winning Content Strategy
Delivering Value to Your Audience
Via the web and mobile experiences
● Award-winning user experience, creative, marketing and information technology company
● Founded in 1992, Based in Washington, DC with a National client base
● Staff of 50 engineers, creatives, and business analysts
● Custom UI/UX, branding, and content strategy
● Extensive Content Management experience. Ektron Elite Partner with mature practices around content strategy, user experience / design, mobile and custom application development
● Services on GSA Schedule and via Eagle II team
About Fig Leaf Software
Select Government Clients
Technology Partners
What is Content Strategy?
• It is not a single solution or a single deliverable
• It is a detailed process and an aggressive mindset
• It is a continual process of improvement, focused on the use of content and content messaging and focus to achieve strategic organizational goals
• If you're in tune with the realization that the content that you market for your business is constantly evolving - you're practicing Content Strategy
• Just like it says, it is a Strategy
Why Content Strategy?
• Because content isn’t king; It’s the whole royal family
• Substance (identity, words, media)
• Structure (IA, navigation, taxonomy, platforms)
• Workflow (process, tools, calendars)
• Governance (policy, roles)
• Because content makes or loses money
• Conversions, calls-to-action
• Because the Internet’s increasingly personal
• Unsatisfied users don’t buy, don’t join, don’t donate, don’t enroll, and don’t return
Why Content Strategy?
• Because ambition isn’t a strategy
• Wanting members to donate isn’t encouraging and empowering them to do so
• Because responsive design requires it
• It’s not about the device; it’s about the viewpoint of the user
• Big, bold desktop plans better have started as mobile-first ideas
Developing a Content Strategy
• Content Strategy can become a "rabbit hole"
• Start small and grow from there
• Simple Model for Developing a Content Strategy
Content Mapping Process
• Identify Personas, Roles
• Personal background - Job role, Education, Personal Demographics
• Information Preferences
• Audit your content - Does it answer questions for the personas?
• Map available content to answer the questions
• Identify holes, questions unanswered
• Create content to fill in the holes
• Migration - if needed
User Personas
User Experience • Forward Thinking - Many groups refer to this as the
"Creative Design". It isn't _just_ about the creative. It is about the User.
• Inclusion - Should flow from the Content Mapping Process
• Experience - Allows for the creation of a much more targeted site visit. Hence, we call it User Experience.
• Engagement - Including this as part of the Content Strategy effort allows for increased "camping". Users will stick around longer, and will be more in tuned to your calls to action and your message.
Web Page Structuring • Look before you write - When building content for
each individual page ask yourself the following questions:
• What is the primary goal of the page?
• Who is the target page persona?
• What's in it for the targeted persona?
• If you're selling, where are they in the sales cycle?
• How can they find this content?
• Focus - Put yourself into the shoes of the user persona you're targeting. If you can do that, you can write.
Web Page Structuring • Headlines: Great headlines and page titling are key.
Specific to web content, it is always important to remember SEO.
• Sub-headlines: Usability studies show that most users will scan before they read. Try it yourself. Do a “sub-head” scan of a page on your site. Does it tell your story?
• Bullets and Numbered Lists: Lists make content much easier to digest. Even the slightest indentation and bullet will draw the reader’s eye.
Web Page Structuring • Images and Video: Studies have shown that we
subconsciously process everything we see on a website. However, stories and media (pictures and video) are the most powerful calls to action.
• Calls to action: Obvious command-oriented calls to action are key in moving visitors through your website. Don’t be scared to make the call to action a big button.
• Structured content types: Press releases, Events, News, Products, Marketing Landing pages.
• Look AFTER you write - When you're done writing
ask yourself the following questions:
– Is this piece of content relevant to your target
persona?
– How is the content structured? Large or small
paragraphs? Know the persona and what they
expect.
– Have you stated your main point early on in the
content?
– Is the content interesting?
– Is the content free of grammatical errors? (Have
someone else review the content, if possible)
Web Page Structuring
Editorial Content Calendar
• Who
• When
• What
• Video
• Blog posts
• Press releases
• Website updates
• Meta data driven
Social Calendar
• Google+ (more info)
• Facebook (more info)
• YouTube (more info)
Measuring Results
• Inbound Marketing
• Landing Page Creation
• Analyze the Results
• What worked?
• What didn't work?
• Go back to the beginning
and start over again.
Measuring Success
Measuring Success
Export-Import Bank of the U.S. High-level Goals
1. Showcase the role of EXIM in promoting Small Businesses all over the U.S.
2. Improve User Experience
3. Feature unique values
What Your Content Should Be/Do (does it help you chase your goals; does it help make amazing, personal
success stories real and achievable?)
1. Tone: energetic and ambitious
2. Pillars: Attention, Access + Affordability, On the Move
3. Relevance: audience appeal
4. Freshness: publish and last update dates, if available
5. Page Views (annually; not just a popularity contest, but because you want to know if people are
getting to the content at all)
How You'll Measure It All in the End (a combination of at least the following)
1. Increased fundraising
2. Increased enrollment
3. Audience satisfaction (e.g., feedback from groups like students, counselors, and alumni)
4. Traffic/Analytics
Additional Resources Books:
• Content Strategy for the Web
• Web Content Strategist's Bible
• The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web
Blogs / Sites:
• Brain Traffic
• Scatter / Gather
• Web Content Strategy
• Content Marketing Institute
We’ve Got You Covered.
go.figleaf.com/win